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By
Dr. Mercola
For thousands of years, Eastern civilizations have used
forms of energy medicine to unblock and regulate energy channels in the body.
For example, acupuncture has a long history of success in Traditional Chinese
Medicine.
The West has been slow to embrace energy medicine, holding a more biochemical
view of the human body, as opposed to “the body electric.”
Hold a stethoscope to your body and you’ll hear a lot of
electrical chatter. Your nervous system communicates using electricity (i.e.,
movement of electrons), receiving and transmitting electrical signals
throughout your body. Most of your biological processes are electrical.
Most people in the medical world have no background whatsoever in the
electrical world, which is why Clint Ober is so uniquely qualified to offer
this fresh perspective, which is brilliantly simple and intuitive, given how
our ancestors lived.
Ober spent three decades working in the cable television
industry prior to changing course to investigate how Earth’s electrical energy
influences health. While struggling to recover from his own healing challenges,
he received the following internal whisper:
“Become an opposite charge.
Status quo is the enemy.”
This inspiration was the beginning of what could end up
being a discovery as groundbreaking as germ theory. What he has discovered
could be a major underlying thread in all chronic disease, a phenomenon he
calls “electron deficiency syndrome.” The premise is simple. If you are
deficient in electrons, your body is unable to effectively combat inflammation.
When inflammation runs
rampant, as you probably know, you are vulnerable to a plethora of chronic
diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, rheumatoid arthritis,
and many other illnesses that are appearing at alarmingly high rates today.
The Earth is the natural antidote for electron
deficiency and can provide you with an infinite flow of electrons through
grounding, also known as “Earthing.” And I will spend a large part of this
article explaining how this works. But here’s the rub. You can’t benefit from
this electron flow unless you are directly connected to the Earth. And today,
people in industrialized countries are anything BUT
connected.
Humankind’s Disconnect from a Healing Source: Mother Earth
Industrialization and the introduction of plastics and
other synthetic materials have disconnected us from the Earth and her energy.
Whereas we once walked barefoot across the grass and slept on the cool dirt
floors of a cave, we now live ABOVE the ground, separated from the Earth by
raised wooden floors, rubber-soled shoes, and sometimes hundreds of feet of
air, if you live (or work) in a high-rise building.
We are ungrounded—literally!
Have you ever noticed how good it feels to walk barefoot
on a sandy beach, or in a forest? There is a reason for that—it’s called the
grounding effect. The reason you feel so good on that sandy beach is you are
receiving a surge of healing electrons from the ground. The Earth is a
relatively infinite source of electrons, having a slightly negative charge. But
the Earth’s electrons are free to move. So, when you stand barefoot on that
sand, electrons from the Earth flow into your body, a virtual “transfusion” of
healing power. This occurs until you equalize with the Earth. Meaning, you
cannot get too much—the process simply stops when your charge (your voltage)
returns to zero. It’s completely safe and natural.
The Earth is the biggest electrical object, and we are
part of it. When you are grounded (i.e., in contact with the Earth), it’s
impossible for your body to carry a charge.
Humans used to be naturally grounded. First, we were
barefoot, and then we donned leather-soled shoes, which are still moderately
conductive. When you wear a shoe with a leather sole, your feet sweat and
permeate the leather with moisture and body salts, so the shoe becomes a
semiconductor permitting you to receive some electrons.
But, for the past 50 years or so, we’ve added carpets,
plastics, synthetic-soled shoes, and athletic sneakers, all serving as non-conductive
barriers between the Earth and us. During that same period of time, we’ve
seen an explosion of inflammation-based diseases. Our immune systems are
struggling.
Pets are designed to be in contact with the
Earth as well, but now they live above ground in houses, as we do. Anecdotal
evidence shows they are suffering the same effects of electron deficiency as
humans. Animals that live in the wild are not bothered with inflammation, cardiovascular
disease, diabetes, arthritis, or
even plaque on their teeth. This is why your dog or cat will crawl under the
porch and lie on the bare earth if he isn’t feeling well.
What animals have always known, “modern science” is just now figuring out.
