Healthy Habits: Interview with Amelia Vogler about Grounding Yourself and Yoga

Editor's note: this was inadvertently published early and is being republished with the corrections.

 As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to disrupt lives and shake people’s foundations all over the world, it is crucial for individuals to find ways to bring harmony, peace and alignment to their mental and physical well being in healthy, uplifting ways. 

June 21st was International Yoga Day - a day to focus on how the practice and philosophy of Yoga can promote the holistic health and mind body soul wellbeing of every individual. And what is more central to yoga and wellbeing than being grounded? 

Amelia Vogler, grounding expert and energy medicine specialist, highlights how the practice of grounding can help improve focus, clarity and productivity - something we’re all struggling with right now.

Here are Amelia’s top 5 ways to ground yourself:

Find your feet 

Spend some time getting reacquainted with your posture. Grounded, safe postures start (not surprisingly) with the ground. Feel your feet on the ground and let the Earth come to you - then bring the Earth into you and fill yourself with that energy. Try walking barefoot on the ground - this helps reconnect your with mother nature and your connection to the earth.

Find your breath
Try a full-body breath. Focus on connecting your breath to your feet. Everyone has their own unique breathing pattern which can be expanded on. Learn to breathe deeper and focus that breath down into more parts of your body, including your feet. This helps remind us that we are more than the mind, and that we have support underneath us (literally and metaphorically) at all times.

Get moving
Think of the difference between a lake that is fed by a stream versus the one that sits stagnant.  The lake fed with moving water remains clear and balanced whereas the lake that has no flow gets congested and murky.  Take some time walking in nature, or even a few extra rounds around the kitchen island and keep the energy moving in your body.

Drink water
Nothing can live without water, including you.  Water nourishes your cells and it also acts as a conductor for electricity in the body.  Did you know that the brain uses electricity and chemicals to communicate? Ensuring proper hydration can actually keep your mind thinking clearly and your body running optimally.  Water helps you to regulate your temperature; keeps oxygen and nutrients moving through the body; and energetically speaking channels vitality throughout the tissues of the body! 

Call a friend 
There is nothing more grounding than a deep and enriching conversation with a good friend.  Yes, we are all coming out of our COVID isolations a little shaky in the sphere of communication, and no better time than to pick up the phone and invite a friend for a walk outside (or a walk and talk, if they live somewhere else) and share heart to heart.  If you are curious about a good ice breaker, try the question, “What did you learn most about yourself during the pandemic?”  

Find Beauty 
Beautiful things inspire us, make us smile, and keep us grounded in inspiration.  Beauty doesn’t have to be in art (but it can be). Beauty can be found in the colors of a blooming garden; the perfect baseball pitch; a gorgeous car; your child laughing at a movie; a beautiful sunset or sunrise.   Take that one moment to see beyond the everyday mundane and look for what is beautiful hiding just a little deeper. 

I had a chance to learn more in this interview:

How can yoga help improve focus?

The practice of yoga is a body, mind, and spirit practice. When you are on the mat focusing on the connection between breath and body, your mind automatically centers on these unified moments. This is the practice of bringing you to center and moving from the distractions of life into the quiet place of focus. By engaging in this practice, you begin to retrain your body, mind, and spirit to come together in service of your single-pointed attention.

 

 

Is there a link between activities like yoga and overall productivity?

We know that multitasking has been proven to be less effective in completing our “tasking” and that our split attention and intention really is a disservice to our productivity. So first, yoga allows us to quiet the mind, come to center, and practice our focus. This singular focus allows us to cut through the distractions that keep us from completing our tasks. Also, the movements of an asana practice help us to keep our energy flowing in the body. This allows us to have more access to our vitality and our well of energy, which keeps us creating and productive. 

 

 

If someone has never tried yoga before, how can they get started?

I would first start with your breath. True yoga is about learning to quiet the mind. Before even stepping on a mat, I would suggest starting with watching your breath and getting acquainted with the natural rhythm of the rise and fall of your chest. Then, being super curious and bringing some fun to your breathing practice, try sending it down to your left foot or right hip. Try moving the breath through the body. If you have trouble, maybe imagine a mouth on your hip and literally “breathe through the hip.” Then, you are beginning to practice the foundation of yoga, and when you go to find a beginner’s class (maybe a Hatha for Beginner’s Class), you can start leaps and bounds ahead! 

 

 

Why is yoga good even for people who prefer things like lifting weights or aerobic exercise?

All of life is about finding harmony. If you think about what lifting weights and aerobic exercise have in common, there is a bit of “force” implied in these activities. To balance these exercises, yoga can offer harmonious gentleness (while also giving you some great opportunities for strength AND cardio work).  

There is also the benefit of being even more in tune with your breath and your focus. Yoga is an excellent way of tuning and training your relationship to your breath, and bringing more O2 into the body enhances your ability to lift more weight and run farther!

And finally, these two activities both carry rhythms of constriction and expansion. Lifting weights are often isolated movements in one direction, repeated over several sets. Aerobic exercises, like running or step classes, also have many repetitive motions. Yoga brings the body an opportunity to move in many dimensions and planes. This helps the weight lifter or the aerobic exerciser a chance to feel more connected to their whole body, which will only benefit their connection to their health and wellbeing.

Yoga also increases the synovial fluid in the joints! This is the lubrication that can prevent injury and arthritis from overuse!

“Grounding is not just a spiritual exercise, but also a highly practical one that can improve anyone’s ability to focus, be clear-headed and even get more done. When you’re grounded, you’ll feel more at peace with yourself, more patient with others, and balanced when tackling what the day throws your way,” says Amelia Vogler.