Grounding mats have become very popular since books have been written about the usefulness of connecting ourselves back to the earth. It is best to plant your feet directly on the earth without shoes on because the rubber soles in the shoes prevent the absorption of the healing electrons coming from the earth. This is why we feel so much better when we are outdoors all day with our feet and body touching the earth.
But in the winter months, it is more difficult to get outside and ground ourselves so grounding mats have come into existence. You plug them into an electrical outlet and they are designed to connect your body to the Earth’s electrical ground, not to the electricity itself.
The way they work is that a standard electrical outlet has three parts: hot (electricity), neutral and ground. A grounding mat only connects to the ground port and does not use or carry electrical power. So the mat is basically acting like a wire to the earth, similar to standing barefoot on natural ground.
Grounding mats claim to help you feel calmer and more relaxed, reduce stress or restlessness, improve sleep quality and reduce muscle tension after activity.
Some of our patients have tried them and thought they may have received a benefit, and yet others felt much worse after they used them. I guess I can’t help but feel a little suspicious in that you have to plug it into your outlet to ground yourself. There is a little part of me that feels it isn’t truly natural.
Whether it is or isn’t natural isn’t the purpose of this video – try them out for yourself and see what you think. What I aim to do here is to show you what the ancient Vedic texts said and what they prescribed for grounding. But coming from such a spiritual tradition, their grounding mats were also designed to help lift up your spiritual energy and were used (and still are) for sacred meditation and prayer practices. So let’s discuss two types of mats which definitely come from nature, where you can actually sit or lie on two very beautiful grasses to imbibe their energy directly into your body: through the use of kusha grass and vetiver grass.
Kusha grass is considered very sacred and highly revered herb in Ayurveda. It is known for its purifying and protective qualities. It not only purifies your energy to help you develop, maintain and retain your spiritual energy and inner peace, but it also protects you from bad energy, which even includes the negative effects of electromagnetic energy we are all surrounded with nowadays.
In ancient times sages were known to use Kusha Grass mats as their ideal seats to maintain a serene state of mind while meditating or offering prayers. It not only purifies and protects the space where prayers and meditation take place, but it is believed that it acts as a channel to connect with the divine realm, amplifying the power of prayers and rituals.
It has such good effects on enhancing focus, concentration, studies and anything that requires strong memory that there is a saying in India that “their intellect is as sharp as the tip of a Kusha blade.”
Sitting on a kusha mat balances the magnetic field, promoting better meditation and a deeper connection with the divine.
These are the ideal grounding mats and are the real thing – they are truly natural. It is believed that this grass helps retain our energy during prayer or meditation from being discharged through our body (mostly through the legs and toes) and into the ground, which is why we sit on it during our daily rituals.
It can be used for prayer, meditation, for relaxation or even for sleeping on it, for gentle stretching, yoga, forest bathing, for breath work and restorative movement, and can be used both indoors or outdoors.
Vetiver grass is also used to make mats but it has slightly different uses, although it is also truly natural and truly grounding. The vetiver is used mainly for its cooling, aromatic and grounding qualities. It gives a sense of calmness, grounding and sensory balance, but it is not considered as sacred in the same way as kusha grass is. Vetiver mats are great for comfort and meditation but not used as much for spiritual rituals. The natural earthy tones and grounding fragrance of the vetiver mats brings a sense of grounding and serenity to your daily practice, helping you to connect with nature and find inner peace. The kusha grass carries the calm of cooling and the earthy scent of fresh rain.
Vetiver is used mainly for comfort, cooling and grounding while kusha is used for purity in rituals and deep meditative practice. The aroma from a kusha mat is neutral, whereas the vetiver mat is earthy and fragrant. Vetiver has a very high cooling effect, whereas the kusha has a low cooling effect. The ancient scriptural Vedic texts mention Kusha grass extensively, but hardly mention vetiver in the same revered way.
So it’s up to you. You can research a typical grounding mat which we would use here in the United States, and see if it helps you feel more grounded.
But if you want to take it up a notch and not only ground yourself against something which is truly natural, but also help to enhance your daily prayers and meditation rituals by giving you a direct connection to the divine.
Or, to put it another way, we can try and see if grounding mats actually do work, based on some modern authors’ research, or we can delve into the ancient texts and instead turn to time-tested and truly natural and spiritual aspects of a sacred grass, known through the ages to bring our physiologies in direct contact with the purity of nature.
It’s very easy to find these mats – just google vetiver or kusha mats and several companies who sell them from India will pop up. I think you’ll love them as much as I do.