Remember when you were a kid and you lived in bare feet all summer long? I sure do! Back then, I spent soooo much time outside. My front lawn was my playground. It had a level area at the top in front of the house and then it sloped perfectly down to the road. My friend and I spent many an hour in the bright B.C. sunshine donned in shorts and tank tops summersaulting or doing pencil rolls down the lush, emerald grass. In the backyard, I can remember playing badminton and lawn darts with my family and in the space that would become our vegetable garden, my brother and I created cities with our Tonka toys. After our outside play time, but before my brother and I were allowed past the entryway in our house, we had to sit at the bottom of the steps and use a cloth to scrub away all evidence of the earth from our feet.
What does this trip down memory lane have to do with the title of this post? Well, while I was doing all of these things, I was earthing - my bare skin was touching the earth. What does this have to do with anything? A lot! Let me explain what I have learned.
In an outstanding documentary on YouTube called: “The Earthing Movie: The Remarkable Science of Grounding”, I learned how we, as a society, have become completely disconnected from the earth and how this lack of connection is detrimentally impacting our health and well-being.
You see, the earth has an electromagnetic field that when you are in direct contact with it, can heal you. Your body absorbs the earth’s electrons through your feet, which apparently is like taking mouthfuls of anti-oxidants, according to Stephen Sinatra M.D., a cardiologist and integrated medicine specialist. Laura Koniver M.D., physician and general practitioner, states that connecting with the earth supports the body as a whole and our organ systems down to the cellular level. All systems of the body become balanced and are in proper alignment when we are grounding, says James L. Oschman PhD, a biophysicist and author of Down to Earth. All of these professionals are validating what Clint Ober first discovered. Ober was the first person to realize the health benefits of having a direct physical connection to the earth. He understood that this connection, this grounding, helps reduce inflammation in our bodies, and if you recall from my post on cold showers, it’s the inflammation in our bodies that causes disease.
Ober tells of how in the 1960s synthetics were discovered and almost immediately most shoe companies began manufacturing soles made from this material. He claims that wearing these shoes has been the highest contributor to health issues in our lives, because of how they insulate us from the earth separating us from its magnetic field. Ober even goes so far as to state that the synthetic rubber sole is, “the most destructive invention that man ever made.”
Think about how separated you’ve become from the earth. When was the last time you actually walked around outside in your bare feet? Not too many of us do it anymore, especially as adults. According to the Earthing Canada website, we can ground ourselves by touching any of the following: soil – which must be touching the earth and can’t be in an enclosed box or plant pot, sand, gravel, rock, unsealed brick, bodies of water, living trees, and even concrete.
When we are earthing, our bodies recharge with electrons so fast that scientists can’t even measure it. Within two hours red blood cells become negatively charged, so they repel each other making blood thinner, which then in turn helps it flow more easily in the body, decreasing the amount of work the heart has to do. In a study done on 60 people who were randomly divided into a control and a test group, most of the subjects in the test group reported improvement of their health symptoms, while most of those in the control group did not. Some subjects even reported significant relief from asthmatic and respiratory conditions, rheumatoid arthritis, PMS, sleep apnea, and hypertension while sleeping on a grounding mat. These results proved that the effects of earthing go beyond reducing pain and improving sleep. (National Library of Medicine) To hit the point home even further, the documentarians of the Earthing Movie talk about a study that was done with preemies in a NICU and how 26 of them were hooked up to grounding wires. The babies’ health increased by over 65 percent and their heart rates improved, too.
After watching this astonishing documentary and hearing people’s incredible stories of finding the relief they had been searching for, I was completely inspired to get myself a grounding mat. Not only do I sleep on it every night, but I have a new awareness regarding connecting to the earth. I also now take pleasure in getting my hands dirty when I am gardening and when I go for a hike these days I always stop to place my hand on a tree for a few moments. I close my eyes, take a few deep breaths and pay attention to what I feel. I kid you not, I can sense a change in my body when I do so.
I wholeheartedly encourage you to watch this documentary if what I have said piques your interest. (I will put the link to the movie in my RESOURCES section.) If you don’t feel like taking the time to watch it, I urge you to try to connect more often to the earth and pay attention to how it makes you feel. While I don’t have any stories of how the process of earthing has healed me in some regard, I believe in the science of it and feel like I am being proactive in assisting my body to age in a healthy way. I would love for you to give it a try and tell me about your experience. Who knows, you may just find the relief you’ve been searching for by taking off your shoes, swimming in the lake, or doing any other version of earthing.
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