Earthing (also called ‘Grounding‘) is a fairly new topic that entered the discussion 5 years ago, after its discovery by the American television technician Clint Ober. Earthing refers to making direct contact between the ground and your body.
As a television engineer, Clint Ober was familiar with the charge phenomenon and knew the importance of good shielding to avoid image noise. In these fields, it is well known that the earth has a slightly negative charge, which can lead to artifacts.
From there, he experimented first on himself and later, with the help of doctors, to determine the health effects. With groundbreaking results! Nowadays there are some good studies1See: https://earthinginstitute.net/research[/mfn], especially small cohort groups and case studies, yet it is still a fairly new field with promising prospects.
We’ll look at all this in detail in this post, what Earthing means, what the mechanistic basics are, and most importantly, how you can incorporate Earthing into your everyday life without any extra costs.
What is Earthing?
Earthing refers to the contact of your body with the slightly negatively charged globe.
The negative charge is created by the multitude of lightning bolts that strike the globe – an average of an astounding 100 per second/8 million per day. Coupled with other atmospheric & cosmic events, this creates the slightly negative charge.1The Earths surface has a Negative Charge + The Interchange of Electricity between Thunderclouds and the Earth
Exchange of Electrons
What is meant by Earthing is the exchange of electrons from the Earth to our biological body.
Our body is designed to conduct: we are semiconductors. Many tissues have semiconductive properties with the most interesting being collagen2 Collagen is called an n-type Semiconductor as it is doped with molecules that decrease the amount of holes within it. Therefore it has an overall abundance of electrons that can jump over into the valance band. ‘N’ hereby stands for negative. P-Types are positively charged and the inference. They carry an overall positive charge by an increase in holes in it naturally or through the use of doping materials. See: PN Junction characteristics and photoelectromagnetic effect in bone and bone (p-type). As semiconductors, they conduct a current based on the surrounding temperature. On a molecular level, those tissues are doped with elements to increase conductivity, as the technicians do with modern semiconductors.
Humans are clearly designed to conduct charge and harvest energy from quantum effects.
To exchange charges we need to stand barefooted on conductive materials:
- Such as a stone floor
- Wear leather shoes.
- Even wood conducts, albeit poorly.
- Artificial materials, such as artificial leather, polyester, or rubber soles do not conduct at all and disconnect us from this vital contact with the globe.
Electrons = THE Cellular Currency
You can think of electrons in the body as the major metabolic currency. All processes are in the end biochemical redox processes and thus depend on electrons. As electrons, they also underlie biophysical laws and assert quantum effects.
In the end, all our energy production is just the story of electrons being pushed from A to B.
Nearly all chronic diseases are considered to be redox imbalances at the fundamental level. Think of chronic inflammation, autoimmune diseases and cancer. Over a long period of time, your biochemical processes become desynced: you lose electrons. Your Ferrari’s motor is leaking!3Earthing: health implications of reconnecting the human body to the Earth’s surface electrons
Electrons = THE Major Signal
Besides that, electrons are the major redox signal in the body.
Redox stands for Reduction & Oxidation – the way molecules gain or lose electrons. Redox is also just the start of moving electrons around.
More interstingly electrons also can make use of quantum effects within your semiconductive tissues. Therefore signals can be transmitted at the speed of light(!) between all cells everywhere within your body.
This effect happens outside of biochemistry, in the realm of biophysics or quantum physics. The realm modern medicine does know nothing about and continues to ignore.
This way of thinking solves a big problem: It has been shown that biochemical signal transduction is too slow to orchestrate the 9 billion processes per second within your body. Signal transmission through collagen via charge at the speed of light solves it. We’ll look at how exactly collagen does that in a moment!
How does Earthing work?
Collagen is the major Conductor of your Body
Collagen is the most abundant protein in the body. Macroscopically, it is found in all connective tissues, bones, joints, and supporting tissues. Under a microscope, it can also be seen in every cell, since the cell skeleton of every cell is made of collagen. It has its antennae everywhere.
This all-penetrating web of collagen is also referred to in the literature as the ‘extracellular matrix‘.4The extracellular matrix at a glance + Biology of the Extracellular Matrix: An Overview
Collagen itself is structured as a ‘triple helix’, which means that it has three strands that wrap around itself. This is quite similar to the way DNA looks, only with the difference that it has only two strands.
