Grounding Techniques Cheat Sheet
Twenty grounding techniques organized into five categories: body, senses, mind, soothing, and anchor statements. Each category says when it works best, so you can pick the right kind of grounding for the moment you are in.
Free download · PDF & PNG
Prints on one page - A4 and US Letter versions included
These cheat sheets are free for personal use, and therapists, counselors, and teachers are welcome to print and hand them out. Please keep the footer with the source on. If you share online, a link back to this page helps other people find the free version.
What's on this cheat sheet
Ground Through Your Body
Pressing feet into the floor, palm pushes, and muscle squeezes. Best when you feel floaty, unreal, or far away from yourself.
Ground Through Your Senses
The 5-4-3-2-1 countdown, strong tastes, textures, and far-and-near listening. Best when thoughts are spiraling faster than you can catch them.
Ground Through Your Mind
Counting backwards by sevens, alphabet games, and backwards spelling. Structured mental tasks that interrupt a thought loop fast.
Ground Through Soothing
Warmth, self-kind statements, safe-place imagery, and humming. Best when the feeling is more sad-scared than racing.
Anchor Statements
Simple spoken facts: your name, the date, where you are, and that you are safe right now. Built for panic and flashbacks that blur where you are.
How to use it
- 1
Print the sheet or save the PNG to your phone.
- 2
Notice which category matches your moment: floaty, spiraling, looping, raw, or lost.
- 3
Pick one technique from that category and stay with it for at least a full minute.
- 4
If it only half-works, switch categories rather than giving up on grounding altogether.
Frequently asked questions
What is the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding method?
You name 5 things you can see, 4 you can touch, 3 you can hear, 2 you can smell, and 1 you can taste. Working through the senses forces attention back into the present, which starves an anxiety spiral of the attention it needs to keep going. It is the best-known technique on this sheet, but not the only one that works.
Do grounding techniques help with dissociation?
Body-based and anchor-statement grounding are the categories most people with dissociation or derealization find useful, because they reconnect you to physical sensation and to simple facts about where and when you are. Start there rather than with mental games.
Why organize grounding techniques into categories?
Because different anxious states respond to different kinds of grounding. A racing mind often needs a structured mental task, while feeling unreal usually responds better to strong physical input. The categories let you match the technique to the moment instead of trying things at random.
Can I print this for clients or students?
Yes. The sheet is free for personal and professional use, and therapists and teachers are welcome to hand out printed copies. Please keep the source footer on the page.
