How to Ground Yourself in 6 Effective Ways

Adya Sharma
19 Min Read

Post Author

In today’s hectic-busy life, it gets very important to understand how to ground yourself because we live in a time where the world is moving at a pace err that we find it difficult to take a little time for ourselves and have a little moment of peace and self-care. With a scheduled life full of stress and pressure, we tend to suffer from anxiety issues. Grounding oneself means to re-establish oneself by bringing our higher spiritual energies down; grounding helps in finding the mental and emotional stability in our overwhelming schedules of life. It helps in physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually connected to mother earth.

1. What does Being Grounded Mean?

You are grounded“. We often hear the term ‘grounded‘ as a punishment by parents to their children, when their child misbehaves. There is a very common misconception that ‘being grounded’ means a little curfew by parents for their rebellious children. Grounding helps the child to calm down, understand and focus on their surroundings rather than on the things that are making them emotionally tense.

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Grounding means living in the present moment, self-love, self-awareness, or in easy words getting out of the head and getting inside of the body. It creates a positive sense of self and we feel good. It makes us feel light and feel the joy deeply within ourselves.

2. Are You Ungrounded?

We seldom feel ungrounded, when we are unsafe in our physical body. For example, when we lose a loved one; the grief and pain that we suffer, we do not fully function in life. We are not fully present in the moment, we feel anxious, our thoughts get scattered, there is a lot of emotional and mental stress, we become very much vulnerable which causes a lack of confidence and we spend most of our time with no

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ourselves; become intolerant of others, feeling irritated or angry.

2.1. Signs of Being Ungrounded

  • One of the root causes of being ungrounded is when we suffer from anxiety or stress.
  • Lack of focus, feeling spacing, vague, and no concentration.
  • Self-harm and suicidal thoughts.
  • Difficulty in sleeping.
  • Losing control in difficult and different situations.

3. Grounding in the Body

Grounding begins with gaining rootedness in the physical world. Grounding has the same meaning as centering. It includes both body and mind, heart and spirit. Our body needs a balance within its physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual formation, and grounding helps in maintaining that balance.

how to ground yourself
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When we suffer anything traumatic in the past, we often feel the pain and traumatic grief when we think about that insufferable experience, we tend to go back in past in our mind and it gets difficult for us to pull ourselves out of it. Grounding helps us to come out of those traumatic insufferable memories and helps us to reach the present moments and stabilize ourselves. Once you have learned to ground yourself it will be easy to reach the center. Grounding techniques help you to shift the energy in your brain and body. This action can calm you instantly.

Grounding helps us in understanding our conscious and subconscious minds, which helps us to be more present in our bodies.

4. Grounding Techniques

Grounding techniques are very important and helpful for our day-to-day life. If you want to know how to ground yourself, these grounding exercises are easy to follow.

4.1. The 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Method

These five steps grounding methods can be very effective to ground you and relieve you from anxiety and help you to calm down.

Before starting this technique, take long and slow deep breaths; breath in… breathe out… Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth.

i. Step Number 1

Look around and name five things that you can see, out loud. For example, you are in your room and you can see your phone on the bedside, your notebook at the study table, your make-up brush at the dressing table, etc.

ii. Step Number 2

Look around and name four things out loud that you can feel, like the fabric of the clothes that you are wearing, the feel of the metal of the earing that you are wearing, or you can pick something up and feel it.

iii. Step Number 3

how to ground yourself
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The next thing you need to do is name the three things out loud that you can hear. If you are outside, there will be plenty of sounds that you could notice, for example, car honks, the sound of footsteps, etc. And if you are inside, you have to listen very carefully, it can the sound of the ceiling fan, the sound of the gushing wind, or a little murmuring of the people near you.

iv. Step Number 4

The next step is that you need to name two things out loud that you can smell. Now that can be anything, it can be the fragrance of your perfume, the smell of your moisturizer, or the smell of food that is being prepared, etc.

v. Step Number 5

The last step you need to do is, say one thing, out loud that makes you feel good about yourself. Relax your mind, think about that one thing, and then say it out loud.

This is the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Method, this grounding exercise is very helpful, especially when a person goes through an anxiety attack or panic attack, this technique helps the person to calm down. It helps our senses to reconnect with the outside world and be in the present moment.

4.2. The Somatic Grounding Exercise

The Somatic method grounding technique is helpful for the mind and body connection.

how to ground yourself
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  • The first and foremost thing you need to do in this method is to sit on the nearest chair or sofa, remove your slippers, keep your bare feet on the ground and sit straight, relax your mind, and focus on your breaths. Like the first method, take slow, long, and deep breaths and exhale through the nose and mouth.
  • Lower your heels in a way that makes a thud! Sound on touch ng the ground. Ow, lift your heels a little (keep your toes on the ground), lift them for a few seconds, then lower them back on the ground. Repeat this five to six times.
  • Now stretch your toes and then curl them back in. Stretch them again, feel the muscles in your paws stretching and then curl them back in. Repeat it five to six times.
  • Take a deep breath, and let your feet touch the floor; now, your feet are in the sense of stillness and try to sense the area where your feet are connected to the ground and the material of the carpet or the floor. Try to feel a sense of awareness of the temperature of the ground.
  • Slowly bring that sense to the seat, where your lower body is connected. And just like you did with your feet (little movements), move your lower body with your shoulder. Shift your weight side to side, left and right, and do this while sitting on the chair. Move as if you are swaying your body freely, like dancing.
  • Now bring your sense of connection to your neck, relax it and move with the flow of your lower body; sway it freely and feel the grounding effect in your body.
  • Now bring your sense of connection to your jaws, move your lower jaw slowly, and relax.
  • Breathe in and breathe out; breathe in for a few seconds, and then breath out a little longer; pay attention to the sensations you feel in your body. Relax your mind while taking deep breaths and remove all the distressing thoughts from your mind.
  • Now bring back your body slowly-slowly in stillness, decrease the speed of your movement and very slowly bring your body back to stillness.