Collagen strands are made up of three amino acids. By necessity, glycine must be incorporated and is paired with two others. The two others are often proline and hydroxyproline, yet there is some flexibility regarding what can be assembled. As a fun fact, this is also where the herbicide & cell toxin Glyphosate acts, according to Stephanie Seneff’s work. Glyphosate acts as a glycine analog, meaning at can be built in for glycine into many locations throughout the body.
You can read more about this in her book ‘Toxic Legacy*’. 5Molecular structure of the collagen triple helix
EZ Water surround Collagen’s Triple Helis
According to the latest research by Gerald Pollack, presented in his book ‘Water*’, the EZ-Water structure can form around the collagen spiral.
The special feature of this phase of water is that it is neither solid nor liquid nor gaseous, but exists in a fourth phase – as a gel-shaped crystal. This water is called ‘exclusion zone water’, hexagonal water or EZ-water.
EZ-water can conduct electrons through the body as as in a plasma, similar to the magnets in an MRI. Here, the electrical resistance of the components is brought to zero by extreme cold. Then electrons can now pass through the collagen network into every cell of the body at extreme speed and with quantum effects at work.6https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gerald-Pollack
Biophysic’s vital Effects
This extracellular matrix and collagen’s ability to conduct are enormously important in the field of quantum health. It sits at an interplay of classical medicine to biophysics. So far, almost exclusively biochemical mechanisms have been considered for the healing process, as Pharma can make a killing off it.
Few people think of the importance of biophysics for the healing process, although their importance is well-known. Johnjoe MacFadden, for example, describes quantum effects like tunneling 7https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunneleffekt or Heisenberg’s uncertainty relation8https://www.studysmarter.de/schule/physik/quantenmechanik/heisenbergsche-unschaerferelation/ that happen in the body in his brilliant book ‘The Quantum Beat of Life*’.
Even Nobel laureate Albert Szent-Györgi, the one who got famous for discovering Vitamin C, said that biochemical processes are too slow to orchestrate the whole body.
What convinces me is the consistency with our evolution: Humans were always in contact with the ground until artificial materials and modern indoor living came along. Before that, everyone wore leather shoes, was barefoot, or spent most of the day outdoors standing on conductive materials.
What if the Earth has always been the main antioxidant of our body?
What are the Health Benefits of Earthing?
Enough of biophysics for today!
Next up, we’ll take a look at the effects that all these electrons cause in the body. For this, it doesn’t take much after the introductory mechanisms to see how everything comes together.
Environmental Electrons are a Major Antioxidant
So let’s first settle on what oxidation is! By definition, it is the loss of electrons. A good mnemonic is the acronym OILRIG (= Oxidation is losing, Reduction is Gaining)9Can electrons act as antioxidants? A review and commentary
If we have too much oxidative stress, as is often the case in various diseases, our body is leaking electrons. Additional electrons are needed to compensate for this ‘too much’ of oxidation. At the same time the leak has to be fixed.
Environmental Electrons can also help balance the lesser-known phenomenon of reductive stress.10In reductive stress, you have too many reduced redox pairs, such as too much NADH and too little NAD+, or too much FADH2 and too little FAD2+. Oxidation is just as important as reduction, and both just as bad in their unbalanced extremes. And this is what redox stands for – reduction & oxidation.
So far, various substances have been identified that can donate electrons:
- various endogenous antioxidants such as glutathione, uric acid, or ascorbate.
- External antioxidants such as curcumin, quercitin or ascorbic acid are also frequently mentioned, but these are highly doubtful.
But what if electrons from the environment play the main role. And more to our detriment – we hardly ever use them these days!
Grounding for Cardiovascular Health
In addition to the above effects on the antioxidant system, there is another exciting clue for cardiovascular health: Your blood vessels and red blood cells have an ‘energy shield’. They are negatively charged.
This is known in the literature as ‘zeta potential’ or more rarely called ‘Coulomb force’. What is this shield for, you might ask?11Electrical properties of the red blood cell membrane and immunohematological investigation
- Imagine a fair and think of the bumper cars there.
- The whole ride is a blood vessel, the scooters are red blood cells.
- The zeta potential, on the other hand, represents the rubber shock absorbers that prevent cells from sticking together and colliding. Pretty nifty!12A novel hypothesis for atherosclerosis as a cholesterol sulfate deficiency syndrome
But what happens when we have too few electrons and thus too little charge?
The red cells clump together and become literal piles of cells. This has been microscopically confirmed to be the case and is called ‘Roulleau‘. Earthing helps maintain the Zeta Potential of the cells. So clumping is prevented and your blood flows through the bloodstream as it should. Fascinating, right?
