My Grounding Routine: Integrating Grounding into Your Recovery Journey

 “I am grounded, supported, and safe.” Mindful Zen website

This last post in this month’s series of grounding takes you through major aspects of my grounding routine to review grounding practices and to help you envision how you would like to incorporate a grounding practice into your day. I will also discuss some challenges to incorporating grounding when you have a mental illness, and suggest possible solutions. It is important to note that grounding can be simple. Even taking five minutes a day to ground, using a practice like deep breathing, can be effective in calming the mind and body.

Grounding is key to mental health recovery because it allows you to regulate your body and activate the relaxation response, making you more resistant to the effects of stress. Whatever is happening in your life – grief, job stress, challenging mental health symptoms – grounding practices can aid in steadying your body through these tough times. It is an essential part of my compass towards recovery. In these last years of accelerated stress and changes in my life, I believe grounding tools are a key contributor to avoiding the worst of my mental health symptoms. They have given me some agency, ways to help work with my stress and to dial back the intensity of anxiety.