Using the five senses to settle and relax.
How do you deal with stress and anxiety in your life? Do you listen to music, do art, exercise, something else? All of those activities help distract our mind at the moment for sure. They also require that you stop what you’re doing and devote some quality time to the activity and, in my opinion and experience, they only work while you’re actually doing it. Meditation is a practice that you can do anywhere, anytime, and doesn’t require that you interrupt what you’re doing, change your clothes, and either go outside or take a break from your work and has long-term benefits. In as little as 10 minutes a day, meditation can soothe the effect of anxiety on the body and brain over time and provide a go-to for times of stress.
“Anxiety is something most of us have experienced at least once in our life. Public speaking, performance reviews, and new job responsibilities are just some of the work-related situations that can cause even the calmest person to feel a little stressed”. (University of Rochester Medical Center).
The effects of continued stress and anxiety, if not managed, can be quite unsettling. At Harvard Medical School, radiology instructor Gaëlle Desbordes is part of a community of researchers that in recent decades has been studying how meditation works. Desbordes and her colleagues have found that “there are a handful of key areas — including depression, chronic pain, and anxiety — in which well-designed, well-run studies have shown benefits for patients engaging in a mindfulness meditation program, with effects similar to other existing treatments.”
As a mindfulness and meditation instructor, I lead students and individuals in guided meditation practices that help build resilience into everyday lives. Meditation is a centuries-old practice that has been proven to soothe stress and anxiety by bringing our moment-to-moment attention to what is actually happening in the present moment, and in doing so, we move reactions from the limbic part of the brain to the frontal cortex where logic and reason can take place.
Ruminating is something that keeps us stuck in our anxiety and stressful thoughts as a spiral that keeps going around and around without end, much like recycling thoughts. The frontal and outer parts of the brain are where we can stop the spiraling of rumination by engaging our five senses: sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell.
The following five-step exercise can be very helpful during periods of anxiety or stress by helping to ground us when our mind is recycling various uncomfortable thoughts. Before starting this exercise, we pay attention to our breathing for a few minutes. Slow, deep, long breaths can prepare us for a structured meditation practice. Once you are comfortable following your breath, go through the steps that ground the mind and body by moving attention away from the rumination into a space where your entire body can be calmed.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Practice for Individuals and Families
5: Acknowledge FIVE things you SEE around you. It could be a pen, a spot on the ceiling, or anything in your surroundings. Breathe deeply as you acknowledge these things, really noticing the details.
4: Acknowledge FOUR things you can TOUCH around you. It could be your hair, a pillow, or the ground under your feet. Breathe into these feelings and notice the texture.
3: Acknowledge THREE things you HEAR. This could be any external sound. If you can hear your belly rumbling that also counts! See if you can move that attention to sounds outside the room you are in. Breathe as you are noticing the sounds and maybe even pay attention to the silence between them.
2: Acknowledge TWO things you can SMELL. Maybe you are in your office and smell a pencil, or maybe you are in your bedroom and smell perfume. If you need to take a brief walk to find a scent you could smell soap in your bathroom, or nature outside. The sense of smell can be rather subtle so allow yourself time to fully appreciate the scents.
1: Acknowledge ONE thing you can TASTE. What does the inside of your mouth taste like—gum, coffee, or the sandwich from lunch? If you don’t taste anything, that’s okay, too. Just identify what you taste and breathe with it, naming it as well.
When your practice has come to a close, sit with the breath a while longer, noticing how you feel. Next time you find yourself with anxiety or fear, do this practice as soon as you notice yourself starting to ruminate and invite grounding and relaxation into your body and mind.
An audio version of this meditation practice can be found on our podcast, Welcoming a Mindful Future. The podcast is available on most podcast platforms, including Spotify, Google, and Apple.
Originally published in The Taos News, on September 14, 2023
Mindful Frontiers LLC 