Cognitive Grounding
Often the need for grounding comes from being overwhelmed by emotions in some way. When you are triggered, you are deep in your emotion brain and it feels like the bad/traumatic thing is happening right now.
Therefore, activating the logical/rational side of our brains can help us get unstuck from the swirling emotions.
Cognitive grounding involves anything that gets that logical side of your brain working.
Simple math problems are a good way to activate the logical side. It truly has to be simple, no matter what your comfort with math is, because higher order thinking won’t be available when you’re triggered.
Use single digit addition or subtraction problems.
Another strategy I learned from Kathleen Martin, LCSW, is the strategy of asking silly questions to help ground.
Asking how much money you have in your wallet, where did you last gas up your car, what color are your socks, what was the last thing you ate, etc.
These are silly questions, but require you to get in touch with the here and now. This works well if you have a partner or friend who can assist you by asking you these silly questions.
Or you can have a card you keep in your wallet/purse or posted on your mirror with some of these questions. This is often helpful so that you don’t need to think of them on your own when triggered.