Even water is influenced by the Earth’s electrical
energy. Water in contact with the Earth has
a structure that makes it conducive to healing. When you are
grounded to the Earth, it is thought that the negatively charged electrons you
are receiving may help increase the structure of the water in your cells—just
as water increases in structure when a negative charge is introduced by an
electrode. By going outside, barefoot, touching the earth, and allowing the
excess positive charge in your body to discharge into the earth, you can
alleviate some of the stress on your system. So how does this grounding effect
work?
You Are An Earthly Antenna
Your body is a conductor. You are an antenna for the
Earth. When you are ungrounded, electric fields are attracted to your body and
create a surface charge—a voltage. You know this to be true if you’ve ever
shocked yourself after walking across a carpeted floor.
When living above Earth, your charge is positive; when
connected to the Earth, your charge is negative—in other words, you become an
opposite charge. You accumulate this surface charge any time you’re not
grounded. When your charge reaches 3,000 to 5,000 volts and you touch a metal
object, ZAP… this is static discharge, the sudden outflow of built-up
electrical energy from your body.
This static electricity is the reason workers in
microchip factories must be grounded—so they don’t blow the chips. The same
goes for operating rooms. Everyone involved in a surgical procedure must be
grounded—the patient as well as the medical personnel. Your skin offers some
protection from static electricity, but when it’s open (as in surgery), that
protection disappears. In fact, in the early days of open-heart surgery, this
lesson was learned the hard way when many patients died from static electricity
because patients weren’t grounded.
The higher the conductivity between you and the Earth,
the more likely you’re going to be grounded. Proximity is key.
The more distance there is between you and the Earth, the
greater the charge on your body. In fact, this has been precisely calculated.
For every meter you are above the ground, 300 volts of charge will build up in
your body. (See The Feynman Lectures on Physics) So, if you
are in a second story bedroom, your charge would be 1000 volts, on average. Do
you think your risk for illness could be higher living on the second floor? How
about the 5th floor, or the 25th? Indeed, a study in 2009 from the University of Iowa
revealed a 40 percent increase in stroke risk among people living in multistory
homes.
Besides living and working above ground, invisible electromagnetic
fields from devices such as cellular and cordless phones, computers,
tablets and other technology assault us around the clock. You are bathed in
background electricity from ordinary household wiring in the walls of your
home, which contributes to your positive electrical charge and therefore
increases the stress on your immune system. And if you are on the computer
several hours a day, combined with several calls on your cell phone followed by
an hour or two of television, you are getting several more hefty exposures to
these unnatural electrical fields. If you want an in-depth discussion about
Earth’s electrical surface potential, read this article by Gaetan Chavalier,
PhD.
Playing with a Voltmeter
If you need convincing, you can watch your own body’s
electrical charge wax and wane by availing yourself of a voltmeter, as Clint
Ober demonstrates in the above interview. What you need is a low voltage field
detector; one that reads in millivolts. Play with this, as it will show you
that grounding works!
Measure your body’s charge when you are at varying
distances from electrical devices, power cords, your computer, your phone, your
refrigerator, etc. You will see that moving away from these objects drops the
charge—and grounding zeros you out. This way, you can witness firsthand the
effect of these devices on your body, in a very concrete way. You will see that
you receive far more electrical noise from devices that are plugged in than
from those running on battery power. This is why I recommend NOT using
electronic devices while they are charging.
If you’re going to experiment with a voltmeter, make
sure you do it safely, using conventional cord that has resistors built into
it.
Although grounding does not eliminate dangerous exposure
to EMFs, your risk for adverse health effects from them is drastically reduced.
Still, I don’t recommend holding your cell phone right next to your head, even
if you’re grounded. But grounding is the least expensive, most basic strategy
that will allow you to resist that type of biological damage and decrease your
body’s risk for developing prolonged inflammation.
Electron Deficiency Syndrome and Inflammation
If you Google the word “inflammation,” you’ll come up
with more than 62 million links. This is indicative of just how much of a
problem inflammation is. Inflammation is the root of virtually ALL of our
chronic diseases. So, the question you should ask next is, what’s CAUSING all
of this inflammation? It may very well be a deficiency of electrons—at least,
this may be one of the most significant factors.
