Earthing or Grounding – the benefits of taking off your shoes

Earthing, also called Grounding, is connecting to the earth’s electromagnetic charge.  Walking barefoot on the beach and/or on grass, is a wonderful way to connect.  Earth is an electrical planet and all of us are bioelectrical beings.  A good example is our heart and nervous system.  Over the years, many scientific studies have proven that earthing is not only important to keep us in balance, but a wonderful “medicine.” Think of it as getting a dose of “vitamin G” (grounding); compliments of Mother Nature.  Sunlight creates vitamin D (very important) and the earth creates vitamin G; your needed dose of “electrical nutrition.”

What are the benefits of walking barefoot?  For starters, grounding can restore and stabilize your bioelectrical circuitry, which governs your physiology and organs.  Grounding harmonizes your basic, biological rhythms, boosts your body’s self-healing mechanisms, reduces inflammation and pain, as well as improves your sleep.  It also helps you to relax, unwind, reenergize and “recharge your batteries.”

Dr. Stephen Sinatra, a firm believer in grounding, has said that one of the major benefits is to assuage inflammation, by transferring the negatively-charged electrons, from the Earth’s surface, into the body.  Here it gets neutralized by the positively-charged destructive free radicals, that are involved in chronic inflammation.  The benefits of grounding on the brain, heart, muscles, immune- and nervous system – in fact, the whole body – is massive!  Dr. Sinatra did studies on the electrodynamics (zeta potential) of blood cells.  This indicated that Earthing not only improves viscosity (blood thickness), inflammation and flow, but also aids cardiovascular conditions.

Diabetes, for example, carries a high risk for cardiovascular disease, as well as arterial- and nervous tissue damage.  Earthing can contribute to a de-stressing and balancing effect on the nervous system and, in turn, on the heart’s function.  James Oschman, a Biophysicist, wrote the following in his book Energy Medicine:  The Scientific Basis: “The moment your foot touches the Earth, or you connect to the Earth through a wire, your physiology changes.  An immediate normalization begins.  And an anti-inflammatory switch is turned on.  People stay inflamed because they never connect with the Earth, the source of free electrons which can neutralize the free radicals in the body that cause disease and cellular destruction.  Earthing is the easiest and most profound lifestyle change anyone can make.”

Earthing is a great way to ground yourself.  Whether you suffer from an illness, are stressed, struggle to sleep or just feel out of sorts, take off your socks and shoes, and connect with Mother Nature.  When you are grounded, you can make better decisions, you are more level-headed, relaxed and cope better with life in general.  Nature, as I have written about before, is the best medicine there is for any ailment.