Grounding exercises are so powerful.

I love breathing exercises and have relied on them a lot to calm myself, but when you add a grounding component to it, the benefits are so much greater. It's almost magical in its ability to bring you back inside your body.

What is a grounding exercise?

It's when you focus on the parts of your body that are being supported, such as your hips as you sit in your chair, or the bottoms of your feet as they touch the floor. As you do this, make sure you really feel into the sensations beneath you - the warmth, the firmness, the surety.

I recently heard about a great exercise for reducing stress and anxiety while listening to the Mel Robbins podcast.

Dr. Aditi Nerurkar, a Harvard trained physician specializing in stress management, was the guest, and she talked about doing this exercise whenever she feels overwhelmed. She does it when she's just about to enter a patient's room. Or, while preparing dinner in the evenings, or brushing her teeth before bed.

The exercise is called: Stop. Breathe. Be.

The first step is to simply stop for a moment. Secondly, pause and become aware of your breathing. Finally, practice "being" by pushing your feet into the ground for a moment.

Try it.

It works so well at reducing stress because anxiety is a future-focused emotion. You tend to get stuck in your head. By breathing deeply and grounding through your feet, you are drawing your energy out of your head and back into your body so you are firmly the present moment.

I've been trying this little exercise over the last few days and have found it much more beneficial than simply breathing by itself. The extra grounding step at the end really helps to bring me back into my body.

Try it the next time you feel anxious or overwhelmed and tell me what you think.