Earthing is the future. Humanity needs to reconnect to the planet, to our natural electrical state, and to our natural state of good health. – Clint Ober
2020 fun fact: I’ve been studying, learning, and walking the path of healing for more than a decade now, discovering these awemazing tools and techniques, perhaps even gaining mastery of them to some degree through regular practice, and yet, AND YET missing the most fundamental, or as the subtitle suggests, the most important healing resource there is – Earth.
If health is wealth, then we are literally walking atop of a gold mine. It’s like looking for air that we’re already breathing naturally, hah! Such a human thing, you know? Missing what’s been there all along.
And so, on behalf of humanity, I am eternally grateful to Mother Earth for everything. Love you, too, Momma!
Funnier fact: I’m a licensed Electronics and Communications Engineer, with a license that expired for more than a decade as well, haha! And though I hated it back during my college years, flunking the Electronics 1 subject, I somehow learned how things work. Stuff like electricity, including its most basic concept — grounding, which is the technical term for Earthing.
And so, on behalf of the members of the Electronics haters club (I feel you), I’m inviting you to take a second chance at this and transform the hate into appreciation, and extend it to Clint Ober for sharing his experience and knowledge on the subject. This should be taught in schools on all levels! (You feel me?)
Time to return to our natural state of well-being. What better way to restore it than reconnecting ourselves to the wellspring of wellness — Mother Earth.
Let’s go, Earthers club!
Bioelectrical You
We are each of us a collection of dynamic electrical circuits. In the living matrix of our complex bodies, trillions of cells constantly transmit and receive energy in the course of their programmed biochemical reactions. Think of them as microscopic electronic machines. The movement of nutrients and water into the cells is regulated by electric fields, and each type of cell has a frequency range in which it operates. Your heart, brain, nervous system, muscles, and immune system are prime examples of electrical subsystems operating within your “bioelectrical” body. The fact is, all of your movements, behaviors, and actions are energized by electricity.
You probably have at least once experienced the electric shock while handling your house appliance. And it’s because you have a bioelectrical body – the most complex and intelligent, living (“bio”) electronic machine there is.
Let’s tie in our discussions with Corona Formula, where we had a brief review of the science of matter, which makes up everything in our material world. That is space filled with atoms that have moving electrons (negatively charged particles) around their nucleus (having positively charged protons, and the neutral ones that have no charge, neutrons).
There are three types of electric materials: conductor, insulator, and semiconductor. The electric current (the flow of charge) flows easily in a conductor, where electrons move freely, hence the term “free electrons.” An example is copper wire. In an insulator, the movement of electrons is constricted, thus there’s no current flow. Examples are plastic, rubber, glass, and wood. A semiconductor, meanwhile, is somewhere in between, whose current flow can be regulated for practical applications (mostly in electronic devices).
You and me having bioelectrical bodies make us good conductors. That explains the electric shock because current can flow through you the moment you get in contact with any material that has conductive properties.
Considering the materials used for shoes, beds, or flooring, you can get the idea of how we become insulated, disconnected from the Earth. That disconnection greatly affects the health of our bodies.
Think of any electronic appliance that’s unplugged from the source of electricity. It simply won’t work. The same goes for our bioelectrical bodies when we’re unplugged from the source of wellness, the healing energy that flows from the Earth. Our bodies won’t work at an optimal level.
The solution is also simple: we plug ourselves back into Earth. And with our feet alone, Wikipedia says we have around 200,000 nerve endings per sole.
We call this reconnection process “Earthing” or “grounding,” terms we will use interchangeably. They simply mean you are connected to Mother Earth. What you are doing is akin to what is well known in the electrical world as grounding, the common practice of connecting equipment and appliances to the Earth to protect against shocks, shorts, and interference. Applied to people, Earthing naturally protects the body’s delicate bioelectrical circuitry against static electrical charges and interference. Most importantly, it facilitates the reception of free electrons and the stabilizing electrical signals and energy of the Earth. Earthing remedies an electrical instability and electron deficiency you never knew you had. It refills and recharges your body with something you never knew you were missing . . . or needed.
