Could our plastic and rubber footwear, our indoor lifestyle and our high-rise homes all insulate us from the earth’s electrons?

A couple of years ago I wrote about earthing. I had a huge amount of e-mail responses as a result and many people took up the concept in their own lives.

As is the case with any health concept, there have been more studies carried out and also more updates. So to re-inform those who already know about earthing and those who have never heard of it, let’s look at going to ground.

To explain the concept, we first have to refer to a cable television engineer called Clinton Ober, who, was sitting on a park bench 16 years ago when he had a Eureka moment. He now believes that to be the most important health discovery ever.

Ober’s observation was simple. He noticed that many passers-by wore rubber-soled sports shoes or trainers.

From his days as a cable engineer, he began to wonder whether these were contributing to the epidemic of chronic disease by preventing the wearer from grounding to the earth.

The body, which is mostly made up of water and minerals, is a natural conductor of electricity, so, he thought perhaps we need to occasionally stabilise our electrical system by grounding ourselves to the negative electrons on the earth’s surface, just like any electrical appliance if it is to function without interference.

At the time of this Eureka moment, Ober was suffering chronic back pain, relied on medication to sleep, medication to wake up and medication for pain. He knew that earthing cables prevented outside signals and fields from interfering with television transmissions. So, could the same theory apply to humans?

Could our plastic and rubber footwear, our indoor lifestyle and our high-rise homes all insulate us from the earth’s electrons, leaving us ungrounded and vulnerable to the static electricity and electromagnetic fields in our environment?

To test his theory, he ‘grounded’ his bed, laced it with electrical duct tape to create a rudimentary grid and ran a wire from the tape out of the window to a rod stuck in the ground outside. He knew, from all the cables he had installed during his career, that he was grounded.

The next morning, he woke up after having slept soundly and without medication for the first time in years. This trend continued and a friend asked for help to ground his bed as he had suffered arthritic pain for many years. His condition improved and almost disappeared; more friends asked for help and the rest, as they say, is history.

Doctors were not interested. Ober tried to explain the concept to scientists and the medical profession but they laughed at him.

However, attitudes have changed. Many studies have taken place, one in 2011 in Poland, which carried out five experiments involving 168 participants.

The results were that, after one night of being earthed, serum concentrations of iron, ionised calcium and inorganic phosphorus all fell and there was a reduction in kidney excretion of calcium and phosphorus.

Also, earthing lowered the blood glucose levels in participants who were diabetic.

Another study, in the US in 2012, found that the changes to the body suggested that earthing reduces overall stress levels and tension in the body.

It also improves sleep patterns by normalising levels of cortisol and has a positive effect on subjective reports of sleep dysfunction, pain and stress.

In a study of 12 patients suffering from those symptoms, their cortisol levels stabilised after sleeping for eight weeks in an earthed bed.

Another study in 2010 showed some relief for people with sore muscles, especially after strenuous exercise.

Eminent cardiologist Stephen Sinatra, who has long been a believer in this concept, recommends earthing to his patients and regards it as primary therapy that is as important to restoring heart health as COQ10, L-carnitine, D-ribose and magnesium.

Sinatra, who is based in Connecticut, US, and has carried out several trials himself regarding earthing.

In one study, earthing lowered the blood glucose levels in participants who were diabetic

He discovered improved heart rate variability, a measure of the impact of the nervous system on heart function. This improvement was achieved after just 40 minutes of earthing. Sinatra has been so inspired by these results that he set up further studies with medical colleagues.

As a result of one of these studies, a book was written by Ober, Sinatra and Zucker called Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever?

It can be downloaded from www.groundology.com/results/thermographic_histories_2004.pdf.

Next week we will look at how you can earth yourself. There are ways to earth yourself, as well as products to earth you and even your animals if they are in pain or have an illness.

I began to realise this was a concept widely used but minimally discussed when I went for treatment for an injury I sustained in a car accident. The therapist placed me on a couch which was earthed!

This simple concept could probably help us all in a small way, and if it stops the consumption of medication for pain and sleep, then it is a winning formula.

www.earthing.com

kathryn@maltanet.net