How to Reduce Anxiety Naturally: A Simple Grounding Exercise That Actually Helps

It started with a knot in my stomach.
Not long after that, I could barely bring myself to step outside.
What eventually helped me was surprisingly simple — and something I had known for years, but had completely forgotten.

 
I’ve written more extensively on this blog about the traumatic experience I went through some time ago.
Not long after that, I developed severe anxiety symptoms: an overwhelming panic that would sometimes last for days. I often woke up with a knot in my stomach — a strong physical sensation, close to the nausea you feel with disgust. At times, it quite literally felt as if I was disgusted by the anxiety itself.

I withdrew into my home. Even the idea of walking to the supermarket (just six minutes away) felt daunting — the thought of running into neighbors or acquaintances, having to greet them or maybe even make small talk, was enough to put me off completely.

 
What I did notice was that whenever I could talk about it briefly with a friend on the phone, the anxiety would always ease — sometimes a little, sometimes significantly. As if it simply dissolved.

 
What I found particularly painful was that my friends stopped showing up for me quite quickly.
One friend did still make time for the occasional phone call. But out of basic decency, you can’t call someone like that too often — in my case, maybe two or three times a week at most. The last thing I wanted was to burden her too much with my problems and risk losing her as well. 

Perhaps she remained available because she also struggles with anxiety from time to time, and understood, at least to some extent, what I was going through.

 
She would sometimes ask me: “But is your anxiety actually real?”
Well — that’s not an easy question to answer. Anxiety always feels urgent and convincing. Of course it feels real. Because if it didn’t feel that convincing, you wouldn’t be that afraid… right?

Looking back now, I can think: what was I actually so intensely panicked about? But that’s me now, mostly recovered. In the moment itself, that kind of anxiety is all-consuming and completely real.

 
Personally, I believe that the anxiety was a natural response of my body — forcing me into a situation where I had no choice but to recover. It pushed me to withdraw from the outside world, so I could begin to heal from a completely overstimulated nervous system.

 
At a point where I really didn’t know what to do anymore, that same friend gave me a simple but valuable piece of advice:
“Try to ground yourself as much as possible. It might help.”

Yes, of course. Why hadn’t I thought of that? (When you’re in a state of panic, rational thinking often just isn’t available.) I immediately thought of a Qigong exercise I had learned about twenty-five years ago. I used to practice it regularly, and I know it works — but as often happens, it had faded into the background over time.

 
The exercise is very simple: you shake your body. Quite literally, you shake off stress and tension. When you’re done, it feels as if you’ve taken a shower — but on the inside. As if you’ve been rinsed clean.
To show you what I mean, I’ve included a representative video below.

There are many videos on YouTube demonstrating this Qigong exercise, but I particularly like the one by Master Daniel Lee, because he ends the practice by guiding the energy downward — into the ground. That final step makes it especially effective for grounding. The way he demonstrates it, you’re not only releasing tension, but also helping your body settle and reconnect with the ground beneath you.

Every time I woke up with that knot in my stomach, this was the first thing I did: shaking and grounding. It brought relief almost immediately. As the morning went on, the anxiety would often build up again — and then I would simply do the exercise again.

I’ve also written about another way I discovered to ground myself — one that helped me move through my anxiety in a different way.

Maybe you recognize something in this. That feeling of anxiety taking over everything. Or the simple need for someone who truly listens, even just for a moment.

For me, this period made one thing very clear: how important human connection really is — and how much we need each other, especially in moments like these. From that realization, I started offering conversation-based sessions, inspired by the principles of presence. If you’re curious, you can read more about that here.

 
I’m also curious about your experience.
What helps you when you feel anxious? Or what helps you feel more grounded?
Feel free to share in the comments. 

And if you think someone else might benefit from this, don’t hesitate to pass it along.

 

Photo: Kristina V