Do you feel great when you are on vacation at the beach, or somewhere you run around barefoot? You are “earthing.”
Earthing (also known as “grounding”) is, as defined by the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, to make contact with the Earth’s surface electrons by walking barefoot outside or sitting, working, or sleeping indoors connected to conductive systems, some of them patented, that transfer the energy from the ground into the body. Emerging scientific research supports the concept that the Earth's electrons induce multiple physiological changes of clinical significance, including reduced pain, better sleep, a shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic tone in the autonomic nervous system (which tells the body it’s not in a state of fight or flight response, inhibiting the body from overworking restoring the body to a calm and composed state), and a blood-thinning effect.
I read a great article on one of my favorite sites, Mindbodygreen.com, about earthing and its benefits. It referenced Clint Ober’s organization, Ultimate Longevity that is responsible for most of the research about grounding, available today. There is a great visual on the site that shows inflammation reduction, before and after 4 nights of sleeping grounded, along with a 15-minute video of what grounding is. So, how does it work? Clint Ober explains:
"The Earth's surface is negatively charged with free electrons—meaning that the Earth has an abundance of free (negatively charged) electrons that travel and rapidly reduce positive charge. Example: When standing barefoot on the earth, the body absorbs these free electrons and equalizes to the earth's negative charge.”
Remember the scene in Pretty Woman when Richard Gere goes to the park in the middle of the day, when he’d normally be at work, and takes his shoes off and feels the grass and earth beneath his feet and smiles? You can feel his release of stress and tension when you watch his facial expressions… that is a great example of earthing!
When weather permits, I walk around my yard in bare feet. Currently, I’m doing tai chi with some neighbors (with appropriate social distancing) and choose to stand on the grass with bare feet to practice. Again, something simple, healthy, and I get to combine “earthing” with doing something else I enjoy.
Try it and let me know how you like it!
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