How to calm down through grounding?

Your mind is going in circles (for whatever reason)? Grounding can help you to calm down, connect to the earth and to your body.

As human beings, one of our super powers is that we feel everything – if we allow ourselves to feel – but then we can still use our rationality and logic to react to those feelings. At least we can try. There are situations or days where it seems impossible to apply logical thinking. Maybe because we just received some bad news. We have a flashback of an unpleasant event in the past. Or maybe it’s just many little things that happened and our mind can’t help but move like a rollercoaster. “Why…”, “How…”, “What…” We keep asking ourselves questions, we keep thinking, pictures come flashing in our mind, it gets too much. The ones who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or anxiety, unfortunately know these moments too well. What might help is to use the technique of grounding or “earthing” to connect to the ground, to calm down our nervous system, to “get back” into our body, out of our mind. There are many different techniques of grounding (see the last paragraph), I personally love these 3:

1. Physical grounding through our feet
   Stand or sit straight and if you can: quit your shoes. Focus on your bare feet on the floor, wherever you are. If you can’t quite your shoes, you can do the exercise with your shoes on too (eg. in the office). Close your eyes. Press both feet into the ground/your shoes as much as you can, as if you were a tree who wanted to connect even further to its roots. Then release the tension in your feet. Now press only your right foot into the ground, feel the pressure. Release the right foot. Now press your left foot into the ground and feel the pressure. Release your left foot. Now repeat the exercise with both feet. Press both feet into the ground. Release both. Then the right, then the left. See if your breath has slowed down a bit. If you can: Close your mouth and breath through your nose. Now do the same exercise and accompany it with your breathing. Inhale when you press your foot into the ground. Exhale when you release your foot (and exhale a bit longer than you inhale). See how you feel.
   In general: Walk barefoot as much as you can. Quit those socks at home. Connect whenever you can to the ground.
   
   
2. Mindful grounding
   Use your senses to connect to your surroundings. What do you see? What do you hear? What can you touch? What do you smell? What do you taste? You can try the famous “5-4-3-2-1 method” where you focus on:
   • 5 things you can see
   • 4 things you can hear
   • 3 things you can touch
   • 2 things you can smell
   • 1 thing you can taste

Or you can take 1 object eg. a fruit, a nut, a raisin, a chewing gum etc. and observe it from all angles with your 5 senses. At last you might want to taste it. But it can also be a non-comestible object of course like a tree, a flower, an environment, an object in your office or your car etc. It doesn’t matter. Focus on it completely and try to describe it to yourself: “I see…”, “I hear…”, “I touch…” For more insights on mindfulness, click here.

3. Compassionate grounding
This is one of my favourite techniques as it’s based on self-love and self-kindness, and I truly think this is our path to allow ourselves to “be completely human” and live according to our authentic, true self. The idea is to say a soothing phrase full of love and I recommend you to say it at least 10 times out loud or write it down (alternatively, you can say it in your mind). I will share some of the examples that help me personally but please create the phrase that feels good for yourself:

• I allow myself to feel everything. My body is wise and I trust it will help me to calm down.
• This is a difficult moment but I know it will go by. This is only temporary. I’m going to be OK.
• I love myself for trying. I’m doing the best I can.

I really hope you try one or all of these techniques and I would love to read your comments how you felt with them. If you want to learn or try more grounding techniques, I recommend you the following article: https://www.healthline.com/health/grounding-techniques#soothing-techniques