During the good weather it’s an ideal time to start a practice of grounding or also known as earthing. This ancient practice costs nothing and has surprising health benefits.
The planet we live on is full of energy, like an enormous battery that is continually being recharged from its molten core, solar radiation and lightening. Connection with the earth through bare skin helps to keep our natural body’s rhythms in sync with the earth’s circadian cycles.
Think about it, through our evolution we walked, sat and slept on the ground. It is only in more recent years we have become disconnected by spending more time indoors, insulating ourselves from the ground by wearing shoes and travelling in cars with rubber tyres.
There is no doubt that we are energetic beings. You can measure that energy in our brains on an EEG or in our heart with an ECG but we have complex electrical circuits throughout our bodies transmitting information and creating energy.
Contact with the earth allows a flow of electrons to enter our bodies neutralising pro-inflammatory free radicals and having an antioxidant effect, so helping to reduce inflammation. Inflammation we know is the cause of most modern chronic conditions. As our bodies are mostly made of water and minerals which are great conductors of electrons it is easy for the earth to transfer electrons through direct skin contact with the ground.
Earthing involves walking or sitting barefoot your skin in direct contact with the ground or sitting, working or sleeping inside whilst connected to a conductive surface that is earthed. Earthing is among the most natural and safest things you can do.
Earthing often gives you a warm tingling feeling in your feet and a sense of ease and well-being. Think how good you feel when walking barefoot on a beach (it’s not just the effect of being on holiday!)
The degree of improvement varies from person to person. It is important to make it part of your daily routine and the more the better. Once earthing is stopped symptoms tend to slowly return.
Studies have shown benefits in reducing pain, inflammation, improving sleep in most cases, increasing energy, reducing stress, normalising the body’s biological rhythms, reducing blood pressure, improving circulation, and improving healing and patients report many more benefits.
In my GP practice a few years ago I was practicing acupuncture and trialled using earthing products with a few of my patients and audited their responses. 81% felt they had benefitted from using an earthing product (patch, mat or sheet) in terms of reduced pain (21 out of 26 with pain), improved sleep (14 out of 32), reduced fatigue ( 5 out of 7 with fatigue), improvement in mood (4 out of 4 with anxiety/depression). This was obviously not a placebo controlled trial but there was clearly a positive impact without adverse effects ( some people complained of more vivid dreams).
You can read more about earthing:
Earthing – The Most Important Health Discovery Ever? by Clinton Ober – available on Kindle or in paperback.
Or just search it on Google – you will be surprised by the positive stories you will find.
