Have you ever noticed how good you feel after a day at the beach? Or simply when walking barefoot?

When you walk barefoot on the beach or on grass, or simply put your hands in the soil, you are connecting with the earth's subtle energy and experiencing the benefits of grounding, or earthing.

Our earliest ancestors were grounded as they walked, sat, and slept. Unfortunately, our modern lifestyle has taken us away from the earth.

HOW DOES EARTHING WORK

Here is a very brief explanation of how earthing works.

The Earth’s surface has a subtle, negative electrical charge. All of your body’s normal processes – breathing, pumping blood around your body, digesting – create free radicals. Free radicals lack an electron and are on a constant lookout for free electrons to nullify their positive charge.

Negative energy from the earth (in the form of free electrons) may counter the accumulation of free radicals in our body.

To summarise: when your body is in conductive contact with earth, excess positive free radicals are neutralised by negatively charged free electrons.

Positive + negative = neutral.

This gently stabilises your body’s systems.

BENEFITS OF GROUNDING

This gentle balancing effect can support your body’s ability to heal itself. It enhances immune response, reduces inflammation and speeds recovery from injury.

Other benefits of earthing demonstrated in research studies (you can find some of those studies here) and clinical practice (from people's experience):

• Improved sleep
• Stress reduction
• Pain relief
• Improved blood circulation
• Balanced cortisol levels, especially at night
• Improved cardiovascular function
• Reduced inflammation
• Normalised muscle tension
• Faster recovery from muscular strain
• Increased levels of energy during the day
• Reduced free radicals in the body

HOW TO GROUND YOURSELF

1- Walk outdoors barefoot

The easiest way to experience earthing outdoors is to simply kick off your shoes and walk barefoot on green grass (best first thing in the morning when dew is still there) or moist sand at the beach – moist ground is more conductive than dry sand or dry dirt. In fact, the beach is one of the best places for earthing as the combination of sand and salt water is highly conductive.

Ceramic tiles, unpainted concrete and brick (when laid directly on the earth) are also conductive surfaces that allow the human body to ground effectively.

How long do you need to earth to experience the benefits?

Research on earthing suggests that your body experiences changes within four seconds of grounding. Tense muscles relax and the nervous system calms down.

After thirty minutes to two hours, you can feel less stress and pain, and experience more warmth in your hands and feet caused by better blood circulation.

The longer you ground the better, especially if you are trying to reduce inflammation. It can be hard to ground outdoors daily, let alone for many hours every day.

This is why grounding indoors can be very beneficial. See more about that below.

2- Simple Spoon Trick

This will sound a bit weird, but give it a try and see how it feels!

Take a stainless steel spoon (stainless steel is important... if should be written at the back of the spoon) and rub the back of it at the bottom of your feet. Directly on the skin is better, but you can also do it on top of your socks.

That's it!

3- Grounding Products

There are specialised products designed to connect you with the earth, no matter where you are. Those products are made of conductive materials (usually silver) that help pass free electrons from the earth to you.

They connect you with the ground outside either via a grounding rod or through the third 'earth' port of your powerpoint. It conducts earth, not electricity. It allows free electrons from the earth to flow right up through the grounding wire into your earthing product.

In Australia, we recommend the company Better Earthing. They have excellent quality product and outstanding customer service.

If you live outside of Australia, we recommend this website: https://www.earthing.com