Grounding Techniques to Calm Your Nervous System
By Melody Wright, LMFT
There’s a moment many people don’t talk about enough, in my opinion.
The moment when nothing is technically wrong, but your body won’t settle.
Work is over, yet your chest feels tight. You finally sit down, and your mind starts racing. You’re exhausted, but rest feels out of reach.
If this sounds familiar, it doesn’t mean you’re bad at managing stress. It usually means your nervous system has been carrying more than it knows how to put down, and it’s asking for support.
Not in the form of advice.
Not in the form of “just relax.”
But in a language your body actually understands.
That’s where grounding techniques come in.
Why Your Nervous System Won’t Just “Calm Down”
Your nervous system’s job is protection. It’s constantly scanning for danger and safety, even when you’re not aware of it.
When stress, burnout, anxiety, or unresolved experiences stack up, your body can get stuck in survival mode—fight, flight, or freeze. This is why you might feel:
Anxious for no clear reason
On edge, irritable, or overwhelmed
Disconnected or numb
Tense, restless, or unable to relax
Tired but wired at the same time
You might feel like your body is overreacting, but it’s actually responding exactly the way your nervous system should when it’s been under pressure for too long.
Grounding techniques help by gently reminding your body: You’re here, you’re safe. And you can soften now.
How Grounding Works in the Nervous System
Grounding techniques are somatic tools or body-based practices that can calm the nervous system by bringing your awareness into the present moment.
If you’ve ever explored the idea of mindful living, grounding is one of the most practical ways to do that in your body. If you’d like to explore this connection between presence and healing more deeply, check out our blog, The Art of Mindfulness: Harnessing the Power of the Present Moment.
Unlike coping strategies that focus on talking yourself out of how you feel or trying to “think positively,” grounding doesn’t ask you to analyze your emotions or change your thoughts.
Instead, it works by engaging your senses, breath, and physical body.
This matters because when your nervous system is activated, logic isn’t what it needs first…safety is.
Grounding is one of the ways you can begin offering that sense of safety to both your mind and body.
5 Grounding Techniques to Calm Your Nervous System (That Don’t Feel Forced)
Now, before you start making a mental checklist or grading yourself on how well you’re doing this…I want you to pause for a second.
You don’t need to do all of these. You don’t even need to do them perfectly. Think of these as open invitations rather than rigid assignments.
1. Start by Letting Your Body Orient
Before anything else, let your body take in where you are.
Slowly look around the room.
Notice the walls, the light, the objects near you.
Let your eyes land on something neutral or comforting.
You might quietly think:
“This is where I am right now.”
This simple act, called orienting, helps your nervous system update itself from past or future stress back into the present.
2. Feel the Ground Supporting You
So much anxiety comes from feeling like you have to hold everything together on your own.
As silly as it might sound…let the ground help.
Notice your feet against the floor, or the chair supporting your weight.
Place a hand on your legs or chest if that feels calming.
In this moment, you don’t need to focus on relaxing or changing anything. Just let yourself notice that you’re being held, and that, for this moment, you don’t have to hold everything on your own.
For many people, this alone starts to reduce nervous system activation.
3. Use Your Breath to Signal Safety
Breathing techniques can be a huge support to your nervous system, even in the middle of a stressful moment.
It doesn’t need to be deep breathing or anything special. Even small, simple practices can help.
Here’s a simple exercise you can try:
Inhale through your nose
Exhale slowly through your mouth
Let the exhale be just a little longer than the inhale - think inhale for 4 counts, exhale for 6 counts.
Even a few slow breaths can tell your body that it’s safe to start relaxing.
This is one of the most effective grounding techniques for anxiety and stress because it directly engages your parasympathetic nervous system, helping your body move out of fight, flight, or freeze and back into a state of safety.
4. Bring in Temperature or Texture
When thoughts feel overwhelming, sensation can help anchor you.
