6 Grounding Methods From a Meditation Practitioner

“After studying to meditate, I felt a lightness and pleasure return to my day-to-day that I hadn’t felt in years,” she says. Her need to study extra about meditation resulted in her taking a one-year sabbatical in 2016 the place she studied in India earlier than opening her personal follow in 2017. Vedic meditation is rooted within the Vedas, the traditional Indian custom that is additionally the idea for yoga and Ayurveda, an historic, holistic medication follow that originated in India. Because of this, lots of Chen’s grounding strategies are conventional Ayurvedic practices.

Beneath, Chen shares extra on why it is vital to have grounding strategies you may flip to and divulges the six that she makes use of to remain grounded herself.

Why grounding strategies are useful

To grasp why feeling grounded is vital, simply contemplate what it is prefer to really feel ungrounded. Take into consideration while you simply really feel like your consideration is being pulled in one million instructions, and like you may’t focus. “It is feeling unsettled in your physique and thoughts,” Chenb says.

To make certain, it’s very regular to really feel excited, however when in case you begin to really feel unmoored usually and even more often than not, it may be overwhelming. Grounding practices are a method of infusing some calm into your life. “Any follow of grounding will take the thoughts and physique from a state of what we’d name disorderliness or disarray, or probably the most excited state, and start to deliver the physique right into a extra calm state,” Chen explains.

“Any follow of grounding will take the thoughts and physique from a state of what we’d name disorderliness or disarray, or probably the most excited state, and start to deliver the physique right into a extra calm state.”—meditation skilled Susan Chen

There are quite a few grounding strategies, and you are able to do whichever ones curiosity and go well with you greatest. Meditation, yoga, and breathwork for grounding are all methods to create calm and peace inside the chaos. Particular patterns, just like the 5 senses grounding ritual or 54321 grounding method, are one other approach you possibly can anchor your self. Even mendacity on the ground is an choice. The important thing, Chen says, is to search out no matter works greatest for you.

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6 grounding strategies that meditation skilled Susan Chen makes use of every day

1. Day by day Vedic meditation

The core tenet of Chen’s grounding follow is her every day meditation follow. Vedic meditation, which relies on the traditional Veda texts, entails a twice-daily mantra-led meditation. Chen begins her morning with a 20-minute meditation, after which does one later within the day, too. “[Vedic meditation] is a approach of systematically taking the thoughts and physique into the deepest degree of stillness that one can expertise outdoors of sleep, and that have of deep calm and restfulness has a carryover impact in all of these different hours of the day that you simply’re not meditating,” she says. “It simply offers us that additional buffer of relaxation and nourishment as a result of our stress does not take a time off.”

2. Sticking to a every day routine

Sticking to her established routine more often than not is one other approach Chen grounds herself. The well being advantages of routines are nicely established; routines might help set you up for fulfillment by guaranteeing you do all it is advisable do to get correct sleep and motion, plus handle stress. Chen says establishing and sticking to a routine is a tenet of Ayurveda, as nicely. “A standard and common routine is likely one of the greatest methods to ‘floor’ from a preventative perspective,” she says.

3. Sipping heat liquids

Heat drinks like water and tea are all the time inside Chen’s arm’s attain, and he or she sips on them all through the day. The nice and cozy liquid has a chilled and soothing impact. Consuming heat liquids is an Ayurvedic follow, however Chen says we will look to our personal lives for why this works, too. “There’s this smart knowledge that comes from our moms and grandmothers the place we all know consuming heat, comforting meals is absolutely good for grounding,” she says.

4. Giving herself heat oil massages

Chen’s mornings begin with Abhyangha, or a heat oil therapeutic massage. The Ayurvedic follow refers to overlaying the physique with oils and is related to diminished stress and calm. As Rooshy Roy, co-founder and CEO of Ayurvedic skin-care model Aavrani beforehand informed Effectively+Good, “In Ayurveda, well being comes from a balanced state, and the discharge from this therapeutic massage helps to reset power and return the physique to an optimally balanced state.” That is precisely why Chen prioritizes this every morning, she says.

Utilizing lengthy strokes to rub the nice and cozy oil throughout her physique, Chen leaves it on for eight minutes earlier than washing it off within the bathe. “It feels prefer it offers my nervous system a further layer of armor and resiliency for the day and it is like an enormous heat hug in your entire physique,” she says. Within the spring and summer season she makes use of coconut oil, and sesame oil within the colder seasons.

5. Performing solar salutation

Solar salutations, or surya namaskar, are one other key piece in Chen’s toolbox of grounding strategies, and one she peppers all through her day. That means to bow to the solar in Sanskrit, the sequence of yoga poses is rooted in historic traditions. The calming and stress-relieving results, mixed with light bodily actions, make the foundational yoga transfer considered one of Chen’s most popular strategies to floor herself. “It’s an effective way to attach the thoughts and physique, and it may be finished at any time of the day,” she says.

She does a number of solar salutations every morning, however will even do one at any level within the day if she feels it’s crucial as a sample interrupt or an motion that indicators to her thoughts it is time to transition actions.

Check out the beneath routine to discover ways to incorporate solar salutations into your day:

6. Earthing

Think about the calm feeling that rushes over you while you stand or lie barefoot within the grass—in case you’re acquainted, you could have tried earthing, one other of Chen’s favourite grounding strategies. Earthing, which has its roots in a number of cultural traditions, is strictly what it seems like—bodily touching the earth and reaping the advantages of your physique’s connection to it. Whether or not finished standing barefoot or mendacity down, earthing is about permitting your physique’s ions to attach with these on the earth to provide a sense of calm.

Earthing has been related to diminished stress and irritation. Chen makes use of this as a sample interrupt when she’s feeling notably ungrounded. “The connection of the soles of your ft to the bottom is actually grounding, and cultivating the connection will get us within the current second,” she says. “It’s like, ‘let me simply floor myself onto the earth and begin to really feel a bit of little bit of leisure from that.’”