Grounding Tools for Eating Disorder Recovery
- Breanna Potts, LPC.
- Apr 22
- 9 min read
By: Breanna Potts LPC Eating Disorder, OCD, and EMDR Trauma Therapist
Have you ever had moments in life when your thoughts are just racing, your chest tightens, or you feel disconnected from yourself and the world around you and it all just feels like too much?
If so, let me be the first to say, you are not alone. I empathize with the heaviness and discouragement these kinds of days can bring. They can make us feel like all our progress has been lost, or so stuck in the distress that it’s hard to see how to make it through. If you have felt, or are feeling this way, please be encouraged that progress cannot be lost and you remain a resilient human who can do hard things!
For moments like these, I love to lean on one of my favorite tools for recovery, grounding. I’m pretty sure everyone immediately thinks of the 5-4-3-2-1 technique when they hear the word grounding, and might feel the urge to close the blog and move on with the day, but hang tight for just a moment! While the 5-4-3-2-1 technique is so wonderful, I’m going to give you so much more than just this classic, go-to exercise - just trust the process!
Grounding can serve as a gentle yet strong anchor, helping you return to the present moment and reconnect with a sense of safety. Grounding is not about forcing your feelings away or pretending everything is okay (no toxic positivity here!).
It’s about giving yourself a way to come back to the very moment you are in.
What Is Grounding?
Grounding is a coping tool that helps you reconnect with the present moment. It gently pulls your attention away from overwhelming thoughts, emotions, or memories and brings it back to what is real, tangible, and happening right now.
Grounding can be useful for everyone, no matter their walk of life, and it can be especially helpful if you experience anxiety, panic, dissociation, intrusive thoughts, or any emotional overwhelm. No matter the circumstance, grounding can be a powerful practice for building awareness and developing resilience. I personally believe we all have innate resilience and grounding helps you pull from that place of resilience and overcome challenges you may face.
When to Use Grounding
Grounding can be used at any given time! However, it is recommended that any skill or tool you learn to help in emotional regulation be practiced in moments of calm. This is because being in a state of calm, or regulation, allows us to be fully aware of the moment, our surroundings, and fun fact - full access of our brain! When we are regulated, we are able to access our prefrontal cortex, which is the logical thinking center of the brain that aids in decision making, planning, and emotional regulation.
However, when we are in a heightened state of distress, the brain’s overall regulation system, which is the limbic system, becomes so overwhelmed that we enter hyper-arousal (i.e flight response/lots of anxiety) or hypo-arousal (i.e freeze response/ dissociation and disconnection). When this happens, our prefrontal cortex goes “offline,” or “shuts down” due to the overwhelm. Grounding is so incredibly helpful in resetting the nervous system and allowing us to reenter a state of regulation.
I know that was probably a lot of information to take in! If you’re interested in how the brain responds to grounding, this resources talks about it.
In short, grounding helps recenter and reset when you may feel:
Overwhelmed or emotionally flooded
Anxious, panicky, or on edge
Disconnected from your body or surroundings
Stuck in painful memories or intrusive thoughts
Unable to focus or feeling “spaced out”
This is not an exhaustive list! It can also be used proactively, which is when we intentionally choose to use this skill before a stressful event, difficult conversation, or as part of a daily self care routine.
There’s no “wrong” time to ground yourself. If your nervous system is asking for support, grounding is always accessible!
How to Use Grounding
Grounding doesn’t require special tools or a perfect environment. At its very core, it’s all about attention. What is stealing your focus? What do you notice your body is experiencing? When we place our attention on these things, we are then able to take note how we are feeling and what we are experiencing, which gives us a cue to gently guide our attention back to the present.
Here are a few simple steps to begin:
Pause – Give yourself permission to slow down, even for a moment.
Notice your breath – You don’t have to change it. Just observe it.
Engage your senses – Look around, listen closely to your environment.
Name what is real – “I am here.” “I am safe.” “This moment will pass.”
There’s no need to rush! Grounding works best when it’s approached with patience and curiosity rather than pressure and the need for it to look or be “perfect.”
Different Ways to Ground Yourself
Exploring different ways to ground yourself is my favorite part of helping clients get curious about grounding! Grounding is not a one-size-fits-all approach, which I think makes it so fun to explore because we get to see what resonates the most with you, what makes you feel calm, what senses are the most interesting for you to activate. Different methods work for different people and even for different moments in your life! Here are a variety of approaches you can explore:
1. Sensory Grounding
This involves using your five senses to reconnect with your surroundings.
Name 5 things you can see
Notice 4 things you can touch
Listen for 3 things you can hear
Identify 2 things you can smell
Focus on 1 thing you can taste
This is the lovely 5-4-3-2-1 exercise, which is probably the most widely used method - and with good reason! This method helps shift your mind away from internal distress and back into the physical world just by checking in with all your senses in relation to your current environment. I highly recommend this method for anyone who has never heard of or tried grounding before.
For a more in-depth explanation of this exercise and how to make the most of it, I’ve included this resource for you to check out here.
2. Physical Grounding
Bring awareness to your body and how it feels in the space
Press your feet firmly into the ground
Hold onto something solid, like a chair or a table
Run your hands under cold or warm water
Stretch slowly or gently move your body
Physical grounding is one of my favorite tactics because it uses such simple and easy ways to immediately pull the body from fight/flight response to rest/digest, which allows us to safely come back into the present moment. Who doesn’t love simple and easy?!
3. Breath-Based Grounding
Your breath is always with you, which makes it such a powerful anchor!
Try inhaling for a count of 4, holding for 4, and exhaling for 6
Place a hand on your chest or stomach and feel the rise and fall of your breath
Imagine your breath as a wave, coming in when you inhale, and going out on the exhale
There’s no need to breathe “perfectly.” Simply noticing your breath can begin to immediately calm your nervous system!
4. Mental Grounding
Engage your mind in a gentle, structured way.
Count backward from 100 by 7s
Name categories (e.g., types of animals, cities, or colors) using the alphabet; for example - alpaca, bunny, cat, etc.
Recite a favorite poem, song lyrics, or affirmation
These exercises help redirect your thoughts when they feel overwhelming, or if you start to notice yourself going down an anxious spiral of thoughts. Purposely shifting our focus onto something that requires our attention, but is not too difficult to engage in, is a small way to gain a sense of control and calm an overwhelmed brain and nervous system.
5. Comfort-Based Grounding
Sometimes grounding looks like offering yourself some care using warmth and gentleness!
Wrap a soft blanket around yourself
Hold or hug a comforting object
Sip a warm drink slowly and really bring your attention to the way the warm sensation calms the body
Speak to yourself in a kind, reassuring voice! Self-talk really does matter. Please allow yourself to speak kind thoughts over yourself.
This form of grounding reminds you that you deserve gentleness always, and especially in hard moments. This method of grounding is highly recommended if your nervous system is so overwhelmed that the other methods feel too challenging or inaccessible. Sometimes we just need some comfort, and that is okay!
Grounding in Eating Disorder Recovery
If you are navigating eating disorder recovery, grounding can become an especially meaningful and supportive tool.
Moments around food, body image, or emotional triggers can feel incredibly intense. You might notice urges to restrict, binge, purge, or disconnect from your body altogether. Grounding helps create a pause between the urge and the action, which is a small but powerful space where choice begins to feel possible again.
Grounding can help you:
Stay present during meals when anxiety or intrusive thoughts arise
Reconnect with your body in a way that feels safe and non-judgmental
Navigate urges without immediately acting on them
Soothe emotional distress that may be driving disordered behaviors
Interrupt negative thought spirals about food, weight, or self-worth
For example, during a difficult meal, you might gently notice the texture, temperature, or flavor of your food - not to control or analyze it, but simply to stay present. If urges feel overwhelming afterward, placing your feet firmly on the ground, naming objects in the room, or holding something comforting can help bring you back to yourself.
Recovery is not just about changing behaviors. It is about a lot of things coming together, and for some, one of those things may be about rebuilding a relationship with your body and your inner world. Grounding supports that process by helping you experience your body as a place you can safely return to, rather than something to escape. You deserve to experience the feeling of safety in your body.
For more information on how to work through difficult times in eating disorder recovery, this resource provides more on grounding and other wonderful and helpful tools we like to offer clients.
Why Grounding Matters in Healing
Healing is not linear! It often involves revisiting difficult emotions, memories, and patterns. Grounding gives you a way to navigate those experiences without becoming lost in them by building a sense of safety within yourself, strengthening your ability to regulate emotions, staying present instead of overwhelmed by the past or future, and developing trust in your capacity to cope.
Over time, grounding can shift from something you “try” to something you trust! I hope grounding can become a reliable tool that supports you along your recovery journey, helping you feel well-grounded in the process.
A Gentle Reminder
If grounding doesn’t work immediately, that doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong! Sometimes new skills and tools take a little time to get used to and that is okay! It is also definitely okay if grounding just isn’t your thing.
Healing is not one size fits all, so take what works and leave what doesn’t! I encourage you to give grounding a try and see how it feels. Recovery is never about being perfect, or doing anything perfectly, but it is all about showing up for you over and over again because you deserve it.
We see you, we believe in you, and we are rooting for you always!
Resources:
https://www.healthline.com/health/grounding-techniques#physical-techniques https://www.montenido.com/alumni-resources/grounding-skills
Other Mental Health Services Offered in PA, NJ, DE, SC, MD, CT, VT, and FL
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Recovered and Restored is an eating disorder therapy center founded by Gabrielle Morreale, LPC. We specialize in helping teens and young women heal from eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia, and binge eating disorder and treat disordered eating, anxiety, depression, and PTSD. We provide eating disorder therapy in PA in the towns of Horsham, Upper Gwynedd, Lower Gwynedd, North Wales, Lansdale, Hatfield, Blue Bell, Doylestown, and nearby towns with eating disorder therapy. Also providing virtual eating disorder therapy in New Jersey, Delaware, and Florida. Some towns served virtually include but are not limited to Pittsburgh, Lancaster, Harrisburg, Center City, Cherry Hill, Haddonfield, Mount Laurel, Cape May, Avalon, Brick, Dover, New Castle, Bethany Beach, Marydel, and Oceanview
About the Author
Eating Disorder, OCD, and EMDR Trauma Therapist
Breanna is one of our eating disorder, anxiety, OCD and trauma specialist. Breanna is a licensed professional counselor, who graduated from Gwynedd Mercy University in 2021. Breanna is fully EMDR trained. She is extremely passionate about helping teens and women struggling with self-esteem, disordered eating, eating disorders, body image, perfectionism, anxiety, and depression.
Breanna understands that recovery is a process and that you are not a person who needs to be fixed, but someone who needs support and a safe space for healing. Breanna uses a humanistic therapeutic approach full of unconditional positive regard and empathy. She would love nothing more and would be honored, to walk alongside you in your journey to reclaim your life and silence your eating disorder. Bree is formally trained in EMDR, DBT, CBT, and ERP. Breanna is fully HAES-aligned and is dedicated to helping you get to a place where you can say, “Been there, WON that!” Bree offers online therapy in PA, NJ, MD, CT, VT, SC, FL, and DE and coaching sessions worldwide.
Breanna is a pet mom to her dog and two guinea pigs and loves to spend her free time loving and caring for her fur babies! Breanna can also be found always with a good book and really good coffee in hand!
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