Earthing Benefits
I learned, for instance, that the Earth’s electrical surface charge is always negative, meaning that the surface is filled with free electrons. They are able to move and reduce a positive charge. In Nature, lightning is the best example of a negative charge reducing a positive charge.
If Earthing people reduces their chronic pain, that suggested to me that pain is related to positive charge. I then began to ground people in low or no-electric field environments to replicate this observation and confirm that it was the grounding alone that reduced pain. The results were consistent. Earthing reduced pain no matter what the electrical environment.
From a professional cable guy to an amateur scientist. That’s what Clint had gone through in trying to show people about his great discovery. You’ll find the entire story of how it came about in the book, which dates back to 1998 when the idea dawned on him.
But I’ve got to tell the fun part where he had fallen asleep while conducting a self-experiment. He was toying around with his voltmeter (an instrument for measuring the potential difference, or voltage) while laying grounded on his bed. Next thing he knew it was morning. Talk about the sleep benefits of grounding!
That and more of his findings he was able to validate when he set out to conduct his first public experiment in 2000 involving clients of a parlor when he heard about their health complaints while getting his own haircut. Talk about seizing the opportunity!
And so 60 participants volunteered for the anecdotal study for 30 days. The results were published in an online electronics-related journal. Here are the comparative findings when the participants are grounded:
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- 85 percent went to sleep more quickly.
- 93 percent reported sleeping better throughout the night.
- 82 percent experienced a significant reduction in muscle stiffness.
- 74 percent experienced elimination or reduction of chronic back and joint pain.
- 100 percent reported feeling more rested when they woke up.
- 78 percent reported improved general health.
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Promising, eh?
Earthing for Sleep
Earthing during sleep resynchronizes cortisol secretion more in alignment with its natural, normal rhythm—highest at 8:00 a.m. and lowest at midnight.
The finding was exciting because melatonin is an important hormone that helps regulate sleep and other biological rhythms and is also a powerful antioxidant agent with anti-cancer properties.
Because much of our healing happens we’re asleep, I consider sleep as essential as exercise or healthy eating, especially since I don’t exercise and eat healthy a lot, hah!
That said, sleep could be as elusive as the cure for the disease we’re looking for. Well, look no further, my friend. Earthing is here to save the day!… And the night for that matter.
It was no accident that Clint fell asleep while doing his first experiment and no surprise that people who tried Earthing had a foremost improvement in their sleep.
It was, however, an indirect finding Clint had when he and a skeptic Dr. Maurice Ghaly conducted a more objective, more scientific-based study on Earthing and stress. They measured the secretion of cortisol, “the stress hormone,” on the 12 participants before and after sleeping grounded, over a period of 8 weeks.
Here are the results (as shown in the book):
Notice how the cortisol levels stabilized before grounding (chart B) and after grounding (chart C).
What’s more, 8 of 12 participants were also found to have had an increase ranging from 2 to 16 percent in melatonin, a hormone that regulates the sleep-wake cycle.
Interestingly, I did my own research (which only took less than a second, that’s how in-depth I go) and discovered a strong correlation between cortisol and sleep, from no less than “The Sleep Doctor,” Michael Breus, in his online article, Cortisol and its Effects on Your Sleep.
Minus the stress, plus the sleep. Such a perfect equation for optimum health. And the solution is right under your bed!
Earthing Inflammation
The Earth itself is the original anti-inflammatory. And the planet itself is the biggest electron donor on the planet.
What does this mean to you?
Just imagine negative-charged electrons, like a mighty unseen cavalry, galloping up through your body from the Earth and mopping up an outnumbered force of positive-charged inflammatory free radicals. Electron deficiency, created by a lack of grounding, is eliminated and a healing process unfolds.
The inflammation, sickness, and pain in your body are but a manifestation—in large part or small—of an electron deficiency. The remedy is as close as the Earth you live on.
The link between inflammation and disease is no secret anymore. Because we’ve already spent less than a second researching cortisol, we won’t be sparing another millisecond on this. Very time-consuming!