Electricity is as important for powering your body as
for powering your computer and household appliances. We are beginning to
understand, with the help of scientists like Clint Ober and James Oschman, that
the Earth is our greatest source of healing because it supplies us with an
unlimited flow of electrons. These electrons act like little
antioxidants—cleaning up the free radicals and toxins that are
byproducts of everyday human metabolism and environmental exposure.
Free radicals are primarily produced via metabolic
processes, although you also get them from the foods you eat, the water you
drink and the air you breathe. Your immune system is the main generator of free
radicals, and it’s in operation 24 hours a day. In the process of oxidizing invading
pathogens and disposing of damaged cells, your immune system generates reactive
oxygen species (ROS), which are molecules short an electron or with an electron
imbalance—they take away electrons from the cell or pathogen.
This creates the need for a “mop” to absorb or give up
electrons so that electrical stability can be maintained within your body.
Grounding to the Earth fulfills this role—and it’s nearly instantaneous.
Many of these metabolic/electric processes are occurring
at the speed of light, just like the electrical current in a wire flows
immediately to a light bulb when you flip the switch. When grounding to the
Earth, electrons flow instantly into your body, much faster than waiting for
particles to travel around in your bloodstream.
How Earthing Affects Your Blood
An important discovery is that Earthing thins your
blood, making it less viscous. This has huge implications for cardiovascular
disease because virtually every aspect of that disease has been correlated with
elevated blood viscosity.
Dr. Stephen Sinatra, cardiologist and Earthing expert,
discussed the zeta potential of RBC’s that
decreases blood viscosity, when exposed to an electrical field. Within minutes
of grounding to the Earth, your zeta potential quickly rises, meaning your
blood cells have a greater charge and actually repel each other. This action
causes your blood to flow more easily and your blood pressure to drop. When
your zeta potential is lower, your blood cells tend to clump together, which is
unfortunately what most people’s blood looks like when they are not grounded.
For a visual aid, the difference between grounded and
ungrounded blood is like comparing red wine to catsup—thin and flowing with
ease, versus thick and sticky and stagnant. Getting back to the increased risk
of stroke for folks living in multilevel dwellings, it makes sense when you
consider your blood cells being in a perpetual state of “clumping,” which
increases the risk of clot formation.
Earth’s Gift to Athletes
The scientific research related to Earthing is really
still in its infancy. Nevertheless, studies so far are very promising for a variety
of heath benefits. Clint has been involved in more than 30 Earthing studies
over the past decade, which have gradually verified that his inspiration to “become
an opposite charge” was right on.
I first met Clint Ober about seven years ago through a chiropractor Jeff Spencer.
One of the foundational elements he integrates into his training is Earthing.
In fact, 200 to 300 of the world’s most elite athletes have been using Earthing
as part of their training regimen for the last five years because they feel it
offers them a competitive edge, including many professional football players.
Since the athletes were showing such great benefit,
researchers at the University of Oregon conducted a study, referred to as the DOMS study (Delayed
Onset Muscle Soreness). Researchers induced inflammation by repetitive and
intensive use of a muscle group, and then measured both subjective pain
experience and objective markers of inflammation in study participants. The
participants were divided into two groups, one grounded and one not. The muscle
soreness was essentially the same as what you experience after your first
weekend of yard work in the spring—when you wake up a couple days later
extremely sore and barely able to hobble out of bed. The results of this study
were remarkable:
· White
blood cell count was extremely elevated in the ungrounded group, but not
elevated at all in the grounded group.
· Bilirubin
dropped 40 percent in the ungrounded group but only 5 percent in the grounded. Bilirubin is one of your body’s
primary antioxidants.
· The
grounded group experienced less pain than the ungrounded group.
Researchers concluded that all signs point to grounding
having the effect of markedly decreasing inflammatory response. And this is
HUGE as inflammation is key in just about every chronic disease you can name.
Reduce inflammation, and you reduce disease. But Earthing has benefits that
reach far beyond preventing sore muscles.
