What Is Grounding, And What Grounding Practices Can You Observe?

Our modern world is one of constant mental and physical stimulation from every direction. If we aren’t finding ourselves distracted by television and the news, we’re finding ourselves often overstimulated by the constant flow of information that populates the internet, and our mobile devices.

Being constantly overstimulated can very quickly lead to heightened anxiety and prolonged stress in everyday life.

It can seem totally impossible at times to escape from the endless ebb and flow of our ever-connected world, leaving us feeling helpless; a prisoner to our own anxieties.

Luckily, through the use of grounding practices, you can help to rewire your brain to focus the mind inward, cutting it off from the endless barrage of stimulants, helping you to relax and prioritize your mental health.

You’re probably here because you’ve heard whispers of the benefits of grounding, and now you’re looking to find out how you can use it yourself, to refocus your mind, and bring back balance to your world. 

Prepare to enter a whole new world of ‘Zen’, because today we are dedicating ourselves to showing you everything you need to know about grounding and how to practice it!

What Is Grounding?

So, you’ve heard that grounding is supposed to help bring calm to your mind, but how exactly does it work? What does grounding do that is so special? 

At its most basic, the practice of grounding refers to being true to yourself and your sense of calm even in the most stressful of situations, or in the face of uncertainty.

This can seem like an impossible and lofty goal for some, but with grounding practices, you can bring yourself to this state of calm.

With grounding techniques, you can focus your mind on your internal world, such as your emotions and your thoughts, relinquishing the control that the chaos of external forces can sometimes exert over our minds.

With frequent practice of grounding techniques, you can learn to not be upset by external events outside of your control, and remain focused on the thoughts and feelings that you can control! 

When Should You Use Grounding Techniques?

The best thing about grounding techniques is that you can use them anywhere, whenever you need them, as they are simply ways of refocusing the mind. 

Some grounding techniques are designed to be done over a prolonged period of time to help keep the mind in a state of frequent calm, while others are designed to be used in moments whenever we encounter high stress.

These can be great for those suffering from anxiety disorders who may find their anxiety levels skyrocketing at short notice! 

Why don’t we take a look at these grounding techniques now?

Forms Of Grounding Techniques

Meditation

Meditation is one of the most well-known grounding techniques in the world, but many often overlook the many benefits that meditation can bring for mental health thanks to its grounding properties. 

Many people who attempt meditation as a form of grounding actually find themselves giving up quite quickly because they don’t see results right away, so it is important to make sure that you are patient with yourself, and that you find even just a few minutes to observe meditation in your day.

Even if you can only dedicate 10 minutes to your meditation to start, that should be more than enough.

In order to meditate, simply find yourself a comfortable and quiet area to relax, away from the stimulants of everyday life, and focus on your mind and your imagination.

Feel free to close your eyes as you do this, to keep your mind from being distracted. If you do become distracted, don’t beat yourself up, just notice that you are being distracted, and bring your mind back to focus. 

When meditating, you will want to focus your mind on some specific images that help you to visualize your grounding. This can take any form, provided you are visualizing your energy focusing inwards.

A popular technique is to visualize a shield wrapping around your inner being, protecting your internal energy from all external threats.

This creates an unconscious feeling that your sense of self is protected from the outside world, and it is simply relaxing to focus your mind on such a pleasant and calming image.

As you become more skilled with meditation, you will be able to meditate for longer periods, but make sure to start small to begin with! 

Journaling

It can be easy to overlook the mental health benefits that journaling can bring to your everyday life! This is a technique that is best observed over a long period of time, helping your mind to focus on what matters, allowing you to more easily remain calm. 

Journaling can be used to help your mind to recognize patterns and observable and objective facts. Often in our modern world, it can be easy to find our minds worrying about unobservable stresses and hypothetical situations.

Journaling helps your mind to focus on what is present, which keeps you grounded. 

Journaling is great for releasing the stresses of the day, and also for training your brain to focus on the things that matter, and the things that you can control and affect, which keeps your mind from worrying about things that don’t matter to you, keeping you much calmer in the long run.

When journaling, you will want to think about things that have brought joy in your day, and write them down. Make sure to also take some time to write about some of the things that have brought your stress during the day.

Doing this will help your mind to more easily identify stressors in your daily life, so that you can then work to remedy them, rather than let your mind spiral! 

There are so many journaling prompts that you can use to help your grounding, so make sure to search the web for some interesting ones! 

Earthing

Provided you have access to a patch of lawn, one great way to ground your mind is to take off your socks and shoes, and feel the ground beneath your toes.

It may sound fantastical, but feeling the connection between your skin and the natural world helps you to feel more rooted in nature, which focuses your mind. 

This practice brings you out of your mind, which takes your attention away from external stressors, and causes you to focus on your physical experience of the world around you, which in turn helps you to feel much more relaxed! 

Even if you can’t afford to run out into your backyard and throw off your shoes, you can still observe this in your current surroundings. All you need to do is focus on your physical experiences.

Focus on the way your breath feels as you slowly breathe in and out. Notice the smells in the air, and the feel of your fingers on the closest surface.

This helps to anchor you to the real world, and can be great for helping to stop your mind from spiraling into stressful thoughts.

If you are prone to disassociating in everyday life, make sure to make use of earthing whenever you notice your mind becoming susceptible to negative thought patterns.

Self-Soothing

One of the best ways to ground yourself is to focus on physical relaxation! When we find our minds becoming stressed out, it naturally lights up our fight-or-flight response, which puts the nervous system on edge, making us hyper vigilant, and even very tired! 

If you notice yourself becoming very high strung, it can be very beneficial to pull yourself away from the situation at hand,and allow your body to relax!

Even something as simple as reclining on your couch, or putting on your favorite comfy clothes can go a long way towards  soothing your body physically, which helps you to slowly regain control of your mind! 

Whatever it is that helps you to relax physically and mentally is worth doing to help you to ground yourself.

Affirmations

Affirmations are amazing little memorable phrases that you can repeat to yourself whenever you find yourself needing to be grounded, or you otherwise need to relax your mind.

Affirmations can be as simple or as complex as you need them to be, and they can help your mind to focus on repeating the words, which helps your mind to flush out all of the negative and unhelpful thoughts. 

Affirmations can be whatever you want them to be, but generally you want them to reinforce positive connotations and thoughts and create a sense of protection that helps to ground you. 

Popular affirmations include simple phrases like “You are not alone”, or “It’s okay to not be okay”. These not only help to focus your mind, but help to subconsciously reinforce the affirmations you are repeating.

To Wrap Up

Grounding is becoming an increasingly important tool in many people’s everyday lives, as it helps to deal with stress, and promote better mental health. 

Try practicing any number of these techniques everyday, or simply whenever you find yourself in need of positive reinforcement.

Frequently Asked Questions