Two skills individual therapists and mental health counselors talk a lot about are grounding skills and mindfulness skills. But what’s the difference between grounding and mindfulness skills? Are they the same or different? Does one skill work better than the other? When to use which skill? In this blog post, we’ll explore these topics.
Purpose of Grounding and Mindfulness
Both of these skills have their usefulness throughout life. Grounding skills are typically utilized for short-term use to center the body and mind. Whereas mindfulness skills can include grounding skills but become more of a lifestyle or routine that’s incorporated into one’s life.
What Do These Skills Help With?
Grounding skills can be implemented at various points throughout the day. These can include right before giving a presentation at work or a teenager’s first day at a new school. Grounding skills can include a wide array of skills and a list of nine grounding skills can be referenced here for continued reference and application. Grounding skills can help to reduce in the moment anxiety, hyper-arousal, worry, and racing thoughts.
On the other hand, mindfulness skills can include grounding techniques yet also takes the application a step further. Mindfulness techniques are more of a practice an individual incorporates into life. This can be meaning building in morning, afternoon, or evening routines to help regulate emotion and/or the nervous system, or mental health symptoms. The practice may center around a grounding exercise, but instead of being something short-term, the person intentionally focuses on the practice for longer period of time. This can calm the nervous system and increase one’s concentration and focus.
Application of Grounding and Mindfulness Skills
Life gets busy. It can feel unnatural to take a moment to practice grounding skills or build in mindfulness routines throughout the day. Setting times throughout the day to implement these skills or reminders on an individual’s phone can be easy ways to start using these skills. Talking with others about what you are trying to start can help others in your life remind you to use these skills as well. These skills take time as growing new neural networks takes time. Patience is key.
Individual Therapy Near Cherry Creek
Sometimes it’s a challenge to slow our lives down to start new things. A great way to do this is by engaging in individual therapy near Cherry Creek. Working with a therapist in Cherry Creek can be a great way to learn these skills and heal underlying causes to anxiety as well as emotion and nervous system dysregulation. Call us now at 720.295.6703 or submit an online form here to start working with an individual therapist now!