Somatic Grounding Exercise

 

This grounding exercise assists the person in staying grounded and helps in maintaining the emotional well-being as well as the physical well-being of the body. When we get so caught up in our emotions that all the things around us feel uneasy in several ways or suffer from some trauma and our mind simply focuses on the worst-case scenario, this technique helps a lot.

how to ground yourself
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In scientific language, grounding means “removing the excess electric charge from an object.” “Similarly, “removing excess emotional charge that results in getting lost in the non-physical dimensions of thought” is also known as grounding. With the help of the somatic grounding techniques, when we practice this technique, we are aware of the earth’s energy beneath our feet, allowing it to move up in our bodies and make us fully present at the moment.

4.3. The Barefoot Technique

Our early morning routine matters a lot in our life. Your early morning routine is like a foundation that can make your day either a good day or a bad stressful one.

When you do not have a good morning routine, you feel agitated most of the day, you feel very difficult to focus on your work tasks, and a little overpressure at the workplace can easily push you down, keeping a straight head with a clear mind gets difficult, you feel stressed, and by the end of the day you feel drained out and experience pain in your physical body.

On the contrary, when you have a good morning routine, you feel good and at ease throughout your whole day, and by the end of the day, you do not feel completely drained and can get a good night’s sleep.

This grounding technique, also known as the barefoot technique, can be followed as a daily routine of your daily life. This method includes walking barefoot on the grass while listening to your favorite song; easy, right?

how to ground yourself
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All you have to do is when you wake up in the morning, put your air pods in with your favorite song playing in it or a song that helps you relax, and then go for a walk to the nearest park. Hen you reach the park, please move your shoes and now walk barefoot, keep your whole foot on the ground and be aware yourself of the energy of the earth; let your inner spirit feel it. Breathe in the fresh air, relax your nervous system and enhance your senses, Be aware of how your body feels.

Dance around, walk barefoot and feel nature and the touch of the earth beneath; breathe fresh air, inhale the light and positive energy of nature, taste it; the tingling sensation you experience when walking barefoot on the ground, it feels good. Breathe out all the negative energy, and all the fear, let all your emotions out, clear your head and stand there on the ground for a minute or two; take a moment for yourself and just relax.

4.4. Eating Root Vegetables

Knowing how to ground yourself by eating root vegetables is essential because when root vegetables grow inside the earth, it becomes aware of the earth’s liveliness; eating those vegetables that grow inside the earth’s surface helps us connect with the earth’s energy. 

how to ground yourself
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Some important root vegetables are:

4.5. Interact

If you are an introvert, you might not like this grounding technique, you love your personal space, but if you want to know how to ground yourself, you have to trust the process. So, in the grounding technique, all you have to do is to spend time with grounded people. Now, you might have a question how would you know whether a certain individual is grounded? The answer is simple, pay attention, look around yourself and acknowledge your surroundings; you will easily know whether a certain individual is grounded.

When a person is grounded, it is very much present in their behavior. All you have to do is hold your palm and try to feel the energy within it. Rounded people see some positive energy within themselves. They are connected to the earth, so when an ungrounded person spends time with a grounded person, it is very beneficial for the ungrounded person.

Grounded people tend to have a positive aura around them which is very beneficial for the people around them; even by standing close to a grounded person, you will notice that you can also feel a connection of stability within yourself.

4.6. Tone

Toning is very simple and can be a very effective grounding method when you are grounding yourself because when you are toning, you are stimulating your root chakra. The root chakra is the center of your spine, which controls the stability of your senses. So, when you are toning, you use your voice and stimulate your senses to attain stability.

How to ground yourself by using the tone method? Start humming at a high tone, then go low. You will feel the vibrations in your throat when you are humming, you will see that vibration going down in your body, you will see the vibrating sensation in your neck, then it will move down, you will feel it in your chest, and then you will feel that vibrating sensation in your stomach.

You want to move that vibrating sensation in your whole body, legs, and palm. Feel the humming and vibrations moving down in your whole body, and try to hold it there for a moment and hum.

how to ground yourself
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay/Copyright 2022

Your whole body is aware of the sensation, and now it is moving towards your root chakra ahis vibration will slowly-slowly stimulate your root chakra, which will stimulate the stability of your senses and a balance within your mind and your body.

5. Conclusion

It is no joke when people say that human life has now become a full-time working machine because it is true. Humans have now molded themselves into a lifestyle where ‘wake-up, eat, work, sleep and repeat’ has become our way of living. This kind of living causes us to lose control over ourselves; when faced with any problem or stress-causing situation, we lose control and become drained or anxious.

how to ground yourself
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With these grounding techniques, once you have learned how to ground yourself, you learn to control yourself; no external force or outer circumstances could affect your inner spirit or inner peace. You will start spending time with yourself and feel the moments of delight. Grounding methods help you to overcome your anxiety. It will help you to attain the stability of your senses and the stability within your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual body.

Last Updated on by Himani Rawat

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