Grounding for the Drive Home

The drive home carries whatever happened during the day straight into your front door, unless you do something deliberate with it first. A few minutes of grounding before you pull out of the parking lot, or at a red light, can create a small buffer between work and home, so that switching off after work does not have to wait until bedtime.

This is a practical, everyday application of the same sensory grounding principles used more generally for anxiety and overwhelm. Grounding, orienting attention to what you can currently see, feel, and hear, is a recognised technique in trauma-informed clinical guidelines for interrupting an overwhelmed or ruminating state, and it works just as well aimed at the actual road in front of you as it does in a clinical setting.

Keep it simple while you are driving. Naming three or four things you notice, out loud or in your head, is enough. This is not the moment for a longer, eyes-closed practice. If you get home before you manage to put the day down, the body scan for the end of the working day finishes the job.