Grounding (also known as Earthing)
What is Grounding and why it is so important?
The definition of Grounding in the Collins English Dictionary is “Grounding is the act of connecting a conductor, or exposed conductive parts of an installation, to the earth.”
Grounding, often referred to as Earthing, is a technique that connects you energetically to the earth and thereby keeping you in the present moment, more in tune with your body and able to receive nourishing energy from the earth.
Grounding can be helpful for a number of reasons, in particular managing overwhelming feelings or anxiety, by diffusing the mental focus and returning your awareness back into your body. It keeps you focussed, connected to your authentic self, able to embody your personal power and feel safe and supported in life.
Other benefits can include:
• Increase energy and vitality • Lower stress and promote calmness in the body • Diffuse the cause of inflammation or improve symptoms of inflammation • Improve sleep and promote deeper sleep • Relieve muscle tension and headaches • Reduce and eliminate jet lag • Protect the body against Electromagnetic Fields (EMF’s) • Harmonise and stabilise the body’s biological rhythms
A study conducted in January 2012 “Earthing: Health Implications of Reconnecting the Human Body to the Earth’s Surface Electrons” set out to review the environmental factor on health via direct physical contact with the vast supply of electrons on the surface of the earth.
Click here to read the full article if you are interested.
The conclusion of this review stated ‘Emerging evidence shows that contact with the Earth—whether being outside barefoot or indoors connected to grounded conductive systems—may be a simple, natural, and yet profoundly effective environmental strategy against chronic stress, ANS dysfunction, inflammation, pain, poor sleep, disturbed HRV, hypercoagulable blood, and many common health disorders, including cardiovascular disease’.
From a spiritual view point connecting to and bonding with Mother Earth is an important connection to the source of life; earth energy nurtures and restores assisting us to bring and give life to our hopes, dreams and ideas.
As with the physical benefits, from a spiritual perspective, grounding acts as an anchor, a safety switch, to stop us becoming overloaded from the spiritual plane. To enable you to align your physical and spiritual bodies which will allow spiritual messages and divine guidance to be clearly conveyed to you.
For those of us who are ‘thinkers’, meaning you are more in your head, i.e. ‘over thinker’, worrier, etc. and are prone to ‘thinking’ about your feelings rather than feeling them. Or maybe you have experienced a traumatic event or relationship so you have protected yourself by internally disconnecting from the emotion in order to feel safe and survive, and resisting the feelings arising in your body by compartmentalising or burying any emotions.
This compartmentalising of our feelings so many of us are prone to, blocking out and distracting ourselves with other habits for e.g. over eating, alcohol, unhealthy relationships, anything to numb any ‘feeling’ in the body, will notice that this can only work for a period of time before these ‘feelings’ or emotions become too overwhelming and a physical symptom or issue presents…something that you can no longer ignore!
I see this regularly in clinic and encourage all my clients to allow themselves to acknowledge their feelings and emotions and to honour them in releasing work rather than bottling them up only to have to deal with them again further down the track.
This is why I love and recommend Grounding as a part of your healing or daily routine, as it can aid in allowing you to process and feel into the emotions presenting, then allow you to release (ground into mother earth) unwanted emotions, energy or negativity as well as excess energy. Mother Earth works in such as way where will take that energy and transform it.
How to tell if you are “un-grounded”?
A good indication that you are not grounded is if you are ‘in your head’ a majority of the time, unusually clumsy or forgetful, or experience racing thoughts and easily distracted, unable to focus or complete a task at hand, have a sensation of being ‘spaced out’ or if you are finding yourself sensitive to noise and light. At its core grounding assists you in being more present in life, therefore if you are having difficulty in being present it is a sure sign that you need to ground yourself! So how do you Ground?
Grounding (Earthing) simply involves sitting, laying or walking barefoot outside in the earth i.e. grass, sand, dirt or rock for at least 30 minutes per day, or as often as you can. I often recommend to my clients even 5-10 minutes per day is a good place to start, and then ensure that you find the time at least once a week to spend a minimum of 30 minutes getting ‘grounded’.
The Earth is a conductor or free electrons, and so are all living things on the planet, including us. When your bare feet or skin comes in contact with the earth, free electrons are taken up into the body. These electrons are the power behind nature’s biggest antioxidant, and so they consequently help neutralise damaging excess free radicals thereby preventing or reducing inflammation in the body.
As the human body is composed of mostly of water and minerals, which in combination are excellent conductors of electrons from the Earth, providing there is direct skin contact or some other conductive channel for them to flow through. Such effects produce relaxation of the body, and therefore a reduction in physiological stress. Earthing improves the ability of the body to survive by reducing stress.
Other ways that you can ground or earth are:
• Meditation (see my Grounding Meditation) • Swim in the ocean or river • Garden with bare hands • Hug a living tree • Lean up against a living tree • Sleep on the earth while camping • Wear natural leather-soled shoes instead of synthetic rubber/plastic shoes
The best part of grounding is that it is completely free and can be done anywhere…anytime…and by anyone of any age!
So get outside and kick off your shoes and try it today!
If you would like to try my Grounding meditation, click here
Love and light,
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