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When I was a child my curfew was 5 PM. This meant that whichever home in the neighbourhood I was visiting, it was time to go home. I'd run into the house, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling with whatever adventure was still warm on my skin. I'd jump into a warm bath and sit with my legs straightened before me. I would wash one foot, first, and observe the difference between the two. One would be as brown as the earth and the other a polished pink. Looking back I can't help but wonder whether the boundless energy I had was solely because life had so much joy, or was there more to those dusty trotters than the remnants of adventure? As it turns out, there is more to it. It's a phenomenon we've named earthing or grounding.
So what exactly is earthing?
Earthing is the act of walking barefoot on the ground, on a natural surface, like grass, soil or any variation of that your feet feel most comfortable on.
Earthing is a concept many of us intrinsically sensed is crucial to our well-being before it became an acknowledged "thing". Maybe you didn't realise it's good for you, maybe, like me, you just thought it felt great and associated dusty feet with happy times. Either way, earthing actually has some fantastic research to back it up as a beneficial activity, for your mental and physical health.
The theory goes that the negative charge from the earth meets with our positive charge and, exactly as we are taught in science at school, the positive element becomes earthed, in this case, it's a human. How is this possible? It's quite simple really, we are bioelectrical beings. The cells in our body transmit electrical signals, which are received by all of our organs. This means that the way our lives are spent in a Westernised setting gives us long hours spent completely stationary at a desk, wearing restrictive clothing after which we go home and spend the rest of the day indoors too. At most a walk around the garden or the block will be done in shoes. It's time to kick them off, take a huge breath in, and enjoy the sensation of mother earth between your toes.
Earthing has recently been the subject of a few scientific studies, leading to a number of peer-reviewed medical journals being published too. The studies were conducted as follows:
"Fifty-eight healthy adult subjects (including 30 controls) participated in a randomized double-blind pilot study investigating earthing effects on human physiology. Earthing was accomplished with a conductive adhesive patch placed on the sole of each foot. A biofeedback system recorded electrophysiological and physiological parameters. Experimental subjects were exposed to 28 minutes in the unearthed condition followed by 28 minutes with the earthing wire connected. Controls were unearthed for 56 minutes."
The results were rather astounding, showing profound benefits to various areas of health.
Immediately after being "grounded", test subjects' parasympathetic nervous systems became activated, meaning all of the stress-responses within the body ceased, replaced by a calm, happier state, as measured. A significantly improved heart rate variability was also recorded in all of the participants. Heart rate variability, or HRV, refers to the variations between heartbeats, with a high variation being seen thought to show the body's ability to adapt to different situations. HRV is also a good indication of a person's general state of health and wellness.
The participants in the study who were earthed also had a great reduction in the levels of inflammation in the body. Senior individuals with sores on the feet which were resistant to healing due to diabetes, showed a vast improvement as healing finally took place when earthing was practised, in a controlled, medical environment. Earthing while an individual is sleeping during the night was found to help restore the body to its natural circadian rhythm, healing sleep disorders while it simultaneously reduces the pain associated with inflammation, which interferes with the patient's ability to sleep. One participant in another pilot study experienced a decrease in pain by 80 percent, while her sleep interference no longer existed after 4 weeks of earthing during sleep.
A laser speckle contrast camera was used to measure the flow of blood during the experiment. The findings suggest that earthing improves blood circulation, which means the delivery of oxygen and nutrients around the body is greatly improved, after just one hour of grounding.
While these may all sound fantastical, the scientific data of the study is readily available to those who wish to research further and explore the details. Why not try it? If you are keen to experience some of these great benefits for yourself, simply be on the ground for 30 minutes a day. You can lie on the grass, walk, stand or even sit on a chair with your feet resting on the earth.
Personally, I enjoy the freedom of being able to get the full movement of my foot on the ground with no shoes on while walking. My feet feel alive and the muscles rejoice right at the point where my instep supports me as my heel lifts, if you are familiar with ballet, this would be called the demi-pointe. I find earthing is unconscious for me, it is something I simply have to do at the end of each day and I can tell you who appreciates it the most: my two-year-old daughter. She frolicks and relishes the joy of having her parents outdoors with her, whether we walk on the plot we live on, kick a ball in the garden, or roll down the grass banks.
Earthing reconnects you to mother earth, but it also paves the way to reconnect with your family, having that precious time to reconcile after a stressful day before the evening chores begin. It reminds me how important it is to meet at a neutral, relaxed place, leaving the day behind, each of us with a different set of stresses and challenges. Earthing brings us together, meeting at the same level, to start the evening in harmony and with love.
If you would like to learn more about the research behind earthing, feel free to visit the following website, to which I also attribute the quote I used earlier in this post:
-https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3265077/
Thanks for reading, happy grounding!
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I believe in grounding! We won't be half a stressed out as we are if we just ground more. There is more to this earth and us than the eyes can see..
I really like the idea of grounding, but we have a lot of free range animals. Makes it difficult to go barefoot. I've thought about using a grounding blanket at night. Ever heard of that?