Pain Reduction, Better Adrenal Function and Improved Tolerance to Cold
In addition to decreased inflammation, two studies have
shown that grounding can stabilize your autonomic nervous system (ANS). Oftentimes,
the inflammatory cycle starts with an illness or injury that fails to heal.
Besides pain and inflammation, your body’s inability to “restabilize” results
in chronic stress. Why is this important? This ongoing stress can lead to
adrenal fatigue, which is epidemic today. If your ANS can be stabilized, your
chronic stress level will decrease. Grounding appears to be able to do this.
Grounding was found to regulate cortisol levels,
according to one small study
involving 12 subjects. The 12 were grounded over the course of eight weeks,
during which time their saliva levels were monitored for cortisol, DHEA, and
other stress-related hormones. All subjects with abnormal cortisol levels
normalized, indicating the grounding reduced the stress in their bodies. This
has huge implications for public health since the majority of all visits to
healthcare practitioners are for stress related disorders.
The new study by Sokal
provides even more good news about Earthing’s effects on inflammation.
Researchers attempted to answer the question of whether or not Earthing affects
human physiologic processes. So, they grounded people and tested their blood
and urine chemistry. Just like the prior study, researchers found a significant
reduction of inflammation indicators in the grounded test subjects.
Specifically, in the group that slept Earthed, they found the following:
· Reduced
renal excretion of calcium and phosphorus during a 7- to 8-hour period of
sleeping grounded (which reflects a reduced risk of osteoporosis)
· Decreased
blood glucose levels (reducing risk for diabetes)
· Decreased
free tri-iodothyronine, and increased free thyroxin and TSH (meaning better
thyroid function)
· Accelerated
immune response following vaccination (as evidenced by gamma globulin
concentration), which would suggest a more robust immune system
Having a simple, natural way to reduce stress and
inflammation would have benefits for a wide array of medical problems, such as
cardiovascular disease, arthritis, diabetes, as well as for issues like carpal
tunnel (repetitive stress syndrome). Grounding also appears to help with
Raynaud’s syndrome, which involves cold peripheral extremities. Although it
isn’t understood exactly how grounding improves temperature regulation, it may
be due to the thinning of your blood and improved circulation. It’s interesting
that chickens that are allowed to live outside in the pasture don’t freeze, but
those in chicken coops need artificial heat to keep from freezing on cold
nights. Perhaps chickens grounded in the pasture share similar thermoregulation
benefits with people who have Raynaud’s syndrome.
Unearthing the Fountain of Youth
Earthing may actually slow down the aging process. One
of the dominant theories on aging is the free radical theory, which is that
aging occurs as a result of cumulative damage to your body by free radicals.
While you don't want to completely eliminate ALL free radicals, you do want to
maintain a good balance of antioxidant electrons in your body to ensure the
damage from free radicals doesn't' get out of hand. Earthing can provide this
continuous supply of electrons. According to Dr. James Oschman,
biophysicist and coauthor of Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever?:
"It looks to me, from my
study of biophysics and cell biology, like the body is designed with a
semi-conductive fabric that connects everything in the body, including inside
of every cell. I refer to this system as the living matrix. Those
electrons that enter the bottom of your foot can move anywhere in your body.
Any place where a free radical forms, there are electrons nearby that can
neutralize that free radical and prevent any of those processes: mitochondrial
damage, cross linking of proteins, and mutation or genetic damage. So
the whole fabric is basically an antioxidant defense system that is in every
part of your body.
We have this material called
ground substance, which is part of the connective tissue. It goes everywhere in
the body. It's a gel material and it stores electrons. So that if you go
barefoot, you will take in electrons and your body will store them, and they
will be available at any point where you might have an injury, or any point
where a free radical might form."
So, to summarize then, Earthing offers many potential
health benefits from better sleep, to less pain and inflammation, to reducing
your risk for diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and I suspect this is just the
tip of the iceberg as research in this area is just getting going. So, how do
you basically “get grounded”? Let’s take a look at some practical approaches
for introducing more Earth energy into your life.
Plugging into the Earth
The best way to gain the benefits of these healing
electrons is to simply put your bare feet in contact with the Earth, especially
damp Earth, as often as possible. Because water is such a great conductor,
seawater is the absolute best. Swimming in seawater, dangling your feet in it,
or walking on a sandy beach are all great ways to ground yourself. If you don’t
have access to a shoreline, damp grass is a good substitute.
