Grounding techniques for anxiety and five pillars of health
Peace of mind is key to our well-being these weeks. Stress directly impacts our physical health and spine. We watch TV, read the magazines, listen to the radio. Some of us read the articles online. Furthermore we want to know what happens in Ukraine, how they kope with the situation of war. What’s more, the images and stories described stay in our imagination and influence us. As a result, some feel stress and overwhelm. There are numerous ways to help oneself feel better: psychotherapy, drugs, cold baths and there are grounding techniques for anxiety.
This is the time to take good care of yourself. Lastly, if your heart is filled with sorrow, attention and worries about people in Ukraine, the general state of the world, the place to start to feel good again, is within yourself. In this article we continue our story from the previous post. There we described the chakras, the energy centers in human body. The healthy chakras are based on grounding.
The first of the chakras in human body, Muladhara, is the root chakra, responsible for grounding, feeling of safety, stability and solidity. In addition, in our previous article, we mentioned the exercises (top grounding techniques for anxiety) you can do to heal and strengthen it. Furthermore, it is closely connected to how everything and anything manifests in your life.
Simplicity
Through a few simple physical exercises you strengthen the sense of self and being in your body. This is your home and center for inner stability. First, you do it through focusing on your legs. The first chakra helps you find your way through stressful situations. Stress, according to Dr Dean Ornish (founder of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, and a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco ) is one of four key aspects shaping our health. In addition to his system, we added sleep, as the fifth pillar of health.
Five pillars of human health
What shapes our lives, according to dr Ornish then?
- The food you eat
- The quality of your sleep (our addition)
- Your physical activity
- Support and love you receive from your close ones
- Your reaction to stress
The more balanced each of the areas is, the greater the life you lead. Besides, imagine, if one of the pillars breaks, you still have four. For example, if for some reason you are stressed out, but eat healthy food, exercise, and feel love from your close ones, you can combat the negative feelings rather fast. Equally important, sleep is also a factor that greatly affects your emotional life. To discover revolutionary information about sleep, visit our page Grounding and sleep
Grounding, Hugs, Morning exercise, Remove things
Grounding is a miracle drug. It is simple and accessible. As the fundamental things should be, like… hugs! Each of the four categories singled out by dr Ornish have something you can do right now to influence the results in your life. Furthermore, if what dr Ornish says is true, we should focus on doing the things that support the stability of the areas he described. Like four legs of a table.
What truly amazes us at EcoHealthLab, is the fact, that grounding is present in each of the areas mentioned by the doctor. It directly influences them. If you are properly stable, you can heal your body, crave better food, want to exercise. Moreover, grounding techniques for anxiety seem to be one of the simplest and most important issues in our lives.
1. LOVE and support
Love and support fully nurtures you through close relationships, family and friends. According to research, persons who are alone are more likely to experience heart attacks, depression and mental illnesses. Further, what you may start doing at once, is to hug those close to you on a daily basis. An American psychotherapist, Virginia Satir, caunted, that we need daily:
- 4 hugs to live normally
- 8 to be healthy
- and 12 hugs to be creative and experience growth (each of the hugs should last for at least 10 seconds).
If you are alone, do not despair. Just hug yourself, and the trees! Hug your dog, and love yourself. Moreover, self love is always the best place to start your path to healthy warm relationships.
Grounding and sleep
2. The quality of your sleep
Often it seems to us, that the healing needs to come from the outer world. If we are hurting, we need drugs, other people to helps us. We do not look into ourselves, our bodies for help, but seek other people and systems. We may even think: sleep? it is just sleep, nothing special. And when we finally feel and realize, what a phenomenon sleep is, we are truly shocked. Nature does not make mistakes. If we and other creatures sleep, it must be important and for good reasons. Those hours at night, help our brains cleanse and rejuvenate. Thanks to it, we also balance our emotions, cope with memories. Sleep is one of the most important grounding techniques for anxiety.
3. Physical exercises
The scientists are certain: we are very much alike our ancestors, who thousands of years ago had to run and fight for food. To be healthy we need to move. While nowadays so many of us spend our days sitting and eating. We travel by car and sit in front of a computer, when resting in the evening. But our bodies need to move to remain healthy, free of toxins. Without exercise, so many of us suffers from obesity and diabetes, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis.