Notice:
The warmth of a mug
The coolness of water on your hands
The soft texture of a blanket
Focus on the sensation itself and quietly name what you notice—warm, cool, soft, solid.
Doing this helps your body stay anchored in the present, rather than trailing elsewhere.
5. Let Your Body Move a Little
Although we often associate grounding with stillness, sometimes the energy you’re experiencing needs a different direction. In those moments, your body may need movement instead of quiet.
And that’s okay.
In these moments, try gentle movement:
Rolling your shoulders
Stretching your arms
Rocking slightly side to side
Movement can help release stored stress or anxious energy and bring your body back into a state of calm and regulation.
Follow what feels natural; there’s no right way or wrong way to do this.
Why Grounding Techniques Can Feel Hard
For some people, especially those with trauma or chronic stress, slowing down can feel uncomfortable at first. This is completely normal!
If that’s you, here are a few tips:
Keep grounding brief, even one minute can be enough
Focus on external cues (what you see or touch)
Choose movement-based grounding over stillness
Your nervous system learns safety slowly, and that’s okay.
This is also why somatic therapy can be so helpful. You don’t have to navigate nervous system regulation alone.
What Grounding Techniques Offer in Everyday Life
Grounding techniques aren’t meant to erase emotion or make life feel easy, and they’re not about forcing calm, positive thinking, or trying to override what you’re feeling.
Instead, grounding works at the level of the nervous system.
When you practice grounding, you’re sending your body small, repeated signals that it’s safe enough to slow down. Over time, your nervous system learns that it doesn’t have to stay on high alert all the time and that it can soften without losing control or awareness.
This is how nervous system regulation happens: not in big breakthroughs, but in quiet moments of noticing support, sensation, and presence.
With practice, grounding becomes something you naturally return to throughout the day.
Not just when anxiety spikes or stress feels overwhelming, but in ordinary moments, like while sitting at your desk, washing your hands, or taking a breath between tasks.
These small check-ins help you stay connected to your body instead of pushing through on autopilot.
And slowly, that connection builds trust; not in the sense of forcing yourself to feel better, but in learning that your body can experience emotions, respond to stress, and still come back to a place of steadiness.
That’s the real work of grounding, not constant calm, but a nervous system that knows how to find its footing again.
Final Thoughts
If you’ve been feeling anxious, overwhelmed, disconnected, or exhausted, it’s understandable. Given the pace of life, the pressure to keep up, and how little space we’re given to rest or process, these feelings are often a natural response, not a sign that anything is “wrong” with you.
And if you’ve ever found yourself wondering why you feel this way or blaming yourself for it, that’s a really common place to go.
These experiences aren’t a personal flaw, they’re often signs of a nervous system that has been working overtime to try to keep you safe.
Your body has been doing its best, and those patterns can be exhausting, but they come from protection, not weakness.
Grounding techniques are one way to begin supporting your nervous system. They help your body find moments of steadiness and relief in everyday life.
But sometimes, support needs to go deeper, especially when stress, anxiety, or past experiences have been living in your body for a long time.
That’s where somatic and holistic therapy can be especially powerful.
At Life By Design Therapy™, we focus on more than just talking through symptoms. Our somatic and holistic approach helps you understand how your nervous system has adapted, and gently supports your body in learning that safety is possible again.
“Therapy becomes a place where you don’t have to push through or explain everything, and your body is part of the healing process.”
There’s no pressure to rush or “fix” yourself. Healing happens slowly, in relationship, and at a pace your nervous system can trust.
You deserve support that meets you where you are.
This Week's Affirmations
My body is doing its best to protect me, and I can meet it with care.
In this moment, I am safe.
Support is available to me, and I am allowed to receive it.
I don’t need to force calm for healing to happen.
I am learning to trust my body again.
Additional Resources
**If you’re interested in learning more about ways to regulate your nervous system, check out these books below:
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk M.D
Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation by Deb Dana
Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn PhD
Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha by Tara Brach
How to Manage Stress and Prevent Burnout in the Workplace
By Melody Wright, LMFT
It started on a Wednesday.
