8 Steps of Body Awareness: a guided grounding practice
Body awareness helps bring your attention back to the present moment by focusing on simple physical sensations. Moving and noticing your body can help calm racing thoughts and reconnect you with the here-and-now.
Free to try · Responses are private & encrypted
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What does the 8 Steps Of Body Awareness Activity cover?
- Three slow breaths
- Feeling your feet on the ground
- Rolling your shoulders
- Clenching and releasing your hands
- Pressing your palms together
- Stretching your arms upward
- Scanning your body from head to toe
- Noticing how you feel now
Who is this 8 Steps Of Body Awareness Activity for?
Helpful if you:
🌀 Get lost in racing thoughts
😰 Feel disconnected from your body when stressed
🧘 Want a simple grounding routine that uses movement
For therapists:
Assign 8 Steps of Body Awareness as a grounding skill for clients with anxiety, dissociation or racing thoughts. Practise it in session first so it is familiar when needed, and include it in any grounding plan. Fully HIPAA and GDPR compliant.
Dr Harriet Mellotte
Clinical Psychologist & CBT Therapist, BABCP
“Offload is a fantastic resource for both clients and therapists. The world of CBT has been lacking an app which enables the sharing of CBT worksheets and homework tasks between clients and therapists, but Offload completely does this, making the service we offer more professional and the benefits to clients greater.”
Are you a therapist?
Assign this therapy tool and 200+ other interactive tools directly to your clients. Build personalised care plans, customise tools, and review client responses before sessions. HIPAA and GDPR compliant.
Explore Offload for therapistsReferences
Mehling, W. E., et al. (2009). Body awareness: A phenomenological inquiry into the common ground of mind–body therapies. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine. Explores how body awareness improves emotional regulation and wellbeing. Farb, N. A. S., Segal, Z. V., & Anderson, A. K. (2013). Mindfulness meditation training alters cortical representations of interoceptive attention. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. Shows that focusing attention on bodily sensations strengthens brain networks linked to self-regulation. Khoury, B., et al. (2015). Mindfulness-based therapy: A comprehensive meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review. Finds mindfulness practices that include body awareness significantly reduce anxiety, depression, and stress.