5 am club
What you may do, is to start your day early, for example at 5 am, join a 5 am club. And follow what its founder, Robin Sharma suggests:
- the first 20 minutes you exercise
- the next 20 minutes you spend on planning, goals, dreams (or meditating)
- followed by 20 minutes of learning
It is your gloden hour, time you have before everybody else starts their days. Time to focus on yourself, growth, stability and … very important: this way you are productive and accomplished since the first moments of a day. As Robin Sharma says: “Put your mind over mattress”. Exercise in the morning and learn!
4. Food you eat
The dieticians say: 80% of all illnesses have their beginning in our diet. Indeed, good food may build vibrant health, while the wrong one can destroy it. Our eating habits are important. Further, we often eat too much, too fast, in wrong places. Taking our bodies for granted, and it is a vehicle we own for our entire lives.
Eventually, all your habits, mental states, reactions to certain needs and desires depend on the state of your chakras. These energy centers govern how you look, walk, what you eat and the people you like. For example, if your first chakra is demaged, your self image will be affected, resulting in minimal interest in proper food, rest, exercise. Finally, your body is your home, and the root chakra, at the base of your spine, defines the depth and strength of it.
If your eating habits aren’t making you happy, try simple chakra one exercises and see what happens. Next, I recommend Anodea Judith’s book, in which she shows different exercises to heal and strengthen the chakras and change your life. In my life in the past I did not eat proper food. Finally, it was associated with my at that time weak grounding, roots.
Which types of food or eating habits to avoid?
- processed foods
- long cooking, frying and baking
- sweet milk, especially pasteurized
- white bread, sweets, too much sugar and meat
- eating between meals
- drinking during meals
5. Your reaction to stress
Our global community went through a lot during previous several years. Two years of pandemics, uncertainty, some of us lost our jobs, relationships. Eventually, some stayed with the entire families at home for months, and experienced conflicts with kids and partners. Stress seemed to be everywhere. Indeed, Tv and radio were bombarding us non stop with the statistics of Covid spread.
How does stress develop?
When we feel danger, our bodies respond. Pituitary gland, hypothalmus and adrenal glands react, and as a result adrenal glands send hormones of stress to the blood. Moreover, more glucose goes to the muscles, blood from the brain travels to the muscles (that is why persons in stress have difficulties with logical thinking). Finally, the blood vessels narrow, heart speeds up… our bodies are in the state of fight or flight.
But, in our times, we do not need to flight or fight. What’s more, if we experience a prolonged state of stress, our adrenal glands produce more and more stress hormones, which start to poison us. As a result, we have digestive problems, high cholesterol, chronic tiredness, brain degeneration. Next, depression may occur. At times, high sugar leads to obesity and diabetes. Eventually, your immune system degenerates.
How to react to stress
There are numerous ways to cope with stress. Among them are: meditation, drugs, psychotherapy, running, swimming, sex, and more. Here, we want to describe one, that is blissfully simple and helpful. Grounding. Fuelling your body (and the first chakra) with the energy coming from the Earth. Dr Joseph Mercola, a well-known authority and a globally recognized specialist in a field of natural healing, mentiones a research study done in 2012, which proved that grounding:
- first, regulates the production of cortisol (hormone of stress), supports healthy sleep, normalizes good blood sugar level
- second, harmonizes our rest and digestion, silences flight and fight response as a result of prolonged stress
- minimizes inflammatory reactions after intense training
- dilutes the blood, giving red blood cells the ability to repel each other and flow through tiny vessels
- improves sleep quality
- eventually, reduces muscle stiffness and chronic pain
At EcoHealthLab we love simplicity and minimalism. Besides, what is truly beautiful, is the fact, that the among the grounding techniques for anxiety, the most successful ones are the ones that are the simplest and accesible to you at any time and at no cost. Sleep is among them.
How does grounding work
While walking barefoot, your body receives electrones from the ground, which neutralize free radicals in your body. Moreover, free radicals are a result of oxidative stress, and lead to impairment of mitochondria and chronic inflammation. Lastly, these states cause civilization diseases (heart attack, diabetes, high blood pressure). Grounding minimizes inflammation, and neutralizes free radicals.
Grounding techniques for anxiety
How to ground yourself fast? First, just go outside, and walk barefoot on grass or ground. Second, observe your reactions. The scientists say, that after 30 minutes you will feel more relaxed, your stress levels and internal tension will minimize. Finally, it is important to do it as often as possible, even during winter. Daily walks, when your touch the ground, even for a few minutes will take good care of you.
Resources of knowledge for this article:
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