I was sitting at my desk, halfway through a meeting, when I realized I hadn’t stopped all morning.
My inbox was overflowing, my shoulders ached, and my brain was locked on one thought: “Just get through the day.”
Sound familiar?
Workplace stress has become so normalized that many of us don’t notice how much it’s draining our energy and dysregulating our nervous system, until we’re completely depleted.
While many of us desire to be okay and live with a sense of purpose and peace, it’s hard to regulate and find those moments in the midst of hustle culture.
If this is resonating with you, I want to remind you that you cannot continue to push through and find that sense of peace.
Regulating comes from slowing down, creating space for rest, and allowing your body to return to balance.
The good news? You can learn to manage stress and prevent burnout from work.
If you’ve been struggling to manage stress during the work day, I have come up with 7 ways (grounded in psychology, holistic health, and my own lived experience) to support nervous system recovery and help you restore balance at work.
7 Ways To Manage Stress and Prevent Burnout at Work
1. Start your day with intention, not reaction
Before the day begins to pull you in a dozen directions, take a few minutes to decide how you want to move through it.
What kind of energy do you want to bring into your meetings, your emails, your interactions?
What words describe how you want to feel?
🌻Calm
🌻Present
🌻Grounded
🌻Open
🌻Focused
Starting your day with intention means consciously choosing how you want to show up, rather than reacting to whatever comes first.
That might involve:
Reviewing your schedule the night before
Prioritizing what matters most, or
Setting a gentle theme for the day (ex: “steady,” “patient,” or “clear.”)
When you orient your day around intention, you teach your nervous system what safety feels like before the chaos begins.
By starting your day with intention and direction, you’ll notice that your focus sharpens and your communication will feel smoother, helping your entire day flow more naturally.
2. Take mini-breaks to reset your nervous system
We often think rest requires a long pause, but your body can begin to reset in less than two minutes.
Try standing up, walking around the office, taking a quick stretch, or taking three slow breaths between meetings.
These short rests signal to your nervous system that the last task is complete and it’s safe to shift gears.
When you add in short moments of recovery throughout the day, you prevent stress from stacking up and give your body a chance to restore energy as you go.
“Sustaining your well-being at work isn’t about avoiding stress altogether; it’s about learning to recover in real time so you can stay steady and clear-headed through the day’s demands.”
3. Notice the stories your mind tells you
When something stressful happens, like a missed deadline, a hard conversation, or unexpected feedback, your body reacts first. You may notice your heart rate increase, your chest might tighten, and your brain might start creating a story to make sense of it.
Those thoughts might sound like:
💔 “I can’t handle this.”
💔 “I always mess up.”
💔 “They must be disappointed in me.”
These aren’t just random negative thoughts; they’re signs that your nervous system is activated and your brain is trying to protect you from perceived danger, including fear of failure, rejection, or perfectionism.
When you slow down and notice those stories with curiosity instead of judgment, you interrupt the thoughts that lead to stress, overwhelm, and burnout.
Try gently reframing the thought with compassion by saying:
“This is stressful, but I’m capable of working through it.”
“I made a mistake, but I can repair it.”
Meeting your thoughts this way helps your body feel supported instead of threatened.
You’ll find it’s easier to stay composed in difficult moments and to keep your day moving without carrying the emotional weight of every challenge that comes up in the workday.
4. Regulate your body, not just your calendar
No amount of color-coded scheduling can fix a dysregulated nervous system. Before diving into the next task or meeting, take a moment to return to your body.
Notice your posture, unclench your jaw, drop your shoulders, and take one deep breath.
Pay attention to the signals your body gives you, when your chest tightens or your breath shortens, pause and reconnect:
Press your feet into the ground
Exhale longer than you inhale
Look around the room and name what you see
These techniques are called grounding tools. They help your nervous system register safety, allowing focus, creativity, and clarity to return.
