The word "grounding" has many different use cases, ranging from electrical engineering, construction, and more. Even in the health and wellness space, grounding can refer to a handful of different things, all with different applications. Most commonly though, grounding -- also referred to as earthing -- is a technique that involves connecting bare skin directly to the earth for health benefits. This includes walking barefoot, sitting on the earth, gardening with bare hands in the soil, swimming in the sea, and more.
Skin-to-ground contact provides the body with free electrons. Grounding restores the body to its natural, slightly negative charge. This can be easily tested with a multimeter, a standard meter used to detect voltage and current.
Most people have drifted away from this natural electrical state (polarity) given the amount of time spent indoors. The EPA estimates Americans spend 93% of their time indoors (b), which leads to a condition of “electron deficiency.”
A growing body of research shows that grounding has wide-ranging health benefits. These include balancing our nervous system, improving uptake and flow of oxygen to our cells, and reducing inflammation. It may have also have anti-aging effects. The Earthing Institute cites dozens of studies on the health effects of grounding, including improvements in energy, mood, sleep, recovery, and wound healing (c). Additionally, grounding has the ability to reduce oxidative stress, which results from loss of electrons.
Studies also suggest that grounding to the earth is beneficial to our physical and emotional health. Some of these benefits include: promotion of feelings of peace and relaxation, reduction of inflammation, improved sleep, pain perception reduction, improved wound healing, and regulation of cortisol cycles (a).
Our body functions most efficiently with a slightly negative charge or polarity. While indoors, we not only miss out on that electron flow from the earth, we are also surrounded by positively charged electromagnetic fields from technology like cell phones, computers, electrical wires, and power lines. Even when venturing outdoors, the use of non-conductive footwear blocks the connection with the earth. The abundance of positively charged electromagnetic fields combined with the lack of connection with earth cause the body to slowly shift into a more positive electrical state, leading to negative health ramifications. Such a lifestyle changes our polarity, our natural charge.
A common analogy in bioenergetics is to view our cells like batteries—more accurately like capacitors—storing a negative charge. This negative charge is the potential energy that powers many physiological processes ranging from cell signaling to hormone production. It is analogous to the polarity or charge of a synthetic battery flowing from positive to negative. Grounding the body is like plugging into a slow trickle of electrons from the earth, similar to recharging any other battery.
Within bioenergetics theory, grounding helps to address both the body’s polarity and its relation to earth’s three “big fields”—the magnetic polar, equatorial, and vertical axes. Polarity is essential for maintaining homeostasis. This makes sense because the polarity is the distribution of the electric charge on a body. Without it, we lose some of the energy needed to maintain basic biochemical reactions; grounding is therefore linked to enzyme, hormone, and mineral health, as well as metabolism.
The topic of grounding is becoming more and more popular each year as information arises & earthing benefits become clearer. As a result, practicing grounding has never been easier, and there are handful of ways to get started:
The benefits and importance of grounding are clear. Additional measures include staying well-hydrated and including natural salt and trace minerals in your diet. Through these simple, and nearly cost-free methods, it is possible to maintain the flow of negatively charged particles within your body to restore energy and health.
Oschman JL, Chevalier G, Brown R. The effects of grounding (earthing) on inflammation, the immune response, wound healing, and prevention and treatment of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. J Inflamm Res. 2015 Mar 24;8:83-96. doi: 10.2147/JIR.S69656. PMID: 25848315; PMCID: PMC4378297.
https://snowbrains.com/brain-post-much-time-average-american-spend-outdoors/
https://earthinginstitute.net/research/