Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever?

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I am suspicious when a book is also trying to sell a product like these grounding mats, and then they anecdotally tell you how terrific they are for healing the world using the mats they profit from. Hmmm. Let’s start with this book. Clinton Ober is known as the father of modern earthing. He conducted the original experiments to test his theory. This book introduces you to the concept of earthing and tells the story of how it was discovered, or more accurately, rediscovered. This book goes beyond a basic primer. After the initial experiment in the early 2000s, Ober kept up to date with the latest research and discoveries on the topic of earthing. Earthing is life changing. I discovered this book because a friend moved away and left two new earthing pillow covers that came with 2 copies of “Earthing: The most important health discovery ever!”. I was skeptical at first and pushed these books and products away at the bottom of my closet. Now, I started decluttering my house and I found them stored away and thought I had nothing to lose to try them out and give the book a read. I am pleasantly surprised by the research conducted by Clint Ober and his colleagues, in addition to how effective the Earthing pillow cover has been. I have been suffering from a stomach illness for over a year now. I have changed my diet because I’m intolerant to many foods and it’s relieved a great deal of the pain. Despite this, I’m still not cured. I’m supposed to do green juicing every morning but it’s starting to get too high maintenance. When I first heard about this concept I was very sceptical. I am a big supporter of orthomolecular and nutritional medicine and the not-very-popular idea of treating the causes of disease and not just suppressing symptoms with drugs...but earthing just sounds so completely eye-rollingly nuts at first!

first and foremost, going outdoors and placing your feet directly on the Earth for 30 minutes at a time All would be well if only we wore shoes that did not separate us from the “energy and feeling” of the ground, but this is sadly not the case. The only “shoe” that preserves our connection to the Earth is the original moccasin. I've been hypertensive for 18 months. For various reasons and neuroses I'm reluctant to go on blood pressure medicine. (Confession: as a child I used to sneak into the pantry and eat Norwich aspirin. Those bitter pills were ... what, pleasant??! Now I am "pill adverse" and don't take any medicine.) My primary care doctor always offers and I always politely beg for "three more months" to use diet and exercise to bring it down. My friend Linda brought her blood pressure to normal (at one low point in her life it had been VERY high) which she credited to grounding and sauna. Which led me to this book. Pain reduction from sleeping grounded has been documented in previous studies [ 10, 13]. This pilot study looked for blood markers that might differentiate between grounded and ungrounded subjects who completed a single session of intense, eccentric exercise resulting in delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) of the gastrocnemius [ 21]. If markers were able to differentiate these groups, future studies could be done in greater detail with a larger subject base. DOMS is a common complaint in the fitness and athletic world following excessive physical activity and involves acute inflammation in overtaxed muscles. It develops in 14 to 48 hours and persists for more than 96 hours [ 22]. No known treatment reduces the recovery period, but apparently massage and hydrotherapy [ 23– 25] and acupuncture [ 26] can reduce pain.At the end of the last century, experiments initiated independently by Ober in the USA [ 10] and K. Sokal and P. Sokal [ 11] in Poland revealed distinct physiological and health benefits with the use of conductive bed pads, mats, EKG- and TENS-type electrode patches, and plates connected indoors to the Earth outside. Ober, a retired cable television executive, found a similarity between the human body (a bioelectrical, signal-transmitting organism) and the cable used to transmit cable television signals. When cables are “grounded” to the Earth, interference is virtually eliminated from the signal. Furthermore, all electrical systems are stabilized by grounding them to the Earth. K. Sokal and P. Sokal, meanwhile, discovered that grounding the human body represents a “universal regulating factor in Nature” that strongly influences bioelectrical, bioenergetic, and biochemical processes and appears to offer a significant modulating effect on chronic illnesses encountered daily in their clinical practices. One of the co-authors, Steve Sinatra, is a cardiologist, so the chapters penned by him present a medical approach. Koniver provides some practical solutions to finding time to reconnect with the Earth in our daily lives. She outlines the restorative powers of the Earth that include lower blood pressure, reduced stress, reduced depression, and increased happiness. She suggests that even five minutes of walking barefoot on the ground can have a significant impact on your sense of well-being over time. The book describes how Clint Ober, who worked in the cable-TV industry, discovered the benefits of Earthing, devised his own primitive Earthing products and tried them out on friends and acquaintances. Their healing effects were astounding. Sometimes dramatic improvement occurred after only 20 minutes or so.

I first heard about "Earthing" about a year ago when I read a very interesting article about the subject. I finally decided to buy the book and am delighted that I did. While some may say there isn't enough scientific evidence yet to conclude that being grounded to the Earth provides health benefits, the authors do share quite a bit of clinical data that supports their claims. To me it just makes intuitive sense that the Earth, with its wealth of negative ions that constantly stream from its surface, can be of healing benefit to human beings whose bodies constantly create positive ions (i.e., free radicals) as a result of the various chemical processes occurring within them 24/7. The real-life stories shared by people who have received healing benefits from being grounded are very interesting, and clearly suggest there is merit to this entire grounding concept.

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The study showed that when the body is grounded, its electrical potential becomes equalized with the Earth's electrical potential through a transfer of electrons from the Earth to the body. This, in turn, prevents the 60Hz mode from producing an AC electric potential at the surface of the body and from producing perturbations of the electric charges of the molecules inside the body. The study confirms the “umbrella” effect of earthing the body explained by Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman in his lectures on electromagnetism [ 16]. Feynman said that when the body potential is the same as the Earth's electric potential (and thus grounded), it becomes an extension of the Earth's gigantic electric system. The Earth's potential thus becomes the “working agent that cancels, reduces, or pushes away electric fields from the body.” Modern lifestyle has increasingly separated humans from the primordial flow of Earth's electrons. For example, since the 1960s, we have increasingly worn insulating rubber or plastic soled shoes, instead of the traditional leather fashioned from hides. Rossi has lamented that the use of insulating materials in post-World War II shoes has separated us from the Earth's energy field [ 6]. Obviously, we no longer sleep on the ground as we did in times past. This never-before-told story-filled with fascinating research and real-life testimonials- chronicles a discovery with the potential to create a global health revolution. Environmental medicine focuses on interactions between human health and the environment, including factors such as compromised air and water and toxic chemicals, and how they cause or mediate disease. Omnipresent throughout the environment is a surprisingly beneficial, yet overlooked global resource for health maintenance, disease prevention, and clinical therapy: the surface of the Earth itself. It is an established, though not widely appreciated fact, that the Earth's surface possesses a limitless and continuously renewed supply of free or mobile electrons. The surface of the planet is electrically conductive (except in limited ultradry areas such as deserts), and its negative potential is maintained (i.e., its electron supply replenished) by the global atmospheric electrical circuit [ 1, 2]. My rule for alternative and wholistic medicine protocols is: If it can't hurt but it may help I'm willing to give it a try. I look at the risk/benefit ratio and make my decision.