And now the 1 billion Euro question – what influence does the Zeta Potential, or its malfunction, have on cardiovascular disease? Probably a huge one, yet this topic is, unfortunately, little promoted (like everything that can’t be patented & sold as a pill) and therefore further research is lacking.13Earthing (Grounding) the Human Body Reduces Blood Viscosity—a Major Factor in Cardiovascular Disease
Earthing shield you off non-native EMF
Another big elephant in the room of modern disease is the ever-increasing levels of radiation from the environment.
By living indoors within walls of stone, we expose ourselves to more ionizing radiation in the form of radon. Cigarettes contain plutonium. But this ionizing radiation is only a fraction. The much bigger problem is non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation (nnEMF), such as WiFi, microwaves, telephone networks, blue light, and 5G.
All of these are known to affect our bodies via various mechanisms, more on this in a later post. In the end, we have no idea what the exact effects of all this radiation is, there is no long-term data and even ‘experts’14read: lobbyist-paid puppets and mouthpieces are just guessing. What we do know is that there are well-studied mechanisms, with various negative outcomes.
What earthing does is this – it grounds you and thus creates an imaginary ‘shield’ around you, to block a portion of this nnEMF.15Earthing the Human Organism Influences Bioelectrical Processes
Especially in cities (or if you are lucky enough to live next to a 5G antenna like me) it reduces your exposure drastically. Also, it helps you if you live on higher floors, because interestingly enough, the voltage of the atmosphere increases the further you get from the ground. Regarding these two issues, grounded sleeping becomes interesting on grounding mats, as we’ll look at later.16A great and free eBook is this one by James Oschmann: https://earthinginstitute.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/biophysics-of-earthing-grounding-the-human-body-2015.pdf
Earthing for better Sleep & Restoration
Anecdotally, many people sleep better when they are grounded – myself included.
This subjective data is supported by some studies that have measured known stress markers comparing grounded vs. ungrounded sleep. Also looked at recovery ability after exercise and looked at how grounding can help during exercise. The results were nothing short of amazing, showing improved recovery, as well as better performance in both cases. In a pilot study, Tour de France athletes were given grounded sleeping bags for the entire Tour to prevent injury – and it showed effect.17The Biologic Effects of Grounding the Human Body During Sleep as Measured by Cortisol Levels and Subjective Reporting of Sleep, Pain, and Stress
Earthing to improve your Mood
In addition, earthing has a calming or parasympathetic effect. Everyone knows this: imagine being barefoot on a beach or on a meadow in the park. I bet that barefoot contact with the earth calms you down almost in minutes. This effect on mood has also been shown and measured in studies.18The Effect of Grounding the Human Body on Mood + Effectiveness of Grounded Sleeping on Recovery After Intensive Eccentric Muscle Loading
Is Earthing the Cure of ALL?
Nope it isn’t!
Earthing is something that life has been continuously exposed to for ~4 billion years. At the same time humans have completely lost it since a rough 100 years. With any other stimulus (daylight, food, air) we would no longer be here or severely damaged. Earth is flying under the radar. Yet to assume it has no effects at all is either ignorant or naive.
In fact, many endpoints in the Earthing studies showed mostly positive effects. Probably because, again, more electrons help tremendously to fine-tune our body. Most are all stand-alone studies and also lack large-scale projects, like meta’s & RCT’s, yet this colorful spectrum of points in a clear direction:
Earth is beneficial for us in many ways, and we humans were pretty much always in contact with Earth until a few hundred years ago. Nowadays its’s gone – and that leaves a big gap.
What are the best Ways to practice Earthing?
Be Barefoot on the Ground daily
In studies, the sweet spot was 30-45min, but depending on the illness, many effects beyond 16 hours were still seen.
A good protocol for this is to ground yourself in the morning and evening for 10-20 minutes at a time:
To do this, simply sit in the garden with your feet barefoot in contact with the ground, preferably on grass.
Alternatives are barefoot walks, walking with grounded shoes like the Earthrunner sandals, or shoes made of natural materials like leather. Especially in winter, boots made of pure leather are a great alternative to stay grounded when barefoot contact with the ground is not an option – at least not for 20 minutes at a time. Grounding in the morning can thus be combined or ‘stacked’ particularly well with other habits:
- With a morning walk you already cover your exposure to sunlight in the morning.
