Earthing – How And Why To Touch Grass Today (Benefits)

Earthing is one of those health modalities that has gotten a lot less mainstream coverage than it perhaps should have.

Fairly unknown, very powerful.

You may have heard of it, or you may have not.

Either way, before we jump into the many benefits and why you should be earthing, let’s explain what it is.

What Is Earthing
How Earthing Works
Earthing Science And Benefits
How To Earth (And How Not To)
How Long To Earth Yourself?
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What Is Earthing

Earthing, you could say, equals touching grass.

Or the ground, or a grounded object or material, etc.

It means reconnecting with Mother Earth in a most natural way that we have evolved doing.

Now this may sound like hocus pocus, walking barefoot outside, but rest assured it isn’t and there’s plenty of research to back that up now as well.

Which brings us to:

How Earthing Works

Earthing seems to work by providing a nearly unlimited amount of free electrons to the body, which can then work as antioxidants.

Imagine, that you could be getting all of those antioxidants from not just eating healthy, but straight from the ground.

And these bring lots of benefits:

Earthing Science And Benefits

Some of those include:

Lowering inflammation – And powerfully so, this might be the most important benefit.
Pain reduction – Both acute and chronic pain.
Improving your immune system – The immune response is very different when grounded and as a result more efficient.
Better sleep – Earthing can give you deeper, longer sleep and an easier time falling asleep.
Balancing biological and circadian rhythms – This ties in with sleep. Many people use earthing to quickly reduce or eliminate their jet lag.
Less stress – Earthing rapidly activates the parasympathetic nervous system which is the relaxed part of your nervous system, effectively reducing your stress.
Cortisol regulation – Cortisol’s closely related to stress, and for most people today earthing means lower cortisol levels but also a normalization of the natural peaks and ebbs of those same levels.
Improved circulation and normalized blood pressure – Earthing has a blood thinning effect, reducing clumping of red blood cells and improving overall circulation.
Muscle tension and headaches – Ties in closely with pain and stress reduction and the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system.
Speeds wound healing – That speaks for itself.
Reduced DOMS and improved athletic recovery speed – Earthing’s one of very few interventions proven to lessen DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness). Many Tour de France participants, including Lance Armstrong, used an earthing recovery bag during the race for sleep and faster recoveries, as do many professional athletes in other sports.
Increases energy – Lots of earthers seem to attest to this.
Reduces snoring – For some it even seems to go away completely, as evident from the documentary on the topic.
Improved mood, reduced anxiety and depression – Backed up by studies.
Regulates thyroid, adrenal, as well as female and menstrual hormones – Anecdotes of people having to reduce or go off their hypothyroid medications spring to mind, as does stories of women getting rid of hot flashes from menopause.
Speeds up detox (anecdotally, from experience).

Study, study, study, study.

So, good stuff, and truly nothing you want to miss out on since we evolved with having these earthing effects nearly all the time.

And how do you do it?

**How To Earth (And How Not To)**

Earthing can be done in a bunch of ways and they include barefoot on grass or other conductive surfaces like mud or sand.

Or submersed in water outdoors.

Or indoors using various earthing products.

Here’s where I get a bit controversial though and say that you don’t really want to be using any of the commercial earthing products out there today, and why?

Because years of testing and experimenting with earthing led me to discover that there are some things that make earthing as it’s done today flawed and not helpful.

It can even worsen your health and how you feel.

And that’s when you use earthing products..

Don’t Use Earthing Products

They’re highly convenient, but my theory is that it’s the material you’re earthing with (touching skin with) that decides how quickly you receive the electrons and that anything not too natural, such as metal and other common earthing product materials, will lead to a too quick delivery of those electrons and to harm done instead.

I’ve felt it personally, using intuitive testing, and seen it in other “earthers” on YouTube for example.

It still comes with many of the benefits above, but at too hefty a price in how you feel (often more miserably).

EMFs And Earthing

Another thing to be wary of that I’ve also explored a lot myself is the connection between grounding and electromagnetic fields (EMFs).

Many sources say earthing is protective from these, but I’m here to say that it’s the opposite.

You do not want to do earthing when there are too much of those fields around you, and the reason is, I believe, that you become like a mast or antenna, making these fields considerably more harmful.

So, you want to be avoiding EMFs on their own already, but even more so when earthed (take this seriously).

Anecdotally, I’ve felt really crappy from making these above earthing mistakes for years when I didn’t know better and the information on it was lacking or non-existent.

It was looking so good on paper, backed by both evolution and science, yet no good.

It was tuning in to and developing my health intuition that made it possible to find these things out, and that’s how you yourself can decide where you can earth, such as in your apartment, or how long.

For me, I used to earth myself at night, but then a new broadband Wi-Fi was installed, and I could intuitively no longer do that (too much/strong EMF).

I also can’t earth if my own Wi-Fi Router is on, despite it being like 2 rooms away, but fine for up to 15 minutes or so without it despite there being about 10 or so other Wi-Fis around.

With no EMFs, such as on the beach, you can basically ground yourself for as long as you want, without the negatives.

Either way, the basics then of maneuvering earthing through EMFs becomes to turn off your Wi-Fi router whenever you’re earthing, keep your phone at a distance of minimum 1,5 meters or so, and make sure you’re not near any electrical cords.

Again more on this in the EMF avoidance post linked to above.

Earthing Product Alternatives

But, you said not to use any earthing products.. so how do we ground ourselves indoors then?

As an invention of mine, you can use a sort of rope made from old clothes, doesn’t have to be a thick one (use a pair of scissors), and then make it wet (water is a natural surface of conduction for us), and connect it to something grounded such as your sink, or the grounded part of an electrical outlet and to your skin on some part of your body.

You can also generally get grounded in the shower, since the water and pipes will often be in contact with the ground.

And there you’ve gotten around the earthing product problem.

How Long To Earth Yourself?

I’d say that ideally, you’ll want to do it as much as possible when not exposed to excessive EMFs, and intuitively learn how much of it you can tolerate when say, indoors.

Earthing overnight is a great alternative to get lots of regular grounded time (and better sleep), but if you can’t, I’d say 15-20 minutes 2-4 times a day. Once a day is still much better than not of course.

You can view earthing as sort of replenishing your battery (we’re electrical beings), and since we evolved with earthing all the time, our battery never evolved to be able to store these free electrons for very long, nor our body to go without them.