Almost all of us have experienced a feeling of anxiety and panic that came out of nowhere. It had followed an event, or a conversation, or even a thought! That feeling when you know “something is not right”, that unwarranted activation of ‘flight-or-fight’, when your heart races your lungs, and the heavy breathing along with the palpitations make it difficult to even stay standing upright. That feeling when sweating is not because of the heat, you are not shivering because of the cold, and your vision is betraying you—going on the edge of blurry, and touching the boundaries of fuzzy. The cause of this disruption is typically a recall of a traumatic experience. The ‘trigger’ could be either internal or external. Rachel Harlich, a psychotherapist and personal coach, says, “I like to conceptualize triggers as landmines; we didn’t put them there and neither did the immediate circumstance that put you into this triggered state. When one gets stepped on, often nobody sees it coming, nor may anyone even know what landmine was stepped on.” Following this analogy, it can be deduced that triggers are virtually impossible to avoid. However, while the triggers you face along your way are out of your hands, the steering wheel of your response to it is entirely under your control. Some grounding techniques that have typically been successful in helping many individuals manage themselves in tricky situations.
- Being mindful of your surroundings. It is a well-utilized mental exercise to remind yourself of your environment, focus on it, and take a break from the pointing sense of unease. You can practice this by making a mental list of things in your environment and categorizing them by the different senses, for example, ‘things you can hear’ ‘things you can smell’, etc. The goal of this mental exercise is to make yourself familiar, hence comfortable in your surroundings.
- Physical exercise. It does not have to be a workout. Just moving your body, even in simple ways, such as walking, or stretching, can be enough stimulation to keep you connected to the present, and not let yourself wander through thoughts, and emotions that lead down a dark road.
- The red-yellow-green system. This technique requires you to be more self-aware than the others. It is to identify the correct timing to listen to that ‘flight’ instinct and remove yourself from the situation. When you experience a dysregulating feeling starting to form within you (stage ‘yellow’), you can try some of the recommended, or some of your own, mental exercises to remain grounded. If the minor discomfort escalates into a full-blown trigger (stage ‘red’), it is best to get as much away from the causing agent as you can.
- Detriggerise. This refers to focusing on things that work in the opposite way of triggers, that is, your comfort objects and/or activities. You could brew a cup of refreshing tea, listen to your old favorite songs, take a nap, talk to a friend, and so on to break free of the looming stress, and to calm your nerves.
- Hydration. Drinking water, and staying hydrated is the simplest, yet the most effective technique to prevent the triggers from reaching you.
- Yoga/meditation. Balanced breathing, and rejunizing body movements/postures are usually the two biggest components of yoga. If done properly, it helps us find and regain our center, and compose our anxiety. This does not equate to ignoring your feelings. Yoga might be difficult at first to master, but in the long run, it displays great positive effects on our mental health.
- Self-affirmation. Positive self-affirmations, and giving encouraging feedback to yourself are more measures through which you can hold your head and manage the trigger. You need to believe the affirmations that you give to yourself, and those must be true to you in that moment. You ought to know that experiencing intense emotions is fine and that their existence does not direct your life.
It is necessary to remember that every individual has their preferences of what does and does not work in stabilizing them. If you think none of these practices would work for you, that is fine. It does not mean that your anxiety is not manageable. You can observe your environment, and do some reflection to figure out what would be the best way for you to wind down and tune out in times of triggered distress and panic.