Grounding or Earthing as it’s also called is the number one antiaging hack that I have uncovered thus far. Listen closely…if you are not doing this, you are seriously shortchanging your health and happiness! It’s that profound, and also that simple. In this post I am going to explain to you why that is true!
Body grounding or “earthing” is the practice of putting your bare feet on good old mother Earth, and did you know this simple action can benefit and heal your body? Using specially made pads and other earthing products we can get the benefits of earthing indoors. An Earthing pad or mat may well be the most cost effective health product there is!
I’m not sure who was first to present this to the public, but I learned about it watching a video made by Dr. Stephen Sinatra where he discussed healing energy from the Earth. Now this sounded a little “New Age” to me and I had a bit of skepticism, but I greatly admire Dr. Sinatra for his compassion and commitment to helping people so that was the bridge of trust that caused me to look into topic further.
I was intrigued by the idea that we could absorb energy from the ground, which is of course free, and so I took the plunge and purchase a mat for about $70.00 shipped. Within a couple of days I was absolutely convinced that this grounding thing was for real. Yeah…that’s all it took, two days of using the mat, and I knew I was really on to something.
Let me step back a bit and relate an experience I had many years before that kind of affirmed my experience with this concept.
I used to visit my aunt’s cottage in a rural area of Massachusetts. It was on a small lake, and I would spend a Sunday there with my family, enjoying the water, and basically walking on the wet sand and grass with my bare feet.
When I would get home, I noticed that I would typically sleep like a log that night, and I just felt amazingly relaxed, stress, and pain free. Since this was years before I had read anything about grounding, I chalked it up to a relaxing day with family, in the fresh air, and sunshine. Well after all…isn’t that how you are supposed to feel after a pleasant family outing?
When I thought back to that experience, Dr. Sinatra’s explanation about how wet feet increased the conductivity of your skin to the negative electrical ions that you absorbed from the Earth, came to mind, and I had as they say…an epiphany!
Our bodies are made up mostly of minerals and water, excellent conductors for electricity and in fact we are very much “electrical beings,” from head to toe. Electricity figures prominently in every chemical reaction in our bodies. So it was about the benefits of absorbing electricity into your body, that comes directly from the ground beneath our feet.
So far that made sense, but it wasn’t until I had read, (or rather re-read) a research paper by neurologist Dr. Steven Haltiwanger that I became aware that electricity can be used by the body as an “antioxidant.” This was an eye opener to me, and the pieces began to fall into place that allowed me to better understand what this grounding/Earthing phenomenon was all about.
Most people myself included thought of antioxidants as nutrients that we get in our food or in nutritional supplements.
This is a limited view. Antioxidants are simply substances that pass or “donate” electrons to reactive molecules.
Thus the electrical charge of the Earth’s surface can also serve as a source of electrons that act as antioxidants in our body.
Simply by connecting with “mother Earth’ you can constantly flood your body with electrons that will reduce pain, inflammation, and stress!
So…Just How Do We Ground Ourselves?
- Grounding yourself is easy and can be done by:
- Walking barefoot on grass or concrete
- Walking on a beach
- Walking outdoors with leather soled shoes
- Having your bare feet on a specially constructed pad or mat
- Using other earthing products that connect you with a properly grounded source
Please Note:
Do not EVER attempt to make your own grounding equipment and plug into a wall outlet. Properly constructed earthing products have built in safeguards to prevent accidental electric shock when using the ground on a wall socket.
Products for connecting with the Earth
These products have apparently been around for a few years and I have to admit I was not aware of them until just recently. Grounding pads provide a way to connect with the Earth’s electrical field while indoors.
These products all have one thing in common and that is that they allow you to access the Earth’s electrical energy indoors, while you work, relax, and sleep.
The pads come in various sizes to be used when sitting at your desk working, in bed while sleeping, and even a sleep system for travel.
I have recently purchased a pad and I am VERY impressed by the results I have gotten from it.
My Grounding Experience
I find this development truly exciting because this is an easy and passive way to help heal and de-stress your body. Dr. Sinatra mentioned in his video that the practice of Earthing improves heart rate variability and what he calls “vegal tone.” This is because the electricity we absorb from the Earth’s surface actually causes a shift in our autonomic nervous system to what is called “parasympathetic” dominance, causing us to relax.
Earthing has even been used in the famous Tour De France bicycle race to help the riders recover from the stress and rigors of the cycling they do during the day.
Ironically the phrase “recharge our batteries” is literally true in this sense, and it’s something that can be felt when you utilize this amazing natural effect. It’s almost like absorbing nutrition form the Earth, and when you think of it, that is a perfectly appropriate way to understand what is happening!
Nature as we have seen provides all that we need to keep well and feel good. Check into grounding and start getting the amazing benefits of this phenomenon for your health and well being!
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