5 EMDR-Inspired Exercises You Can Do at Home
If you’ve ever experienced anxiety, intrusive thoughts, or stress that feels difficult to shake, you know that healing isn’t always a purely mental process. Sometimes, your body holds on to distress even when your mind understands that you’re safe.
This is one of the key insights behind Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy — a powerful, evidence-based approach designed to help people heal from trauma, anxiety, and overwhelming experiences.
While EMDR therapy itself should always be guided by a trained clinician, there are EMDR-inspired exercises you can safely practice at home to support emotional regulation, strengthen grounding, and enhance self-awareness between sessions.
In this post, we’ll explore five simple yet effective exercises based on EMDR principles — and how integrating these tools into your daily life can help you feel calmer, more balanced, and more connected to yourself
Understanding the Foundations of EMDR
EMDR works by helping your brain reprocess distressing memories that have become “stuck.” During sessions, a therapist guides you through bilateral stimulation — such as eye movements, tapping, or auditory tones — while recalling specific memories or sensations.
This process activates both hemispheres of the brain, allowing your nervous system to integrate the memory in a way that reduces emotional intensity and restores a sense of safety.
Outside the therapy room, you can use EMDR-inspired techniques to:
Calm your nervous system
Practice grounding when you feel triggered
Build emotional resilience between sessions
Reconnect with your body’s natural sense of stability
These practices don’t replace EMDR therapy, but they can enhance your overall healing process.
Why EMDR-Inspired Exercises Help
The effectiveness of EMDR comes from its ability to engage both the mind and the body in healing. By combining mindfulness, bilateral stimulation, and grounding, EMDR-inspired exercises can:
Reduce stress and anxiety in real time
Strengthen your capacity for self-regulation
Create neural patterns of calm and safety
Help process minor stressors before they compound
Think of these exercises as maintenance for your nervous system — small, intentional actions that help your body remember what calm feels like.
1. The Butterfly Hug
Best for: grounding and emotional regulation
The Butterfly Hug is one of the most well-known EMDR-inspired techniques. It was developed by EMDR clinicians as a self-soothing tool after traumatic events. It combines bilateral stimulation with deep breathing to calm the body’s stress response.
How to practice:
Sit comfortably and cross your arms over your chest so that each hand rests on the opposite upper arm or shoulder.
Begin to tap alternately — left, right, left, right — at a slow, rhythmic pace.
As you tap, take slow, deep breaths and focus on the sensation of your hands.
Continue tapping for one to two minutes, or until you feel more grounded.
Why it works: The alternating movement engages both hemispheres of your brain, promoting a sense of balance and relaxation. It’s especially effective when you feel anxious, overwhelmed, or disconnected from your body.
Helpful tip: Pair the Butterfly Hug with an affirmation, such as “I am safe right now” or “This moment will pass,” to strengthen the grounding effect.
2. Bilateral Music or Tapping
Best for: easing anxiety and enhancing emotional balance
In EMDR therapy, bilateral stimulation often occurs through eye movements. At home, you can use bilateral sound or gentle self-tapping to achieve a similar calming effect.
How to practice with music:
Use headphones to listen to bilateral music, which alternates sound between the left and right ear.
Sit or lie comfortably and focus on the rhythm, noticing how your body feels as the sounds move back and forth.
How to practice with tapping:
Gently tap your thighs or shoulders alternately — left, right, left, right — while taking slow breaths.
You can do this while listening to calming music or during moments of stress to bring your focus back to the present.
Why it works: Bilateral stimulation helps the brain integrate information more effectively and supports emotional regulation. It also helps interrupt looping or racing thoughts.
Helpful tip: Bilateral tapping can be done discreetly anywhere — during a stressful commute, at your desk, or before a difficult conversation.
3. Safe or Calm Place Visualization
Best for: creating a sense of safety and emotional stability
In EMDR, therapists often help clients develop a “Safe Place” — a mental image of a calming environment that evokes comfort and security. Practicing this visualization at home can help you regulate emotions and strengthen your ability to self-soothe.
How to practice:
Find a quiet space where you won’t be disturbed.
Close your eyes and picture a place — real or imagined — where you feel calm and at ease. It could be a beach, forest, or cozy room.
Engage your senses:
What do you see?
What sounds are present?
What textures or temperatures do you feel?
What scents are in the air?
Once the image feels vivid, pair it with gentle bilateral tapping or slow breathing.
Why it works: This visualization activates the same neural pathways associated with calm and safety, helping your body shift out of survival mode.
Helpful tip: Create a keyword (like “beach” or “peace”) to anchor this image. Saying it quietly can help you return to the calm feeling even when you can’t close your eyes.
4. The Container Exercise
Best for: managing intrusive thoughts or overwhelming emotions
Sometimes emotions or memories surface at inconvenient times — like when you’re at work, trying to sleep, or driving. The Container Exercise, used in EMDR preparation phases, helps you temporarily set aside distressing material so it doesn’t interfere with your day.
