You are in a parents' meeting, on the train, in a waiting room. And you notice yourself drifting. Voices go muffled, everything is suddenly behind glass, your own body feels far away. Getting up and leaving would be the obvious thing, and it isn't possible.
This exercise is made for exactly that. You press firmly, hold, let go. Three times, about twenty seconds each. In the app, Firmly grounded takes you through the pressure moments with rhythm and voice. Here is the same exercise to read up on.
Why it works
Under overload the body turns itself down. That is not imagination but the start of shutdown or meltdown: the perception of your own body, interoception, gets weaker and many neurodivergent people have it dampened to begin with.
Firm pressure is the loudest signal the body knows. When you tense muscles hard, the deep sensors in joints, tendons and muscles report back, proprioception. That feedback arrives even when hearing and seeing are too much right now. The body becomes locatable again and the nervous system drops a gear.
And then the reason this exercise is here rather than a breathing one: it is invisible. No deep exhale, no closed eyes, no hand on the belly. You are just sitting there.
What it gives you
It brings you back into your body, in under a minute, in the middle of people. Afterwards you are not relaxed but present again and in that situation, that is the goal.
What it is not: relaxation. Tensing doesn't relax, it grounds. If you have time to yourself afterwards, Muscle relaxation is the fitting second step.
Step by step
1. Sit down or stay standing
Either works. If you are sitting, put your feet flat on the floor. That is all the preparation, and you don't have to tell anyone you are doing something.
The full text is in the app
In bloomnow you get the whole article, together with the exercises that belong to it. The app launches soon. Leave your address and we will write to you at launch.
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