Concrete will work to a degree, but better if it’s got
some moisture to it. Sealed or painted concrete, wood, asphalt, and typical
insulators like plastic or rubber soles will not allow electrons to
pass through.
As I said earlier, the closer you can get to being
grounded 24 hours a day, the more benefits you’ll see. Unless you are sleeping
in a cave or living on an island somewhere, chances are your domicile isn’t
allowing you to be grounded all day every day, and so the most practical
alternative is making use of new technology… Which brings me to the grounding mat.
Grounding Mats, Sheets and Patches
Necessity is the mother of invention, and this is
certainly true for grounding science. Technology now offers us ways to stay
grounded while in buildings, cars, and even airplanes.
There are a variety of mats, pads, sheets and patches
that you can put in contact with your bare skin to restore this much-needed
connection to the Earth. The grounding device is connected to a cord that plugs
into the ground of an ordinary household electrical outlet. The grounding
devices have resistors incorporated into them, so they are completely safe to
use—you are protected from unexpected electrical currents.
For a grounding mat to work, your outlet must be
grounded. In the United States, about 40 percent of houses do not have
a ground in the bedroom, particularly homes built before 1970. Even if the
outlets have been replaced, they are not necessarily connected to any ground
wire, and the only way you can tell is to test them. If your outlet isn’t
grounded, then you can have someone install a ground to those outlets. There
are a number of ways to do this.
The most important time to be grounded is while you’re
sleeping. There are two reasons for this.
First, the average bedroom typically contains more electrical
noise than any other room in a house, especially near where your head rests on
your bed. You’ve probably got a tangle of wires behind the wall, as well as
wires running under the floor if you’re in an upstairs bedroom. Second, you
spend a third of your life lying there. This is the time when your body should
be repairing and regenerating, and electrical noise interferes with this
process, potentially causing chronic stress and inflammation.
I recommend using a grounding sheet on your bed. Earthing
happens to be very helpful for sleep. In fact, many people fall asleep within 5
to 10 minutes of becoming grounded. Better sleep and less pain are probably
the most immediately appreciated benefits when people begin Earthing.
A Few Medical Precautions
Earthing is so effective that some people have had to
decrease their medication dosage. Having to make changes in your meds is not a
bad thing, but rather a sign that your body is working better. If you are
taking any of the following three types of medications when you begin Earthing,
you should be especially careful to observe how you feel and be diligent about
monitoring your blood levels:
· Blood
Thinners: If you take Coumadin (warfarin) or other blood thinners,
your blood is going to get even thinner when you’re grounded, as described
previously. You will want to be very diligent about monitoring your blood
levels and watching for warning signs, such as bleeding or bruising.
· Oral
Hypoglycemics: Grounding is shown to reduce blood glucose levels. A
study of rats showed that grounding decreased their blood glucose levels, as
well as lowering their triglycerides and body weight by 10 percent. So if you
take oral hypoglycemics, you will want to monitor your blood sugar carefully.
· Thyroid:
Many people who are on thyroid replacement for hypothyroidism started
having heart palpitations within the first few days of Earthing, a sign of
thyroid excess, which was confirmed by blood tests. These individuals had to
decrease their thyroid dose. Lack of free electrons may be the most
unrecognized cause of thyroid dysfunction.
Learn More: Download Free Earthing Book
I am very excited about this Earthing information, and
the potential it holds for helping you with a staggering range of health
concerns. The idea that nature has influences that are vital for the optimal
functioning of your mind and body has been around for thousands of years, and
continues to be confirmed by science. Earthing may be the link we’ve been
missing, in terms of explaining our inflammation epidemic.
So, you can add Earthing to your “good health tool bag,”
where it can enhance the benefits you are already receiving from good nutrition, restorative sleep, adequate water, exercise
and effective
stress management.
To learn more, I highly recommend downloading a free
copy of Clint Ober’s book on Earthing, which reviews the many benefits of
earthing in even greater detail.