 Hello and welcome back. Today I'm going to talk you through a really simple relaxation stroke grounding technique called the five four three two one technique. Now there are lots of different variations on this and you might want to adapt it to make it best suit you. I'm going to talk you through how I use it. Now as with all the different strategies that I teach it's a really good idea to practice this when you're already feeling calm so that you can get used to applying it and like any other skill the more that you practice it the easier you'll find to use it. So practice it when things are already going kind of okay and then when you really need it at a time of high stress or anxiety or maybe you struggle with things like dissociation or de-realization then you'll be able to use this skill much more easily to help you stay present and grounded in the moment and to help relax. So the five the four the three the two and the one it's up to you exactly what order you use them in and which one you use for what but how I use them is this. So five first of all I look for five things I can see so I will take a moment just to kind of anchor myself in my present surroundings and I'll take a look around and I might say I can see a video camera in front of me I can see color coded books on the bookshelf I can see a picture on the wall that was created for me by a really close friend and so you get the idea so you're looking around you you're looking for things you can see really really simple I start with five things I can see because I think it's the easiest next I go for four things I can hear now you find that you're using the senses a lot here and the senses are great for helping to ground us and helping to stop us think about whatever it is that is causing us to stress our anxiety in this current moment so I might stop and take a listen and think I can hear birds tweeting outside I can hear the slight hum of my computer so you're really just stopping being mindful for a moment listening to what you can hear around you the next one is three so I then go to three things that I can touch and I think about things that I can touch and the feel of those things so I'm looking often here for different textures so I might think about the texture of my scarf I love this scarf I might think about the texture of my scarf I might think about the feel of my skin beneath my fingers I might if I were near to water think about running my hands under a cold or a warm tap I might think about the feel of plants on my hands or soil on my fingers you get the idea you might stroke a pet and think about the the feel of that so you're looking for three things that you can touch and thinking about how they feel really trying to invoke your senses here next I would think about two things I can smell so for me right now that might be the rose and rhubarb hand cream I have on a new molten brown flavour it's delicious another smell here so I have a centre candle on the go and that smells really beautiful that's a poppy flavour candle and then the final one so one we're to one now so we've done five things you can see four that you can hear three that you can touch two that you can smell and then the last thing number one for me is one deep slow breath so then I'm really then focusing in on the breath taking one really big deep breath and I might then if I feel kind of calm enough to do it move on to doing something like my box breathing technique so I'll often use my five four three two one to kind of help ground me help bring me back help me to feel present in the moment and then moving on to thinking about the breathing so a really really simple technique and as I say you might want to change what the five the four the three the two the ones done for you might also want to carry a prompt around with you on your phone maybe a little card in your wallet but it's such a simple strategy a really easy one for you to apply yourself a really easy one to teach to someone else and also something that if you're with someone who is currently really struggling maybe they're on the edge of a panic attack for example then you can use this to help them move their focus away from the thing that's really worrying them I hope you find that helpful again just a quick reminder of five things you can see four things you can hear three things you can touch two things you can smell and one slow deep breath I hope you find it helpful please take a moment to comment below with how you use this strategy and any ideas that you have which may be variations on this that you think make it work well for you if you like the video give it a thumbs up and please subscribe if you'd like to hear about my future videos okay goodbye