Calm My System

Healthy Coping

Reorienting To The Present Moment

Reorienting Ourselves Into The Present Moment

Grounding

Reorienting To The Present Moment

Grounding

Calming Out Of Survival Mode

Reorienting To The Present Moment

Calming Out Of Survival Mode

Rachelle McCloud, LCSW

Healthy Coping

Calming Out Of Survival Mode

Peggy Oliveria, MSW

Vagus Nerve

Healthy Coping

Vagus Nerve Activation

Healthy Coping

Renee Ostertag

5 Step Grounding Strategy

At any given time I want to reduce a sense of uncertainty and / or overwhelm.

Thse are simply things we're doing already, we're just synergizing their effectiveness

Countering changes in breathing, muscle tension, thoughts racing, vision collapsing, and perspective

Because we have a stress response system with a hair trigger that activates at the sound of a mouse fart, it's important we get especially good at deactivating it.

Figuring out what had been activating it is another story, here I am concerned with the actual process of deactivating it and feeling better to then figure it out better.

1. Patterned Breathing - Mechanically breathe to operate my body in rest / digest mode

2. Muscle Relaxation - Releasing stress stored up in the body as muscle tension

3. Thought Maintenance - Emotions produce thoughts, thoughts produce emotions. Holding my thought stream neutral to flush out my system to experience neutral emotions.

4. Divergent Focus -

A. Holding vision directly forward to prevent my eyes from shifting to memory (left*) or imagination (right*).

B. I'm looking up as opposed to down to produce more optimistic feelings as opposed to pessimistic feelings.

C. Since stress collapses perspective, I'm consciously toggling vision back divergently to help wake up the PreFrontal Cortex.

5. Hope and Gratitude - We can feel hopeless or hopeful as well as entitled or grateful.

A. I'm allowing myself to realize a greater sense of hope in healing and

B. I'm consciously choosing gratitude over entitlement.

COMPONENTS:

1. Patterned Breathing

1a. Diaptragmatic Breathing

1b. Physiological Sigh

2. Muscle Relaxation

2a. Progressive Muscle Relaxation

3. Thought Maintenance

3a. Bring thoughts back into presence, focusing on neutral

3b. Directing the flow of the next round of emotions, flushing my system out to neutral

4. Divergent Focus

4a. Keep eyes directly forward not R/L

4b. Keep eyes at eye level or above

4c. Toggle vision from a zoomed in view of the world to a zoomed out view of the world

5. Hope and Gratitude

5a. I'm allowing myself to realize a greater sense of hope in healing

5b. I'm consciously choosing gratitude over entitlement

Benefits Of Each Step

1. Breathing In Through The Nose

1A. Patterned Breathing / Diaphragmatic Breathing

Benefits of nose breathing

1. Helps stop development of forward head posture

2. Helps body use oxygen in blood stream more efficently

3. Activated the parasympathetic (higher mind) nervous system

1A. Patterned Breathing / Diaphragmatic Breathing

Diaphragmatic Breathing

Diaphragmatic breathing helps shift the body from sympathetic stress activation toward parasympathetic regulation, resulting in lower heart rate, blood pressure, cortisol, anxiety, emotional reactivity, and muscle tension, while improving attention, emotional regulation, cognitive control, and resilience under stress.

1A. Patterned Breathing / Diaphragmatic Breathing

Combining the benefits of Diaphragmatic Breathing with the benefits of the Physiological Sigh for added effectiveness in stress response down-regulation along with higher functioning logical mind up-regulation.

1B. Physiological Sigh

1A. Patterned Breathing / Diaphragmatic Breathing

The physiological sigh rapidly decreases physiological arousal by slowing breathing, activating parasympathetic pathways, improving gas exchange, and interrupting anxiety feedback loops, which often results in reduced anxiety, improved mood, greater emotional regulation, and clearer thinking within minutes.

2. Muscle Relaxaton

1B. Physiological Sigh

3. Thought Maintenance

Progressive Muscle Relaxation reduces muscular tension, sympathetic nervous system activation, heart rate, blood pressure, stress, and anxiety while improving parasympathetic regulation, body awareness, emotional stability, present-moment attention, and perceived control.

3. Thought Maintenance

1B. Physiological Sigh

3. Thought Maintenance

Redirecting attention toward neutral present-moment awareness reduces sympathetic stress activation, rumination, anticipatory anxiety, emotional reactivity, and cognitive distortions while improving parasympathetic regulation, attentional control, emotional stability, cognitive clarity, and meta-awareness.

4A. Divergent Focus Holding my my vision directly forward

Maintaining a stable forward gaze may reduce hypervigilant scanning, autonomic arousal, attentional fragmentation, and sensory overload while supporting grounding, present-moment awareness, attentional stability, and cognitive control.

4B. Divergent Focus

4A. Divergent Focus Holding my my vision directly forward

I haven't found a good enough video to use here yet, perhaps I'll make one. Until then, just know to keep your gaze of your focus at eyelevel or above.

Looking up is shown to produce more optimistic feelings and looking down is shown to produce more pessimistic feelings

* VIEW ON A COMPUTER FOR THE BEST WEBSITE EXPERIENCE *

Calming My System

Core Breathing Pattern To Help Reduce Stress In Real Time

Before Getting Into Anything:

Here is the full strategy I practice:

Components of an effective strategy

Coping Mechanisms

Healthy Coping

Reorienting To The Present Moment

Reorienting To The Present Moment

Reorienting To The Present Moment

Grounding

Reorienting To The Present Moment

Reorienting To The Present Moment

Calming Out Of Survival Mode

Reorienting To The Present Moment

Calming Out Of Survival Mode

Healthy Coping

Healthy Coping

Calming Out Of Survival Mode

Vagus Nerve

Healthy Coping

Healthy Coping

Healthy Coping

Healthy Coping

Healthy Coping

Stress Response Deactivation

5 Step Grounding Strategy

Recovering Present Moment Awareness

5 Step Grounding Strategy

At any given time I want to reduce a sense of uncertainty and / or overwhelm.

Countering changes in breathing, muscle tension, thoughts racing, vision collapsing, and perspective

5 Step Grounding Strategy Print Out

Benefits Of Each Step

1. Breathing In Through The Nose

1A. Patterned Breathing / Diaphragmatic Breathing

1A. Patterned Breathing / Diaphragmatic Breathing

1A. Patterned Breathing / Diaphragmatic Breathing

1A. Patterned Breathing / Diaphragmatic Breathing

1A. Patterned Breathing / Diaphragmatic Breathing

1A. Patterned Breathing / Diaphragmatic Breathing

1A. Patterned Breathing / Diaphragmatic Breathing

1A. Patterned Breathing / Diaphragmatic Breathing

1B. Physiological Sigh

1B. Physiological Sigh

1A. Patterned Breathing / Diaphragmatic Breathing

2. Muscle Relaxaton

1B. Physiological Sigh

3. Thought Maintenance

3. Thought Maintenance

1B. Physiological Sigh

3. Thought Maintenance

4A. Divergent Focus Holding my my vision directly forward

4A. Divergent Focus Holding my my vision directly forward

4A. Divergent Focus Holding my my vision directly forward

4B. Divergent Focus

4A. Divergent Focus Holding my my vision directly forward

4A. Divergent Focus Holding my my vision directly forward

4C. Divergent Focus

4A. Divergent Focus Holding my my vision directly forward

4C. Divergent Focus

5A. Hope

5B. Gratitude

4C. Divergent Focus

5B. Gratitude

5B. Gratitude

5B. Gratitude

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