How to practice:
Close your eyes and imagine a container — it could be a box, chest, vault, or digital folder.
Picture yourself placing any unwanted thoughts, feelings, or images into the container.
Once everything is inside, visualize locking it securely.
Remind yourself that you can return to it later in therapy, but for now, it’s safely contained.
Why it works: This exercise teaches your brain that you can control when and how you engage with distressing material. It reinforces emotional boundaries and enhances your sense of safety.
Helpful tip: Combine this visualization with gentle bilateral tapping to help your body reinforce the sense of closure and control.
5. Dual Awareness: One Foot in the Present, One in the Past
Best for: managing triggers and staying grounded during flashbacks or anxiety
One of the key skills EMDR helps develop is dual awareness — the ability to notice a past memory or emotion while staying anchored in the present. Practicing this at home helps your nervous system differentiate between then and now.
How to practice:
When you notice a trigger or distressing memory, pause and name it: “A memory is coming up.”
Gently remind yourself: “That happened in the past. I’m here in the present.”
Look around the room and identify three things you can see and three things you can feel (for example, your feet on the floor or your hands on your lap).
If helpful, begin light bilateral tapping on your thighs or upper arms to help your body feel grounded in the here and now.
Why it works: This technique builds cognitive and emotional separation between past and present. It helps prevent re-traumatization by allowing the brain to re-engage its rational, present-focused networks.
Helpful tip: Practice this even when you’re not triggered. The more you rehearse grounding while calm, the easier it becomes during distress.
Combining These Practices for Daily Regulation
You don’t need to do all five exercises every day. Instead, consider them part of a self-regulation toolkit — tools you can draw on depending on what your body and mind need.
For example:
Use Box or Coherent Breathing (from previous posts) in the morning to set the tone for calm.
Try the Butterfly Hug during stressful moments.
Practice your Safe Place Visualization before bed to help your body relax.
Over time, these practices can retrain your nervous system to find safety more quickly and stay balanced longer.
What to Expect When Practicing EMDR-Inspired Techniques
Just like therapy, self-regulation takes practice. You may notice that these exercises:
Calm your body within a few minutes
Help you recover faster from emotional triggers
Increase your awareness of subtle bodily sensations
Bring up unexpected memories or emotions (which is normal)
If strong emotions arise, that’s a sign your system is releasing energy — but it’s also important to have support. Ground yourself using slow breathing, or reach out to a therapist trained in EMDR to process deeper material safely.
How EMDR Therapy Deepens the Process
While EMDR-inspired exercises can help you feel grounded, EMDR therapy itself goes a step further by addressing the root cause of distress.
Here’s how it complements your at-home work:
1. Reprocessing Stuck Memories
In therapy, EMDR helps the brain reprocess past experiences that still trigger emotional or physical reactions. This allows your nervous system to file them away as resolved memories, freeing you from automatic responses.
2. Expanding Your Window of Tolerance
As you process past pain, your nervous system becomes more flexible — meaning you can handle stress without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down.
3. Strengthening Emotional Regulation
EMDR helps integrate both hemispheres of the brain, which supports a more balanced emotional response to life’s challenges.
4. Supporting Physical Wellbeing
Because trauma and stress are stored in the body, EMDR often improves sleep, digestion, and chronic tension as the nervous system resets.
The Role of Individual Therapy
While EMDR targets the deeper roots of trauma, individual therapy supports your ongoing emotional growth and self-understanding. It offers:
A safe space to explore current stressors
Guidance on integrating new coping tools
Support for relationships, work-life balance, and daily stress
Many clients find that combining individual therapy with EMDR leads to comprehensive healing — where emotional, physical, and relational wellbeing align.
Creating a Sustainable Healing Plan
If you’re practicing EMDR-inspired techniques at home, remember: progress isn’t about perfection. It’s about cultivating moments of calm and presence, one breath and one tap at a time.
Over weeks or months, you may notice:
More ease in your body
Reduced startle responses
Improved focus and emotional clarity
Greater ability to self-soothe after stress
If you’d like to go deeper, EMDR therapy can help you release the root layers of distress that breathing and grounding alone can’t fully reach.
Taking the Next Step
If you’re interested in exploring EMDR or deepening your self-regulation skills, I offer EMDR therapy and individual psychotherapy for clients in Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Orinda, Danville, Pleasant Hill, Concord, San Ramon, and Alamo.
Together, we’ll create a tailored approach that integrates evidence-based trauma work with compassionate, practical tools for daily life — helping you reconnect with a sense of calm, confidence, and control.
Ready to Begin?
Reach out today to schedule a consultation or learn more about how EMDR and therapy can help you move beyond survival mode and into a life grounded in peace and resilience.