7 min read
What is Grounding and can it improve your Health?
Grounding: The Earth as a Battery - Health Benefits of Grounding
In my previous blog, I wrote about the Law of Attraction. With the awareness that you are the energy you attract by how you feel inside. Your inside creates your outside. I explained what's behind the law - and why it may not have brought you the success you want. If you haven’t read it, click here to find what you need to know about this interesting topic, as well as tips on how to bring more positive energy, strength, and calm into your life.
In today's blog I will talk about grounding aka earthing. While the words can really be used interchangeably to talk about getting outdoors, proponents of earthing, or grounding, promote walking barefoot because they believe the ground can neutralize electrical potential, and therefore, potentially have some health benefits.
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The earth is a kind of battery. That's probably not how many of us think about earth, but it does contain a natural electrical charge that it imparts on us.It is said that when we connect with grass, earth, or sand, we soak up the negative charge of the earth, which reduces inflammation and carries other health benefits. Nowadays this is also better known as “Grounding” or “Earthing”.
What is grounding or earthing?
Scientific research has uncovered a surprisingly positive and overlooked environmental factor in health: direct physical contact with the vast pool of electrons on the Earth's surface.
Our bodies produce their own electricity. Atoms made up of positively charged protons, negatively charged electrons, and neutrally charged neutrons, float around inside us.
Pollutants as well as modern technology such as computers, mobile phones, WiFi, Bluetooth, and power cables cause free radicals to accumulate in our bodies.
Fortunately, reconnecting with the earth can help to return us to a balanced, neutral state.Through contact, negative ions enter our body from the surface and release the free radicals that we have accumulated.
These free radicals have been linked to premature aging, inflammation, and disease.The discovery of Earthing goes back to Clint Ober.
The Earth is a Gigantic Battery
The earth is like a gigantic battery that contains a natural, subtle electrical charge - a special type of energy that exists in the ground.
This is how earth gives us protection and stability.Because the body consists mainly of water and minerals, it makes it an excellent conductor of electricity.
However, the modern lifestyle separates people from such contact.
Research suggests that this disconnection can be a major contributor to physiological dysfunction and malaise.
Reconnecting with the Earth's electrons has been found to promote intriguing physiological changes and subjective reports of well-being.
Grounding refers to the discovery of benefits - including better sleep and less pain - from walking barefoot outdoors or sitting, working, or sleeping indoors connected to conductive systems that transfer the earth's electrons from the ground into the body.
Our body is producing and using electrical energy all the time, but when it gets extra electrons from an external source (like Earth!) it's able to more efficiently clean, repair, and return to its optimal state.
We lost Ground Contact
You are a bioelectric being living on an electric planet. All of your cells transmit multiple frequencies that run your heart, immune system, muscles, and nervous system, for example.
With the exception of humans in industrial societies, all living beings on our planet are connected to the electrical energy of the earth.
We industrial people rarely go barefoot outside. Instead, for many decades, we humans have worn rubber and plastic-soled shoes that act as a barrier to earth energy and isolate us from electrical contact with the earth.
People also in general no longer sleep on the floor, as many cultures throughout history have done. In many cases we even work in high-rise buildings far above the ground.
The truth is we're separated, ungrounded – we lost touch with the ground.
Health Benefits of Grounding
Reconnecting the human body to the earth's surface electrons has definite health benefits. There are now actually more than 20 scientific research studies.
Our immune systems work best when charged with electrons, which can be obtained in abundance in a surprisingly simple way: walking the earth barefoot.1. Decreased Inflammation and Pain Scores: Being grounded can help reduce inflammation. Studies have shown a sharp reduction in inflammation after four nights of grounded sleep.2. Reduced stress level & more balance: With regular grounding, the daily rhythm of the stress hormone cortisol begins to normalize.3. Improved Blood Circulation & Tissue Oxygenation: Grounding improves blood circulation and aids in the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to tissues, including better blood flow to the face.4. More efficient cell repair and function5. Improved immunity
When you are grounded you feel more:- Centered- Durable- Strong- Balanced- less tense
- less stressed
How we Reconnect with Earth
Go Barefoot: If the weather and schedule allow, walk outside for half an hour, go barefoot, and observe what a difference it makes on your pain or stress levels. Sit, stand, or walk on dirt, grass, sand, or concrete. These are all conductive surfaces. Wood, asphalt, and vinyl are not conductive.Eat straight from Mother Earth: Local & organic food or preferably wild herbs allow us to absorb the energetic properties of the sun and the soil.
Gardening: Growing something “living” like vegetables, plants, or flowers.Root Meditation: Get in touch with your roots during your meditations. Imagine your thoughts taking root inside of you. Of course, the best way to meditate is under your favorite tree.Grounding mats & sheets: If you feel you have too little or no contact with the earth, you can help yourself with grounding mats and sheets.
Earthing – just Commerce and Quackery?
You see more and more people who have switched to the so-called barefoot shoes for orthopedic reasons, but you also see more and more people who actually walk barefoot. The health trend Earthing, or Grounding is often behind it. So here, with this blog, I wanted to get to the bottom of the phenomenon and tried to keep an overview between expensive grounding products, field reports and supposedly scientific articles.
Earthing or Grounding - the theory explained one more time
The Earthing/Grounding trend is based on the assumption, supported by studies, that the physical connection with the earth's electromagnetic field has positive effects on health. The American Clint Ober, who had a lot to do with cable television in his former job, came to this conclusion in 1998.
He transferred the knowledge of grounding in physics to humans and gathered scientists around him to research this theory. According to their assessment, the grounded body can simply discharge charges to earth like a lightning rod.
In particular, the negative influence of “electro smog” should be minimized by grounding.In addition, according to the researchers around Ober, there is also a constant flow of electrons from the earth into the body through this balancing mechanism, which is supposed to help neutralize so-called free radicals. The grounding would thus help the body to achieve natural harmony.
A whole series of studies on the subject of earthing from 2000 to 2019 are linked on the “Groundology” page. On YouTube, numerous videos about earthing and grounding are particularly visible. Check them out by searching for “earthing” and “grounding” on YouTube or just google the words.
The Practice - How do I ground myself?
The easiest and most obvious way to ground yourself is to walk barefoot.
But there were also a bunch of grounding products being marketed, including by Clint Ober himself, which made a lot of people think it was just profiteering.
Looking at it this way, this cannot be dismissed just out of hand. However, one must keep in mind that academic research on earthing is still in its infancy.
My Earthing conclusion?
Even if science does not yet represent a clear position on earthing, one must consider one thing despite all skepticism:
Earthing is basically free and healthy, nonetheless. Your feet alone will thank you when they can get out of their shoes and the exercise in fresh air is great and healthful too.
So, what’s the easiest way to boost your health? Step outside, preferably barefoot, and never mind the science. Let Earthing help you get grounded again.
What have you done or will be doing to get grounded? Let me know in the comments below or on my Facebook Group “The Living Well Community”! As always, I am curious.
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For now, as always, I wish you every success in boosting your body's natural energies by keeping your life in check!
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