Mother Earth

Earthing or grounding

There is a science behind earthing or grounding:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9381424/pdf/main.pdf Prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infection by earthing

Conclusions

Earthing revealed significant curing and preventive effects with a shorter illness duration.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3265077/ Earthing: Health Implications of Reconnecting the Human Body to the Earth's Surface Electrons

Conclusion

De Flora et al. wrote the following: “Since the late 20th century, chronic degenerative diseases have overcome infectious disease as the major causes of death in the 21st century, so an increase in human longevity will depend on finding an intervention that inhibits the development of these diseases and slows their progress”.

Could such an intervention be located right beneath our feet?

Earthing research, observations, and related theories raise an intriguing possibility about the Earth's surface electrons as an untapped health resource—the Earth as a “global treatment table.” Emerging evidence shows that contact with the Earth—whether being outside barefoot or indoors connected to grounded conductive systems—may be a simple, natural, and yet profoundly effective environmental strategy against chronic stress, ANS dysfunction, inflammation, pain, poor sleep, disturbed HRV, hypercoagulable blood, and many common health disorders, including cardiovascular disease.

The research done to date supports the concept that

grounding or earthing the human body may be an essential element in the health equation along with sunshine, clean air and water, nutritious food, and physical activity.

Discussion

Until now, the physiological significance and possible health effects of stabilizing the internal bioelectrical environment of an organism have not been a significant topic of research. Some aspects of this, however, are relatively obvious. In the absence of Earth contact, internal charge distribution will not be uniform, but instead will be subject to a variety of electrical perturbations in the environment. It is well known that many important regulations and physiological processes involve events taking place on cell and tissue surfaces. In the absence of a common reference point, or “ground,” electrical gradients, due to uneven charge distribution, can build up along tissue surfaces and cell membranes.

We can predict that such charge differentials will influence biochemical and physiological processes. First, the structure and functioning of many enzymes are sensitive to local environmental conditions. Each enzyme has an optimal pH that favors maximal activity. A change in the electrical environment can alter the pH of biological fluids and the charge distribution on molecules and thereby affect reaction rates. The pH effect results because of critical charged amino acids at the active site of the enzyme that participate in substrate binding and catalysis. In addition, the ability of a substrate or enzyme to donate or accept hydrogen ions is influenced by pH.

Another example is provided by voltage-gated ion channels, which play critical biophysical roles in excitable cells such as neurons. Local alterations in the charge profiles around these channels can lead to electrical instability of the cell membrane and to the inappropriate spontaneous activity observed during certain pathological states [31].

Earthing research offers insights into the clinical potential of barefoot contact with the Earth, or simulated barefoot contact indoors via simple conductive systems, on the stability of internal bioelectrical function and human physiology. Initial experiments resulted in subjective reports of improved sleep and reduced pain [10]. Subsequent research showed that improved sleep was correlated with a normalization of the cortisol day-night profile [13]. The results are significant in light of the extensive research showing that lack of sleep stresses the body and contributes to many detrimental health consequences. Lack of sleep is often the result of pain. Hence, reduction of pain might be one reason for the benefits just described.

Pain reduction from sleeping grounded has been confirmed in a controlled study on DOMS. Earthing is the first intervention known to speed recovery from DOMS [21]. Painful conditions are often the result of various kinds of acute or chronic inflammation conditions caused in part by ROS generated by normal metabolism and also by the immune system as part of the response to injury or trauma. Inflammation can cause pain and loss of range of motion in joints. Inflammatory swelling can put pressure on pain receptors (nocireceptors) and can compromise the microcirculation, leading to ischemic pain. Inflammation can cause the release of toxic molecules that also activate pain receptors. Modern biomedical research has also documented a close relationship between chronic inflammation and virtually all chronic diseases, including the diseases of aging, and the aging process itself. The steep rise in inflammatory diseases, in fact, has been recently called “inflamm-aging” to describe a progressive inflammatory status and a loss of stress-coping ability as major components of the aging process [32].

Reduction in inflammation as a result of earthing has been documented with infrared medical imaging [28] and with measurements of blood chemistry and white blood cell counts [21]. The logical explanation for the anti-inflammatory effects is that grounding the body allows negatively charged antioxidant electrons from the Earth to enter the body and neutralize positively charged free radicals at sites of inflammation [28]. Flow of electrons from the Earth to the body has been documented [15].

A pilot study on the electrodynamics of red blood cells (zeta potential) has revealed that earthing significantly reduces blood viscosity, an important but neglected parameter in cardiovascular diseases and diabetes [29], and circulation in general. Thus, thinning the blood may allow for more oxygen delivery to tissues and further support the reduction of inflammation.

