BHP Blog - Behavioral Health Partners (BHP)

Anxiety 5, 4, 3, 2,1 is a mindfulness exercise used to cope with, lessen, and manage anxiety. This grounding technique can help increase awareness and decrease intrusive thoughts in moments of heightened anxiety, worry, or panic attacks.

• Deep, slow, and long breaths are our first priority for achieving a calm state before proceeding to the following steps.

5: Acknowledge FIVE things we see around us. It could be a pen, a spot on the ceiling, anything in our surroundings.

4: Acknowledge FOUR things we can touch around us. It could be our hair, a pillow, or the ground under our feet. 

3: Acknowledge THREE things we hear.

• This could be any external sound. If we can hear our belly rumbling that counts! Focus on things we can hear outside of our body.

2: Acknowledge TWO things we can smell: 

• If at first we don’t feel like we can smell anything, simply try to sense the subtle fragrance of the air around us, or of our own skin.