Enjoy This Week’s CommonHealth Weekly Wellnote

The 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Technique to Reduce Anxiety. Most of us have experienced anxiety during a public speaking event, performance review or when taking on new job responsibilities. Personal and work-related situations can cause even the calmest person to feel a little stressed.

This five-step exercise can be very helpful during periods of anxiety or panic by helping build the technique to ground yourself in the present moment. First, pay attention to your breathing, with slow, deep breaths, then go through the following steps to help ground yourself:

5: Acknowledge FIVE things you see around you. 
4: Acknowledge FOUR things you can touch around you. 
3: Acknowledge THREE things you hear. 
2: Acknowledge TWO things you can smell. 
1: Acknowledge ONE thing you can taste. 

Use this video as a step-by-step guide to help you ground yourself in the present moment when your mind is bouncing between anxious thoughts.

For questions regarding this week’s communication or the CommonHealth program, please reach out to your respective campus coordinator below:

Alexandria – Kathy Clement  (kclement@nvcc.edu) or Najeeb Baha (nbaha@nvcc.edu)
Annandale – Regina Sanders (rlsanders@nvcc.edu)
Fairfax/College Staff – Dahlia Henry- Tett (dhtett@nvcc.edu)
Loudoun – Sheila Escobedo (sescobedo@nvcc.edu)
Manassas – ThuyTien Ngo-Nguyen (tngonguyen@nvcc.edu)
Springfield Medical Education Campus (MEC):  Beverly Tsikata  (btsikata@nvcc.edu)
Woodbridge – Georgette Harris  (gsharris@nvcc.edu)

Submitted by:
Dahlia Henry-Tett, HR-Chief Wellness Officer, DHTett@nvcc.edu