Hi, Erin, here with Neurolease®. Today, I want to talk about another coping skill to put in your life's toolbox, and this addresses anxiety. One of the other top things that people ask me about is how to handle overthinking. So I'm going to give you a technique to help block your ability to overthink which lets your brain to make up all kinds of stories. I call it the five of five. It's five things for each of your five senses.

I picked that because sometimes we forget about one of the senses. When we do five of five, it reminds you to be aware of all of your five senses, things that you can see, hear, taste, smell and touch. So simply put, you would look around to find some things in the environment that you could see. Looking for bright colors is really one of the best for helping to ground you.

For example, I see artwork with greens and yellows on it, bright red on the fire extinguisher.

Things that you could taste - if you have water, pick up the water, maybe see if there's minerals in it. Did you put lemon in it? What's the temperature of it?

Things that you could smell- so you can smell all that antibacterial hand soap or sanitizers on your hands. Just please don't lean over and smell the person next to you, that would be weird and then we have a whole different slew of issues! You could smell the fabric softener detergent that's left on your clothes instead.

Things that you can feel- maybe the metal on the chair that I'm sitting on. It's smooth. What's the temperature of the metal, the sensation of the velvet on the seat cushion that I'm sitting on.

For sounds you can think of things at different distances. To hear something really close, I can make a sound. I can tap on something further away, maybe listen to something like air conditioning that you can hear inside the room that you're in, or something maybe further outside. You're just practicing listening to sounds at different distances. Oh, yeah. Another thing I can see is something on the wall that looks like it's coming out of my head. That's pretty interesting.

Anyway, have a great day and make sure to do something fun.

*Adapted from a video recording