This exercise is something that can be highly useful when you're feeling overwhelmed by your thoughts, when having trouble sleeping, or when you just want to practice a form of mindfulness meditation.

As with all mindfulness exercises, I recommend starting out with a brief calming breath exercise, which can be found here.  Imagine yourself sitting on the bank of a stream, watching the stream flow by you. When you have a thought, just label it, literally imagine putting it on a leaf, putting the leaf in the stream, and allowing it to flow by.

For example, you're sitting there by the stream, a thought comes up, you label it "relationship worry" or "money concerns" or "fears about my future," or "negative thoughts about my physical appearance," put it on a leaf in the stream, and let it go.

You can't stop your thoughts, but you can change the way you engage (or don't engage) with them.

You can have them, accept them and let them be, yet learn to not believe them or struggle with them by trying to make them go away or stop , or letting them get you carried away into a spiral of negative thoughts.  The idea is that they have much less power over you when you are able to detach from them in this way.  Remember, you are the observer of your thoughts.  You are not your thoughts.

Let me know if you try this!  I'd love to hear about the experience and if you have any questions. 

Many therapists teach clients grounding techniques in the course of their therapeutic treatment, and anyone can benefit from their ability to relax and calm us.

What is grounding?

 In the most basic sense, grounding is a mental exercise in which you focus your attention on your body's contact with the ground. Literally, it's noticing what you are physically experiencing here and now, as opposed to worrying about past or the future.

Being able to ground oneself is extremely helpful for those suffering from common mental health issues such as anxiety and depression.  It is a necessary skill for those who want to overcome past traumas.  But grounding is ultimately a mental health tool that each of us can benefit from having at the ready, whenever we need to relax and calm ourselves. 

Here I offer 3 very simple grounding techniques.

1. CALMING BREATH

This simple exercise is the most basic of grounding techniques, and I recommend doing it at the start of each other grounding technique.  Sit upright in a chair, feel your feet on the ground, and begin breathing air into your belly.  You should feel your belly expand like a balloon as you inhale.  On the exhale, scan through your body and notice any place in your body in which you are holding tension.  As you let go of your breath, let that tension out of your body with the exhaled breath.  Continue breathing as you go through your body, releasing any tension in your eyes, face, neck, throat, shoulders, chest, stomach, and so on.  Do this for a minute or two, until you are hopefully able to release most of the tension from your body.  (You may have to repeat a couple of times, as tension can have a sneaky way of creeping back in when we stop paying attention.)

2. BUTTERFLY HUG

Start with exercise 1 above.  Cross your arms in front of your chest, and place your fingertips right under your collarbone.  Tap your chest alternately with each hand.  Meanwhile, continue to breathe.  Do this for a couple of minutes, or until you start to feel a sense of relaxation.
 
3. GROW YOUR ROOTS

If you find it too cumbersome to do this technique while reading this post, I recommend listening to this video, which is a very similar exercise. 

Start with exercise 1 above.  Sitting on a chair, imagine that you have 3 roots (one growing from each foot and one growing from your tailbone).  Visualize and feel these roots growing down into the floor, through whatever floors are below you, and entering into the Earth, where they continue growing down through the soil and rock through all the layers of the Earth.  Finally, reaching the core of the Earth, where they connect securely to the very center of the Earth.  Take a moment here to breathe, letting your body relax and rest on the support of the Earth below it.
Now imagine that that healing, calming energy rising up the 3 roots, through the layers of the Earth, until it reaches the floor, then your feet, then rises up your legs, your pelvic area, your belly, and then into your chest, where it creates a fountain of calming, rejuvenating energy that washes over your whole body.  Take some time here to breathe, as you let this healing energy bathe you with calm and relaxation.  Just allow yourself to enjoy this sensation.  This energy is available to you whenever you need it.  You just need to take the time to reconnect to the Earth, and let it flow up through you.
 
These exercises are best practiced daily, for at least several weeks at a time.  This allows them to be at your fingertips and effective in moments when you feel overwhelmed or stressed, and otherwise would have trouble recalling and using them.  However, if you find that one of these exercises is not calming to you, don't force yourself to use it.  What is important is that you find the grounding exercises that work for you.

I'd love to hear if you try these and what you think!