The rainbow grounding exercise: how to do it
The rainbow exercise is a simple grounding exercise done by looking at colours: you pick a colour in turn and look for something that colour around you, or imagine it. Your attention comes to the colours, to your eyes and to where you are.
Shore has six colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. You take a breath with each colour, and when all six are done, the rainbow is complete.
5-4-3-2-1 grounding: come back through your senses uses your five senses. The rainbow exercise focuses on sight alone, which makes it an option you can do quietly with your eyes in busy or noisy places.
Step by step
There is no hurry; take as long as you like for each colour. In Shore you move on by tapping the screen.
- Pick a colour. At the top of the screen the light of the colour you are looking for swells and shrinks like a breath. Start with red.
- Find it or imagine it. Look for something that colour around you: the spine of a book, a mug, the sky. If you can't find it, you can choose a similar shade or skip the colour.
- Tap and breathe in. When you have found it, or imagined it, tap the screen and take a breath in.
- Breathe out. As you breathe out, the colour flows down the line and settles into its place.
- The next colour. When all six colours are done in turn, the rainbow shows in full.
What you'll see in Shore
At the top of the screen the light of the colour you are looking for swells and shrinks like a breath. When you find it or imagine it, you tap the screen; the colours stack from bottom to top and the rainbow is complete at the end. If you turn sound on, a soft bell plays with each colour.
The moving picture above shows how the exercise looks in Shore.
How does it help?
A simple grounding that uses sight alone. Each colour gives your eyes, or your imagination, a concrete target; searching and finding moves your attention to your senses and your body. Taking a breath with each colour also slows your pace.
Small tips
Look for colours in small things. A red label, a blue pen or a green leaf all count; you don't need to find anything big.
You can also do it with your eyes closed: imagining the colours is part of the exercise. Since you move on by tapping, you can do it quietly without anyone noticing.
If you can't see a colour, sources suggest choosing a similar shade or skipping that colour. In Shore you can skip a colour too.
The screen stays awake during the exercise. Sound is off by default.
Questions people ask
What is the rainbow grounding exercise?
A simple grounding exercise that focuses on sight alone: you find or imagine six colours in turn and take a breath with each.
What if I can't find a colour?
You can choose a similar shade or skip the colour. Imagining it works too.
How is it different from the 5-4-3-2-1 technique?
5-4-3-2-1 uses five senses. The rainbow exercise uses sight alone and adds a breath with each colour.
Do I need an account for Shore?
No. It opens in your browser, with no account and no ads, and once you have opened it, it works offline too.
Research and sources
Sources
- To Write Love on Her Arms — Rainbow Grounding Technique.
twloha.com/content/files/rainbow-grounding-technique.pdf - Abby Medcalf, PhD — Grounding Exercises (clinical handout).
abbymedcalf.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Grounding-Exercises.pdf - Holmes EA, James EL, Coode-Bate T, Deeprose C. Can playing the computer game "Tetris" reduce the build-up of flashbacks for trauma? PLoS ONE, 2009.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2607539/ - Quest Magazine (Theosophical Society) — The Rainbow Body: How the Western Chakra System Came to Be.
www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/the-rainbow-body-how-the-western-chakra-system-came-to-be
Updated: 13 November 2026