- Also, you move for a few minutes and can stretch a bit to wake up while you go your rounds.
- Likewise, you are grounded and breathing fresh air.
Red Sunrise Light + Movement + Earths = Check! This is what a perfect start to the day looks like.
Der beste Earthing Hack!
So verbesserst Du Deine Schuhe im Winter.
@ancestrallyhealthy So kommst Du auch im Winter an die Vorteile des Earthing… …mit Kupfernieten! #earthing #grounding #earthrunners #gesund #healthtok
♬ Originalton – Ancestrally Healthy – Ancestrally Healthy
Wear Earthing Shoes
As already mentioned, modern shoes do not conduct because of the soles of artificial materials. They are also a disaster biomechanically. The best choice are minimal shoes – here you can read much more on the subject. Nevertheless, all minimal shoes have the Vibram soles* made of rubber and thus do not conduct either.
The solution are the sandals from Earthrunners, which have a copper rivet installed and wire in the straps of the sandals. This way you are in electrical contact with the ground with every step you take. Also, they have rivet kits for sale that you can use to add such a rivet to most non-grounded shoes at home. Great idea!
Another choice is shoes made of natural materials, leather being the first. This was also the choice of our ancestors until the advent of synthetic materials. Leather is also conductive. Therefore, leather sandals in the summer or leather boots in the winter also do well. Unfortunately, these are hard to come by and are usually only made by individuals, such as on Etsy. Still worth a look!
Buy an Earthing Mat
As another option for more grounding exposure are suitable grounding mats*. They are best known as mattress covers: sometimes they have silver threads sewn into them, the new variants are made of a certain carbon fabric.
I also own one of these and have noticed that it helps me sleep. I haven’t measured any other effects, yet I’m more concerned with creating traditional human environments rather than biohacking and using them to specifically optimize my parameters. And if you think about it – sleeping does ~8h per day, that’s 8 grounded hours per day. Especially related to environmental radiation shielding and zeta potential, I find these extra hours very interesting.
Meanwhile, there are even grounding mats as sports mats, similar to yoga mats. You can then sit on them to work, read or do sports. They can also be placed well under the desk.
As always – live like your Ancestors and thrive!
As with almost all health issues, this Ancestral Health precept is true:
The farther we get from our roots, the more problems arise in the process.
Likewise with grounding. It’s (unfortunately) a little-known topic, with (potentially) far-reaching effects – and best of all, you can implement it into your life without any additional cost. That is, if you know about it.
So spread the word and pass on what you’ve learned – feel free to share the post. Also, if you want to know more about Earthing, I can recommend the great book by Clint Ober called ‘Earthing’*. You can learn more in detail about biophysics in this free eBook by Dr. James Oeschman. He also presents various studies there, which he did in cooperation with clinkers together. It is a simple, clear and fast read and therefore recommended to everyone.
If this post helped you – let me know. And likewise, don’t be afraid to write me your questions or thoughts in the comments.
Until then and stay grounded,
Fußnoten & Quellen
- 1See: https://earthinginstitute.net/research[/mfn], especially small cohort groups and case studies, yet it is still a fairly new field with promising prospects.
We’ll look at all this in detail in this post, what Earthing means, what the mechanistic basics are, and most importantly, how you can incorporate Earthing into your everyday life without any extra costs.
Table of Contents aufklappenWhat is Earthing?
Earthing refers to the contact of your body with the slightly negatively charged globe.
The negative charge is created by the multitude of lightning bolts that strike the globe – an average of an astounding 100 per second/8 million per day. Coupled with other atmospheric & cosmic events, this creates the slightly negative charge.1The Earths surface has a Negative Charge + The Interchange of Electricity between Thunderclouds and the Earth - 2Collagen is called an n-type Semiconductor as it is doped with molecules that decrease the amount of holes within it. Therefore it has an overall abundance of electrons that can jump over into the valance band. ‘N’ hereby stands for negative. P-Types are positively charged and the inference. They carry an overall positive charge by an increase in holes in it naturally or through the use of doping materials. See: PN Junction characteristics and photoelectromagnetic effect in bone
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- 10In reductive stress, you have too many reduced redox pairs, such as too much NADH and too little NAD+, or too much FADH2 and too little FAD2+.
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- 14read: lobbyist-paid puppets and mouthpieces
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- 16A great and free eBook is this one by James Oschmann: https://earthinginstitute.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/biophysics-of-earthing-grounding-the-human-body-2015.pdf
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