When your body feels steady, you’re able to think clearly, communicate effectively, and move through the workday with more ease.
If you would like more grounding tools for the office, check out our free download, 20 Calming Techniques You Can Do at Your Desk.
5. Protect your energy through clear boundaries
For many people, boundaries can feel uncomfortable, especially if you’ve spent years equating being dependable with saying “yes.”
You might worry that setting limits will disappoint others, create conflict, or make you seem less committed. Those feelings are valid. Boundaries can stir up a lot of vulnerability, especially in work cultures that reward constant availability.
But boundaries aren’t about pulling away; they’re about protecting your capacity, the energy that lets you show up fully and sustainably.
When you say “no” to what drains you, you’re saying “yes” to focus, presence, and longevity in the work you care about.
Start small. End your workday on time, pause before taking on a new task, or take your lunch break without multitasking.
“Each time you honor your limits, you signal safety to your nervous system, and you’ll notice how much clearer and more balanced you feel during your workday.”
If you would like to learn more about boundaries, check out our blog, Mindful Limits: The Connection Between Boundaries and Self-Compassion.
6. Reconnect with your purpose
There will be seasons when work feels more like survival than purpose; that’s just the ebbs and flows of life. But when your nervous system is in constant go-mode, it might be harder to connect to what matters, especially the moments when everything starts to feel like just another task to get through.
You might catch yourself thinking, “What’s the point?” or drifting through the day on autopilot.
It’s okay if you don’t feel inspired every day.
Sometimes reconnecting with purpose begins with noticing the smallest things that matter.
Maybe it’s the way your work supports your family.
Maybe it’s helping a client feel seen, finding a creative solution to a problem, or being part of a team that makes someone’s day easier.
Or maybe it’s the quiet pride of doing something well, even when no one’s watching.
Purpose doesn’t remove stress, but it gives your mind and body something to anchor to when things feel heavy.
When you reconnect to why you’re doing what you do, even in small ways, you bring meaning back into your workday and remind your nervous system that effort and purpose can coexist.
7. Lead with self-compassion
Managing stress isn’t built by being hard on yourself; it’s built by showing yourself compassion.
When you make a mistake, fall behind, or feel overwhelmed, notice how you speak to yourself.
Would you say those same words to a colleague or a friend?
I want you to try offering yourself the same understanding.
Self-compassion keeps your nervous system calm, which helps your brain recover, refocus, and stay adaptable.
Remember, when you treat yourself with kindness instead of criticism, your entire workday shifts. You’ll handle challenges with patience and end the day feeling grounded rather than drained.
Final Thoughts/Reflections
Work will always bring deadlines, challenges, and unpredictable moments, but the way you meet them determines how your body and mind experience the day.
Remember, managing stress and preventing burnout isn’t about doing more or toughing it out.
It’s about slowing down enough to notice what your body needs, creating space for recovery, and honoring your limits so you can sustain what truly matters: your peace, your purpose, and your capacity to show up fully.
Therapy can be a powerful support in this process.
At Life By Design Therapy™, our holistic and somatic therapists help high-achieving professionals and caregivers in California recover from burnout, manage work stress, and restore nervous system balance.
With the help of our holistic and somatic therapists, you don’t have to force yourself to feel okay. With the right support, your nervous system can relearn how to feel safe, calm, and grounded again.
This Week's Affirmations
It’s okay if I don’t feel inspired every day; I can still move through the day with intention.
My worth is not defined by how much I achieve.
I trust my body to tell me when I need to slow down.
My boundaries are acts of care, not rejection.
I can care deeply about my work without losing myself in it.
Additional Resources
**If you’re interested in learning more about building resilience, check out these books below:
Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff
No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work by Liz Fosslien & Molly West Duffy
Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The End of Burnout: Why Work Drains Us and How to Build Better Lives by Jonathan Malesic
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