Grounding Techniques for HSPs: Tip #4 in the How to Thrive as a Highly Sensitive Person Series
Thriving as a Highly Sensitive Person is no easy task. As Dr. Elaine Aron’s cornerstone book on HSPs notes, the world is often overwhelming for HSPs. There are plenty of things that can assault the HSP nervous system. So often misunderstood, dismissed, and invalidated, HSPs can use a lot of energy recovering from perceived slights or explaining their needs to people who may not seem to care. And that doesn’t even begin to consider the effect of having so much empathy. Grounding techniques can help with many of these things!
I’m Bronwyn, a Massachusetts therapist for Highly Sensitive People (I also work with people who live in Washington, DC and Wisconsin). I have five favorite tips on how HSPs can thrive, and I’m writing about each of them:
Practice Grounding Techniques for HSPs
Continue to learn about the HSP trait
I’ve written previously about the first three tips, and today I’ll go into more detail about the fourth: practicing grounding techniques for HSPs.
Empathy is a big reason HSPs need to practice grounding techniques
One of the benefits of High Sensitivity is the gift of empathy. HSPs are overflowing with empathy! Highly Sensitive People have more active mirror neurons, which are the part of the brain that allows people to feel empathy. And although empathy is a skill that often comes under attack by people who don’t understand it, empathy is completely necessary for the human race. Empathy is the glue that holds us together. If we don’t have empathy, we end up completely alone.
And yet, having an abundance of empathy does not always feel like a benefit. In fact, it easily adds to the overwhelm that can make it so hard to thrive. Empathy is a gift that HSPs are brimming with, as well as a skill that comes more naturally to HSPs than non-HSPs because of those active mirror neurons. For this reason, empathy is also something to protect.
Why is practicing grounding techniques important for HSPs?
When the pain of the world feels like your own pain, it’s easy to feel knocked over by what’s happening around you. One of the ways that you can protect your empathy as an HSP is to practice grounding techniques. Grounding can help act as a buffer for your very active mirror neurons. Practicing grounding techniques can help connect you with yourself at times when you might feel pulled toward someone else’s pain.
Grounding exercises are also good at reminding you of the support around you, like nature and the ground beneath you.
Practicing grounding techniques as an HSP is one way to remind yourself that whatever distress you may be feeling for someone else’s experience is not your own. Grounding brings you back to your own body and your experience in the moment. This can help take you away from the pain of the world enough to feel more solid.
How do you practice grounding techniques?
There are so many ways to practice grounding techniques. It will likely take some time for you to try out a few methods and see which ones you like the best. Some are present time, short term grounding techniques that you can use in moments of distress. Others are more long term grounding practices that you can do regularly. (Again, there is an overlap in benefit for anxiety.)
Like most things, grounding techniques for HSPs take practice. Don’t expect miracles the first time you try any of them. Over time, these long term grounding practices can help you feel more solid. Take a look at the grounding techniques below and see which ones might be a good fit for you. Similar to dealing with anxiety, it’s best to practice grounding techniques both when you’re not feeling distressed as well as in moments of pain. That way you can get the hang of them before you need them.
Present Time Grounding Techniques
Physical grounding
You may recognize these grounding practices as coping methods for anxiety. They can indeed also be used when you’re feeling anxious! In a moment of distress, a simple grounding technique is to notice your feet on the floor. This not only brings your awareness out of your swirling mind, but it connects you with a support that is larger than yourself: the earth. You don’t have to change positions from wherever you are.
Just notice your feet, and where they are.
Notice how they are supported by the floor or ground beneath you.
If you want to involve all your senses, the “54321” grounding technique is a great one. As an HSP, you have a heightened awareness of all things sensory, so make sure you use this to your advantage. The exercise involves noticing things around you. Name five things that you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.
If you run into things that are adding to your overwhelm, like the noise of a jackhammer, add in the sound of something that you wish you could hear. Your brain can imagine the sound of running water, and it can act as a stand in until you can actually hear it. Smell and taste can sometimes be tricky to come up with. If you can’t find anything nearby, turn again to your imagination. What would you love to be smelling right now? What would taste so comforting?
Imagination as a grounding technique
Imagination is also a part of another grounding technique for HSPs. Many HSPs imagine a protective shield around them. This can help when it feels like you’re a sponge for the world’s pain. The protective shield can act as an emotional buffer for the pain you feel from outside yourself. You can create whatever kind of shield you want! It can be glass so you can see through it, but things can’t get in. It could be steel, or plexiglass, or a bubble.
Imagining the shield when you’re feeling solid is helpful because it builds up your reflex to imagine the shield more often. That way you can conjure it up more easily when outside distress knocks you over unexpectedly. You can even imagine it proactively.
You can use the shield both for buffering the pain of others around you, as well as pain that you feel directly from interactions with other people. HSPs do best when treated with kindness (I mean, doesn’t everyone?). However, they also feel any hint of criticism or slight very keenly. What non-HSPs would brush off without a second thought takes more effort for HSPs to move beyond. Setting up an imaginary protective shield around you can help protect you from these slights and criticisms. By setting it up in your mind’s eye, you anticipate that interactions might be distressing. This can help remind you that most of what people say is about them, not you.
Energetic Grounding Techniques
Many HSPs connect their deep empathy with deep connection with energy. It can be helpful to use energy exercises to protect your empathy. Donna Eden has lots of energy exercises. Two that I like particularly for grounding are “Heaven and Earth” and “Zip-up.” These are both part of her Five-minute energy boost. (This link contains a number of exercises. If you want only the Heaven and Earth and Zip-up, go directly to 6:40.) These energy exercises can also be helpful in creating an imaginary shield around you.
Long term Practices for Grounding
As with short term grounding techniques, you’ll notice that long term grounding overlaps with practices that help reduce anxiety. In addition, they overlap with spiritual practices. Be aware that these are more likely to take longer in seeing a tangible effect. These practices, over time, can really increase your sense of connection both to yourself and the world. Dr. Elaine Aron notes that not only are HSPs more likely to find meaning in and be drawn to the spiritual, but that they also benefit greatly from engaging in spiritual practice.
Yoga as a Grounding Practice for HSPs
Yoga, including yoga nidra or body awareness practices, is another great way to practice grounding. It can also be helpful if straight up silence feels too threatening. The idea of yoga is to prepare your body to be able to sit in meditation. And, the practice of yoga itself, including yoga nidra, can itself be a kind of a meditative practice.
Many HSPs find yoga and yoga nidra practices helpful in calming frazzled nervous systems. They involve quiet and calm in a guided and directed framework. This can be especially helpful when you’ve had a day that has been overstimulating.
Over time, focusing on what’s going on in your body can give you better awareness of your body’s reactions.
This can help when you feel assaulted by the pain around you, by giving you a better sense of how specifically that pain shows up in your body. Maybe it shows up as clenching your jaw, or pain in your gut. Once you get to know your body’s signals better, it can help you attend to them more fully.
What grounding techniques do you already practice? Which ones might you want to consider adding? As always, be patient with yourself and know it’s possible to feel more solid.
About the Author
Owner of Bronwyn Shiffer Psychotherapy, I love supporting women and HSPs to feel more grounded.
In addition to HSP therapy, I provide counseling for anxiety and depression therapy.
Based in Madison, WI, I provide virtual therapy in Boston and Western Massachusetts, telehealth therapy in Wisconsin, and online therapy in Washington, DC.
Interested in making more space to support your beautifully empathic HSP self?