Stay grounded and grow

Dr Asha Pemberton

teenhealth.tt@gmail.com

Happy New Year 2021! With the uncertainties and challenges of 2020, we were all required to rely on our resilience and adaptability. Although at midnight a new year begun, many of the stressors and issues we face continue onwards. A new week or month or year certainly do not change matters we must navigate, but they do present us with an opportunity to reset our minds and engage in beneficial and mindful practice.

Mindfulness should be as much a physical practice as it is a mental one. Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we are doing without judgment. It helps us from being overly reactive or overwhelmed by situations or the world around us and provides us with a period of pause to make better responses. While the ability to be mindful is something we all naturally possess, it is more readily available to us when we practise on a daily basis.

Whenever you bring awareness to your senses, or to your state of mind through your thoughts and emotions, you are being mindful. There is a growing literature of research showing that when you train your brain to be mindful, it physically remodels and develops in different ways. Pathways of peace and productivity grow. This may seem counter-intuitive because when our mind is overwhelmed, our body is often the last thing we focus on. Grounding activities teach us to anchor ourselves and reconnect with our physical sensations as well as to the Earth, thereby removing us for the chatter of our minds and bringing us back to a calmer state of reality.

Grounding activities are at the core of mindful practice and have the double benefit of improving our overall emotional wellness while developing sides of our brains that boost productivity and problem solving. In short, grounding helps us to grow.

A simple activity that helps us to bring our attention into our bodies, is to notice – rather than avoid – the tension, circulation, pain, pleasure, or just neutral physical experience at any point in time. By observing what we see, sounds we can hear, what our skin or body can touch, or any smells or tastes, we have the ability to get back to reality. In fact, our bodies are the quickest, surest way back to the present moment when our minds are lost in rehashing the past or rehearsing the future.

We cause ourselves a lot of unnecessary suffering when our minds are not paying attention to the present and we get consumed by thoughts and physical sensations. The amygdala, located in the brain’s medial temporal lobe, is the part of the brain that detects and processes fear. When our amygdala is activated by a situation or potential threat, it initiates physiological changes such as increased muscle tension and accelerated breathing. As a result, a vicious cycle can develop wherein the increased muscle tension and rapid breathing caused by an activated amygdala further activates the amygdala. When this state of over-responsiveness and activation occurs over time, the physical and mental health effects of stress occur. Grounding activities are effective at breaking this cycle and mindfulness as an overall technique helps reduce their frequency overall.

Take a single breath. It takes just one intentional breath to change our perspective. A single breath gives you a break from the mind’s chatter and a chance for your body to regulate. A single breath and attention to each of your five senses is a simple and effective grounding technique. When practised, it becomes second nature and an immediate solution in times of duress. This year, make a promise to yourself to engage in activities that provide supportive self-care and wellness. Teach the teenagers and children and in your lives to be more mindful and aware of their emotions. Pay attention to the foods you eat and eating behaviour. Focus on the tastes and textures of your meals and eat mindfully. Focus on the time and quality of your sleep. Re-create your night routine to improve your rest so that each day you awaken refreshed. Take time, every day for small acts of self-care and movement. Small sustained efforts are the most effective ways to overall wellness. Happy New Year 2021, and may we all live more mindfully, peacefully and happily.