Stress reduction has been confirmed with various measures showing rapid shifts in the ANS from sympathetic to parasympathetic dominance, improvement in heart rate variability, and normalization of muscle tension [19, 20, 27].

Not reported here are many observations over more than two decades by Ober et al. [12] and K. Sokal and P. Sokal [11] indicating that regular earthing may improve blood pressure, cardiovascular arrhythmias, and autoimmune conditions such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Some effects of earthing on medication are described by Ober et al. [12] and at the website:

http://www.earthinginstitute.net/

As an example, the combination of earthing and coumadin has the potential to exert a compounded blood thinning effect and must be supervised by a physician. Multiple anecdotes of elevated INR have been reported. INR (international normalized ratio) is a widely used measurement of coagulation. The influence of earthing on thyroid function and medication has been described earlier.

From a practical standpoint, clinicians could recommend outdoor “barefoot sessions” to patients, weather, and conditions permitting. Ober et al. [12] have observed that going barefoot as little as 30 or 40 minutes daily can significantly reduce pain and stress, and the studies summarized here explain why this is the case. Obviously, there is no cost for barefoot grounding. However, the use of conductive systems while sleeping, working, or relaxing indoors offer a more convenient and routine-friendly approach.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550830718302519?via%3Dihub The Effects of Grounding (Earthing) on Bodyworkers’ Pain and Overall Quality of Life: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Results: As a group, therapists experienced significant increases in physical function and energy and significant decreases in fatigue, depressed mood, tiredness and pain while grounded as compared to not being grounded. At one-month following the study, physical function was also increased and depressed mood and fatigue were decreased.

Conclusions: We observed consistent beneficial effects of grounding in domains highly relevant to massage therapists, namely pain, physical function, and mood. These findings, combined with prior results from this trial indicating improvements in inflammatory biomarkers, blood viscosity and heart rate variability (HRV), suggest that grounding is beneficial to massage therapists in multiple domains relevant to their occupation, supporting overall health and quality of life.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15650465/ The biologic effects of grounding the human body during sleep as measured by cortisol levels and subjective reporting of sleep, pain, and stress

Conclusions: Results indicate that grounding the human body to earth ("earthing") during sleep reduces night-time levels of cortisol and resynchronizes cortisol hormone secretion more in alignment with the natural 24-hour circadian rhythm profile. Changes were most apparent in females. Furthermore, subjective reporting indicates that grounding the human body to earth during sleep improves sleep and reduces pain and stress.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4590684/ Grounding after moderate eccentric contractions reduces muscle damage

These results suggest that connecting the body to the earth enables free electrons and diurnal electrical rhythms to enter the body, setting the biological clocks for hormones that regulate sleep and activity.17 It was also suggested that free electrons from the earth neutralize the positively charged free radicals that are the hallmark of chronic inflammation.60 Another possible mechanism of inflammation control is the inflammatory reflex. This neural reflex mechanism regulates innate immune responses and inflammation during tissue injury and pathogen invasion mainly through the vagus nerve. Since grounding stimulates the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system, it is possible that vagus nerve-mediated cholinergic stimulation produces a decrease in inflammation.59

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4378297/ The effects of grounding (earthing) on inflammation, the immune response, wound healing, and prevention and treatment of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases

Conclusion

Accumulating experiences and research on earthing, or grounding, point to the emergence of a simple, natural, and accessible health strategy against chronic inflammation, warranting the serious attention of clinicians and researchers. The living matrix (or ground regulation or tissue tensegrity-matrix system), the very fabric of the body, appears to serve as one of our primary antioxidant defense systems. As this report explains, it is a system requiring occasional recharging by conductive contact with the Earth’s surface – the “battery” for all planetary life – to be optimally effective.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3154031/ Earthing the Human Body Influences Physiologic Processes

Results

Earthing of an electrically insulated human organism during night rest causes lowering of serum concentrations of iron, ionized calcium, inorganic phosphorus, and reduction of renal excretion of calcium and phosphorus. Earthing during night rest decreases free tri-iodothyronine and increases free thyroxine and thyroid-stimulating hormone. The continuous earthing of the human body decreases blood glucose in patients with diabetes. Earthing decreases sodium, potassium, magnesium, iron, total protein, and albumin concentrations while the levels of transferrin, ferritin, and globulins α1, α2, β, and γ increase. These results are statistically significant.

https://books.google.pl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=DtQVwPcBrr4C&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&ots=2LUWFlvwap&sig=dupAHRDST1XgOvlqT9gQFSTdz7M&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever?