Vishen LakhianiFounder of Mindvalley | NYT Bestselling Author | Transforming Lives Globally

Using Your 5 Senses to Manage Anxiety #Shorts

14 Apr 2023 · 1 min

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Vishen Lakhiani walks through a grounding exercise for anxiety: notice what you see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. Focusing on one sense, especially touch, works best. Hold a coffee mug, a stone, or use a fidget spinner to anchor yourself.

Chapters

How does embracing all five senses help us ease the pains of anxiety?
So generally, this is just like taking a moment if you're feeling very anxious and thinking, I'm just going to take a minute and I'm just going to dial into my body and my five senses. And people do this as a meditation technique where they go through their five senses and they think, what am I seeing? What am I hearing? Smelling, tasting, touching? And so that itself can be very grounding. I think it's actually more interesting. Interesting and more helpful to zero in on a particular sense. For instance, touch. One thing that many people have told me, you know, we think of like fidget spinners. Often people find something to hold and that will ground them. So for instance, teachers often say, well, I will hold a mug of coffee. A teacher who was very anxious during COVID said she would hold a stone. There's something about just having something in your hand. There's something very grounding.