Oh the joys of being alive! 

Feeling soft, cozy vibrant green grass beneath your feet or a warm ray of sunshine on your face or even the peace and tranquility that comes with rain gently tapping on your window. The Earth certainly has a certain, indescribable beauty to it.

On the flipside, there are also some not-so-pleasant parts to living on Earth, like pandemic viruses, undiagnosable diseases, and natural disasters. While beautiful, the world can be a dangerous and scary place. 

Considering all that can go wrong, it’s understandable why many people seek out health experts to improve their quality of life and prevent diseases, especially when it comes to age-related conditions. Modern biomedicine has progressively correlated many crippling conditions with both age, chronic inflammation, and oxidative stress. 

As the human body performs many routine, day-to-day functions, it also produces many highly reactive, positively charged free-radicals. Normally, low levels of free-radicals can be managed by a healthy immune system, but when high amounts of free-radicals permeate constantly throughout the body, they can wreak havoc inducing high levels of oxidative stress, prolonged inflammation, and cell injury & death. For example, several studies strongly suggest that low-grade, chronic inflammation is a major risk factor behind brain degradation.   

Want to learn more about oxidative stress and its effects? Check out my latest blog post to get a more in-depth overview of the subject!

In an attempt to reverse or prevent damage due to oxidative stress and chronic inflammation, many research studies have been conducted to provide more evidence-based data and ways to prevent these conditions. One of these is grounding (or earthing).

First Things First: What Is Grounding / Earthing?

You might be thinking, “What is Earthing?” 

Earthing, or grounding, is simple: it’s the practice of being in direct contact with the earth. This can be achieved in many ways: swimming outdoors (excluding man-made pools), walking barefoot on the surface of the Earth, practicing yoga directly on grass, sleeping outdoors on the ground, etc. 

Essentially, being grounded means you are physically touching the Earth without any barriers between your skin and the ground.

In the past, most people operated with this lifestyle, but many modern cultures now prefer to wear synthetic, rubber shoes for foot protection and support.

I know, I know, it sounds like something hippies in the 70s would tote (along with some other things….), but there’s some science behind it. 

Trust me.

The Science of Grounding

Grounding is based on the principle of electricity and that electromagnetic fields surround the earth at all times. The Earth maintains a constant negative electrical field, likely due to lightning strikes, solar radiation, and/or the crazy intense pressure and heat in the inner core of the Earth. Essentially, the Earth contains millions upon millions free electrons, which are negatively charged atomic particles.

Modern technology often relies on this negative electrical charge to maintain electrical systems, like large power grids for supplying electricity to homes and workplaces (this is where the term grounded comes from when talking about power grids). This is sometimes called grounding electricity. 

When insulated from the Earth, however, the human body gains a more positive electrical potential compared to the Earth because these free electrons can’t be conducted into the human body6.. But when we are in direct contact with the Earth, then free electrons can travel through the body and match the Earth’s electrical potential.

Remember earlier when I mentioned oxidative stress and free radicals? Do you remember the electrical charge of free radicals? That’s right!

They’re positively charged!

So what do you think would happen if the negatively charged free electrons from the Earth came into contact with the positively charged free radicals in the body? 

They could potentially join together and effectively neutralize one another.