© ERJNC . Image from BigStockPhoto.comI was walking on the dewy grass this morning thinking about grounding oneself. I don't want to go too complex and talk about grounding your energy and all that. More I mean how do you make better contact with the earth.
Because of being insulated from the ground with shoes, socks and hard surfaces like concrete we are prone to be more or less unbalanced. As we age this becomes a major problem as our loss of communication between parts of the body that help us integrate with the surface below becomes very fuzzy and out of tune.
Unfortunately this can lead to a host of catastrophic events involving falling. And don't count on walkers and canes. They too have problems as 47,000 elderly take falls even with walkers and canes.
The solution is actually quite simple. Here are 5 ways to quickly ground yourself.
1) Walk on the dewy grass without your shoes. There is a type of spiritual harmony that comes through this mediative like walk. And it stirs up the connections silenced by shoes and hard, flat surfaces.
2) Get a wobble board and practice on it. It seems impossible to maintain your balance at first using one of these contraptions. But overtime the subtle shifts of weight become easier and you depend less on supports like a tall chair to keep you from toppling over.
The interesting part is the feeling you get after you have done this for a while. It is a sense of grounding. You feel your feet and the surface underneath as an interplay of motion on surface rather than some vague feeling.
3) Walk on a cobblestone mat. The foot is not one big sensor. Rather it is a collection of a lot of sensors that sense pressure, stretch and movement. The foot is meant to respond to different terrain quickly and efficiently. In a faction of a second the foot should be able to quickly adjusting to varying surfaces.
Once again the sensory blindfold called the shoe dulls our movement senses. A "flat foot" meets a flat surface with mind numbing repetition. A cobblestone mat or even walking on the rocks in your garden can reawaken those silent areas in the brain once activated by the shifting terrain underfoot.
4) Roll your feet. Roll you feet on about anything to light up the connection between the surface of the foot and the brain. My old standby is a couple of old golf balls dropped in a sock. Tie a knot and you have a pretty good foot roller. Again this introduces variety to the rather dull existence of a foot confined in a shoe.
5) Rock your feet side to side. Let's face it we have about one way of walking - heel to toe. If you stand with your feet about shoulder width wide, bend your knees and gently roll across your feet from side to side you awaken all kinds of sensors that deal with lateral or side movements.
Here is your motivation to start now.
"Falls in people older than 65 caused about 15,800 deaths and 1.8 million visits to emergency rooms in 2005, according to data from the C.D.C.’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control." New York Times, Study Warns of Hazards for Elderly Using Walking Aids by Derrick Henry, June 30, 2009
