My favorite way to release anxiety, drop out of my overthinking mind, and come home to my body is to combine grounding, deep breathing, and my favorite mantra.
Repeating a mantra has been shown to help with anxiety disorders such as PTSD, and I can think of no better phrase to repeat to help release stress, get out of fight/flight mode and relax into rest/digest mode.
A randomized controlled medical study comparing mantra therapy as a treatment for PTSD was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry on June 20, 2018 and here is what researchers found:
- 173 veterans were enrolled in the study, 89 of them using mantra therapy (focusing on a repeating a mantra) and 84 using talk therapy (with a focus on problem solving) for an hour long session once a week for 8 weeks straight.
- They were randomly assigned to each group and the assessments were done blindly (meaning the therapist did not know which patient was doing which therapy when assessing symptoms and monitoring progression) before treatment, after treatment on week 9, and at the two months follow up after the conclusion of the study (week 17.)
- The results showed that focusing on a mantra provided a clinically significant, meaningful improvement to the veterans PTSD symptoms that were sustainable, and worked particularly well for insomnia… better than the talk therapy did.
- Patients from the mantra group actually had larger improvements to their insomnia and equally good improvements to other symptoms, such as depression and anger.
The results showed that the mantra results were as robust as traditional talk therapy treatments that were trauma-focused. That means, that even if you have resistance to focusing on the actual traumatic event to work through your trauma, you can have every bit as meaningful recovery when you focus on a mantra as opposed to the trauma!
In addition, equally exciting, is that the improvements from mantra therapy were sustained for months after the treatment ended, with more patients being PTSD free after mantra therapy than traditional talk therapy (60% of mantra patients were PTSD free at 2 months after intervention, compared to 40% of the talk therapy group.)
It’s simple, it’s convenient — and it’s free (as a huge advocate for grounding therapy, you know I am a big fan of free therapies that allow patients to take control over their own health.)
This study is so incredibly valuable I feel, because as someone who admittedly has a very difficult time with meditating for any length of time, I feel that knowing that just repeating a single word has literally been clinically shown to make a significant difference in improving quality of life and treating insomnia, anxiety and other PTSD symptoms is such a relief.
Slowing down your thoughts and practicing sustaining a point of attention on just a single repeated word or phrase was shown to help patients cope with daily anxiety, fear, anger, depression and insomnia.
You can practice a healing mantra any time, any where.
It’s very private and very powerful. All it takes is literally a few deep breaths, repeating a word or phrase with each in breath and out breath. it only takes three deep breaths to significantly support your vagal nerve tone, which helps modulate your autonomic nervous system. Meaning your heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure and more all get calmed and centered and soothed… and pain actually significantly decreases as well.
I love it so much that I have tried many mantra meditations over the years, and my favorite is this one:
“I am at home in my body.”
I find it’s even more powerful if you can do this quick meditative healing practice while grounded, either outside on the earth or inside using an organic grounding mat.
I show you how to do this mantra grounded (both inside and outside) in this TikTok if you’d like me to walk you through it in less than two minutes:
@laurakonivermd Grounding meditation: I am at home in my body. #grounding #earthing #holistichealing #laurakonivermd #intuitionphysician #meditation
Recently, I challenged myself to paint what this healing practice feels like, to drop down into the body, witness it, get to the point where it feels comfortable staying there for a bit.
Your body is your home, carrying you through in an earth suit. Work with this mantra to make it the most comfortable place you can possibly be.
Here is what I came up with:
Here is the finished painting: I Am At Home In My Body
If you prefer to have the mantra printed directly on the artwork — to use as a reminder to repeat this exercise every morning when you wake up, or in the evening before you drift off to sleep, or at any time throughout the day, I have prints of this artwork professionally printed as well, and they look like this:
Find the original canvas painting, as well as 200+ year archival quality prints, right here.
xoxox, Laura Koniver MD
PS — Here are some other blog posts I’ve written on trauma recovery for you:
- Trauma Changes The Health Of Your Body, But It’s Reversible
- Trauma Increases Headache Risk 4-Fold
- Childhood Trauma Increases Risk Of Self Harm. Here’s Help.
- OCD May Stem From Birth Trauma
- Going From Surviving To Thriving After Cancer
- Is Your Job Driving You Crazy? You Are Not Alone. Here’s Help.
- Resolving PTSD, OCD, Tobacco and Drug Addiction Too
- Emotional Stress Directly Predicts Heart Attack… 10 Ways To Prevent It
- Letting Go Helps You Heal (Here’s How)
- Is Stress Is Making Your Antidepressant Ineffective?
- The Healing Power Of Grounded Touch
- A Super Interesting Difference Between Men and Women When Under Stress
- Another Difference Between Men and Women… Found On Autopsy
- The Healing Process Of Grief
