Last week I looked at the benefits of earthing our bodies by making more contact with the ground, as examined in many studies which have resulted in some interesting findings. I won’t repeat these but i will continue looking at how we could introduce earthing into our lives.
Barefoot is the natural way to go- Kathryn Borg
If it is true and contact with the earth helps us lead healthier lives, are people who live in high-rise buildings more likely to be ill? Two studies suggest there may be a connection between our distance from the earth and our health.
In one study, which assessed the heart health of people living in a high-rise building, those living on the upper floors had more marked fluctuations in their heart rate, or heart rate variability, than those living on the building’s ground floor (Auton. Neurosci., 2011).
In a separate study, Fredric Wolinsky of the University of Iowa discovered that older people living in a multi-storey apartment block were 40 per cent more likely to have a stroke than those who lived in a single-storey home. (BMC Geriatrics, 2009).
In addition, domesticated pets spending more time indoors with their human owners can also benefit from earthing. In one experiment, medical researcher Dale Teplitz designed a prototype grounded pad for dogs and found 16 owners, whose dogs had unresolved chronic health problems, ranging from pain and fatigue to hip dysplasia and old injuries.
The trial, which took place in 2007, lasted from four to six weeks, during which time the animals were not allowed outdoors other than to relieve themselves.
The feedback from owners was positive, and they reported improvements in energy, stamina, joint mobility and limping. One beneficiary was a 10-year-old greyhound which had a bad limp from joint stress after years of competitive running. The dog’s owner said the dog was able to jump onto the couch and into the car after resting on an earthing pad.
However, it is not only dogs that can benefit. Don Scott, who runs a rescue shelter for birds in California, said that a 25-year-old cockatoo was showing the common psychoses of caged birds: screaming, pacing, biting and feather destroying. After earthing the perch in her cage, Chloe the cockatoo’s behaviour changed dramatically.
To recap from last week, earthing, or grounding, merely involves putting your bare feet on the grass, sand or earth for, ideally, 30 minutes every day. You can stand or sit on a chair with your feet on the ground, or indeed, make the contact with any other part of your body, such as your hands or arms.
But because this is not always possible due to our busy lives and time constraints, lifestyle or weather, Clint Ober has developed a range of earthing products which he sells from his website www.earthing.com.
All this resulted from a ‘eureka’ moment Ober experienced many years ago when he observed that we walked around in rubber soled shoes, sports shoes or trainers and therefore avoided being ‘grounded’ to the earth.
Ober has developed products to prove his concept, which include earthing shoes, universal earthing pads for use on chairs or on the floor where you work, earthing sheets, mattresses and earthing pet pads. There are other products available on the website.
Eminent cardiologist Stephen Sinatra is starting to recommend earthing to his patients, as he has seen the startling changes to some of those who have experienced Ober’s earthing procedures. Sinatra regards the process as a primary therapy that is as important to restoring heart health as his supplement regime.
Sinatra is based in Connecticut and has carried out several informal trials of earthing. In one, involving 28 healthy men and women, earthing improved the heart rate variability. In another test he found that after earthing the viscosity and quality of blood changed dramatically. There were fewer formations of the red blood cells associated with clumping and clotting.
In other words, the blood was thinner. Sinatra explained that from a cardiology standpoint, if you can thin the typical ketchup-like blood of heart patients and diabetes in the direction of the consistency of wine, as the simple experiment showed, you remove a colossal risk factor for heart attack and stroke.
Sinatra went on to set up more formal studies with other professionals which were submitted for publication at the end of last year. Ober published a book, Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever? which explains the story of earthing in much more detail.
Not surprisingly, medicine has more than its fair share of miracle cures. There is an old maxim, ‘follow the money’, as a useful acid test for the sceptical. If the person making the claims stands to become a millionaire, then the ‘cure’ could be treated with some scepticism.
However, in the case of Ober, his cure doesn’t add a penny to his bank account. All we have to do is take off our shoes and socks and stand in the garden for 30 minutes. Although his website offers products, Ober himself advocates that ‘barefoot is the natural way to go’ and purchasing a grounding product is not necessary.
kathryn@maltanet.net