Earthing – a Great Health Discovery of our Time

Hi everyone – I don’t say this often but this is one of the most important and exciting blogs I’ve written for a long time.

Imagine if there was a completely ‘natural’ (and generally ‘free’) way to get one of the world’s most powerful anti-inflammatory and anti-aging medicines, which evidence is starting to suggest may help everything from heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, arthritis and joint pain, insomnia, auto-immune diseases, to athletic performance. Now imagine it was ‘right under your feet’! Guess what? It literally is, and now you get it under your feet while indoors!

In our modern world of living and working in high-rise buildings and spending more time indoors, most of us have become disconnected from the physical earth. This is in direct contrast to our ancestors and traditional cultures who were always physically and spiritually connected to the ground itself.

If you have read my first book – ‘Ancient Wisdom for Modern Health’ – you may remember that in the chapter on ‘Connecting to Nature’s Gifts’ I wrote a whole section on the importance of connecting to Mother Earth. Here’s a short piece from the book;

“As humans, we are designed to live in harmony with planet Earth. Most Native American cultures understood that just as our bodies have their own unique vibrational energy, so too does the earth itself. When we spend time connected to the earth, it is as if we recalibrate our own energy field with the universal energy field of nature.
Without close contact with the earth, we can become more susceptible to a number of mental and physical imbalances. Conditions such as anxiety, mood swings, irrational behaviour, insomnia, restlessness, and digestive and elimination disorders can all be aggravated by distancing ourselves from our physical foundation”

NEW RESEARCH SUGGESTING HEART DISEASE, CANCER, ARTHRITIS & OTHERS MAY BE ADDED TO THE DISEASE LIST

I was thrilled to receive an email recently from my good friend in the US, Raamon Newman. Raamon is a meditating buddy of mine, who coaches high-level business people in how to ‘stay grounded’ (spiritually & emotionally) while being successful in the world.

Raamon told me about another meditator – Martin Zucker – who has co-authored a ground-breaking (pardon the pun) book Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever? with cardiologist Dr.Stephen T. Sinatra and Clint Ober. Clint made the critical discovery back in the late 1990’s about how a simple connection with the Earth can delivery remarkable health benefits (I met with Client personally for a few hours in July 2014 and he was a really ‘down-to-earth’ guy. LOL!)

Basically, it’s said to work like this; planet earth is like one big, gigantic, ‘super battery’. It has its own electrical charge (negative energy), which it emits 24/7. Our human bodies, primarily composed of water and minerals are ideal conductors of this electrical energy. When our bare skin, particularly our bare feet, which are full of a rich network of nerve endings, contact the earth, our internal electrical charge gets raised and/or balanced. (We become ‘tuned’ to the same energy as the earth.) It’s just like charging a battery in your car. If it never got recharged, the car would eventually stop running. Similarly, imagine a light bulb with a loose fuse. At best, the light emits a very weak, flickering light. Our bodies are the same. Unfortunately, in our modern world, we use the best insulators (plastic, rubber, etc) to insulate ourselves from supercharging our energy from the earth. Rubber and plastic shoes and the like mean that even if we walk on the grass, we don’t actually receive the earth’s healing energy.

In the forward to the book, James.L.Oschman PhD beautifully states, “The primordial natural energy emanating from the earth is the ultimate anti-inflammatory and the ultimate anti-aging medicine”. (And inflammation is now considered a causative or underlying contributor to nearly every modern-day illness … from arthritis to heart disease and cancer.)

Earthing is also showing very promising results in improving athletic and sporting performance, typically in the area of recovery. Intense exercise and high-level sports performance inevitably results in high levels of inflammation, muscle damage and often injury. Regularly grounding ones self has been shown to significantly reduce inflammation thus reducing pain, injury time and recovery time between training sessions or back-to-back performances. Earthing delivers similar benefits to post-performance ‘ice-baths’ (which also work by minimising inflammation), but without the same discomfort … or shrinking of important male body parts!!!

NATURAL EARTHING TIPS

Following are the tips I recommended in my book about earthing yourselves naturally;

At every opportunity, sit down on the grass, get out in the garden or walk in a park. If you live or work in a high-rise building or apartment, be extra vigilant about grounding yourself in these ways.
Where practical, take your shoes and socks off and walk on the ground with bare feet. If you do yoga, tai chi or other similar exercises in the mornings, where appropriate do them barefoot on the ground.
If you suffer from poor sleep, anxiety or anything related to feeling excessively ‘spacey’, consider if there may be any correlation with beginning to live or work in a high-rise building, especially an inner-city one, or becoming ungrounded in some way.
Get out of town and back to nature every now and then. Visit a national park or ‘go bush’ for an occasional holiday. It doesn’t have to be ‘pitch a tent’ type camping, just anywhere that gets you back to the grounding energy of Mother Earth.

* Walking barefoot on sand, in the ocean or other natural body of water is also excellent.

GREAT NEWS – YOU CAN NOW EARTH YOURSELF WHILE STAYING INDOORS!

Although most of us intuitively know how important it is to stay connected to Mother Earth it is often very difficult due to the weather, or it being inappropriate to take one’s shoes and socks off.

With this in mind, products have now been developed that enable us to ‘earth’ ourselves while staying indoors. You can get earthing bedsheets, office desk mats, mats for home use, and various other products that enable you to receive the earth’s balancing and healing energy while you’re inside.

See the videos below to know the benefits of the earthing mats and bedsheets

Earthing Mat & Bedsheet

I’ve personally got myself a couple of products, and have found them really beneficial.

AYURVEDIC VIEW

If you are familiar with Ayurveda*, earthing directly or by using an indoor earthing product would be expected to bring excellent benefits in settling and balancing Vata dosha.

In Ayurvedic medicine, the earth is associated with Kapha dosha. Thus, however we earth ourselves – whether directly on the ground or through such products – we are as if inbibing the earthy Kapha element (scientifically earthing works by the body taking up free electrons from the Earth that then neutralise potentially harmful free radical molecules). So if you experience any Vata imbalances or Vata symptoms – particularly thing like sleeplessness, insomnia, forgetfulness, pain of any kind, irregular digestion, excessive anxiety or worry, a feeling of being ‘ungrounded’ etc, earthing yourself regularly may bring very good results.

* While the benefits of earthing may be particularly pronounced for Vata conditions, it would certainly be beneficial to all the doshas and for all constitutional/body types. It’s powerful anti-inflammatory effects would be good for Pitta imbalances, and its ‘energising‘ nature would help promote balanced Kapha functioning. As with all of Mother Nature’s medicines, it would balance all doshas and the body as a whole.

* My eastern training was in Maharishi AyurVeda.

RELATED EARTHING RESEARCH

Research studies show that you can experience a benefit straight away.

* After four seconds of earthing skin conductance drops by an average of 10% indicated increased parasympathetic nervous system function (the calming aspect of our nervous system). Muscles that are tense begin to relax, and muscles that are hypertoned from injury or fatigue return to normal tension.

You feel calmer and more relaxed

Study here:

* After 30-120 minutes of earthing your blood flows more freely supporting better circulation, and the cardiovascular system. People also experience a more positive mood.

Study on earthing and mood:

Studies on earthing and blood circulation: Study 1 Study 2

* Earthing overnight resets your overnight cortisol levels which can help you fall asleep faster, wake up less often, and feel more refreshed in the morning. This means more energy during the day. Studies also report relief from muscle inflammation, musculoskeletal pain, gastrointestinal pain, headaches, menstrual cramps, and arthritic pain with earthing overnight.

Sleeping while earthed can give you a better night's sleep and reduces inflammation in your body.

Study showing earthing reduces muscle soreness post-exercise over 10 nights:

Study on earthing, sleep and pain reduction over 8-weeks:

You can read summaries of all of the above studies here including the number of participants, whether double-blind studies etc:

FURTHER INFORMATION

DISCOUNTED INDOOR EARTHING PRODUCTS – E.g. Bed Sheets, Pillowcases & Mats for Meditation, Home or Office
As friends of Dharmic Living (DL), Better Earthing Products Australia offer a 10% Discount on all of their products for DL Site visitors.
Simply go to the Better Earthing website and use the coupon code - MarkBunn10 - to get 10% off any products you order.
Feel free to share the code with friends/family/anyone else and happy earthing.
General Info = www.earthinginstitute.net
Mark’s ‘Ancient Wisdom for Modern Health’ Book
Listen to Mark explain Earthing in a 2GB Radio interview

Hope this has been of interest and happy earthing.