5 Senses Grounding Meditation

This 5-minute meditation uses the five senses of sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste to connect to our physical body. When we connect to our body in this way, the senses send a message through the nervous system to the brain. Hand-in-hand with mindful breathing, this can be an effective way to take control of our thoughts and manage stressful situations.

Once you are familiar with the technique, this short exercise can be practised anywhere to quickly ground you into the physical body.

Transcript

Hi I'm Paula from Happy Yoga Rails and this is a short five senses grounding exercise.

So you can do this lying down or in a seated position.

Wherever you are just take a moment to settle in.

Make sure the spine is long whether you're seated or lying down.

Reach and pull through the crown of the head and take a big breath in here.

Pause at the top and exhale sigh out of the mouth.

Use the senses to awaken the physical body to get ourselves out of the mind and into these physical sensations.

It's a really effective tool to calm the mind if we're feeling too anxious.

So let's begin by noticing five things that you can see.

Five things that you can see.

And then without moving notice four things that you can touch.

This could be the ground beneath you,

The air against your skin,

Your clothing or your own body touching another body part.

And then notice three things that you can hear.

Three things that you can hear.

And next noticing two things that you can smell and you might not be able to name them but just notice two things that you can smell.

And finally notice one thing that you can taste.

Again you might not be able to name the taste sweet or sour but just notice one thing that you can taste.

Notice all five physical senses alive and awake.

And feel the breath in the body flowing in and flowing out.

And feel this connection between you and every living being on the planet and beyond.

When you're ready take in one more big breath in through the nose and exhale gently sigh out.

And then bring in the hands to heart center if the eyes have closed opening them here.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Namaste.