But keep in mind that inflammation is a natural immune response of the body. It’s a defense mechanism, a way of isolating the diseased part and preventing the disease from spreading to neighboring cells.
The body deploys free radicals (positively-charged molecules) that obtain their missing electron from the invading pathogens, thus disabling them. Oxidation is the result of this process. The excess free radicals will then be neutralized by the antioxidants in the body.
The problem happens when inflammation becomes chronic, when your body has signaled “fire out!” but the flame continues and the free radicals go on rampage harming the healthy cells, leading to various types of chronic disease.
This is why it’s a common approach to addressing inflammation so the healing process can take place. We have a wide array of natural and artificially-made resources that have anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
In fact, we have the entire planet Earth itself for that abundant supply!
The Earth is negatively charged. It has an endless supply of negative-charged free electrons. Anytime you have two conductive objects and they make contact — such as your bare feet and the ground — electrons will flow from the place where they are abundant to the place where there are fewer of them. The electrical potential of the two objects will thus equalize. That’s grounding.
If you have a battlefront with positive-charged free radicals running amok inside your body, guess what’s going to happen when you make contact with the Earth?
Big negative-charged Earth overwhelms little, positive-charged free radicals.
What are you waiting for? Get your motherload of antioxidants now. It’s free!
Link to the full-length documentary at the end of this article.
EMF Protection
If your body is somehow coupled to the Earth, no matter where you are, you are at the electric potential of the ground. That means all of you, from head to foot. Your electric potential is zero and no positive charge can charge you up. You are a part of the ground. You are shielded from whatever happens in the atmosphere. If positive charges are present in your environment and “stick to you,” the Earth will provide the electrons to cancel the positive charges and maintain your electric potential at the same level as it is: zero volts. If EMFs hit your body, their effect is cancelled by the electrons within your body supplied by the ground. Nothing can change your electric potential, except uncoupling yourself from the Earth.
Being grounded means your body’s internal organs are shielded from any electrostatic or electromagnetic interference in the atmosphere. This provides for a very quiet electrical “milieu” inside the body where no external electric or magnetic fields can disrupt the internal functions maintaining homeostasis and health.
Did 5G scare you, too? The continuous advancement of technology has been an ongoing and growing concern among us Earthlings, especially with all those conspiracy theories circulating around the internet. It even brought up an internal conflict within me being a telecommunications engineer on one hand and a natural healing advocate on the other.
What I came to realize is that technology will inevitably continue to evolve. There’s no stopping it. But there’s something we can do on our part.
We have two options: adapt or adapt (pun intended).
In the book, Clint cites the study done by electrical engineer Roger Applewhite in 2005 that proved two significant facts:
- Electrons move from the Earth to the body and vice versa when the body is grounded. This effect is sufficient to maintain the body at the same negative-charge electrical potential as the Earth.
- Grounding powerfully reduces electromagnetic fields (EMFs) on the body.
The Earth connection was shown to serve as a “source” of beneficial electrons and, at the same time, as a “shield” preventing environmental electric fields from creating disruptive electric potentials on the body.
So, fear not, my brothers and sisters. Momma’s got us covered! As long as we keep our feet grounded, technology can go as far as we wish to take it.
Besides, we’re going to need a highly-evolved technology so we can do “ETing” someday, too. Space travel, you know.
Pleiades, anyone?
Earthing for Brain Health
The EEG and EMG readings showed that grounding significantly influences the electrical activity of the brain and muscles, even within a mere half hour. In fact, dramatic changes were recorded almost instantly (within two seconds) of Earthing.
In the brain, there was an overall decrease in activity at all frequencies, with a crisp change showing on the left side—the one associated with thinking. Thus, Earthing appears to calm down the busy mind.
Let’s correlate this to what Dr. Joe Dispenza calls our “electromagnetic signature,” implying our electromagnetic activity with thinking as the electrical component and feeling for the magnetic. It’s a closed-loop system, meaning the activity of one affects the other.
Repeatedly, we’ve discussed how the regular practice of meditation has been scientifically proven to improve and alter our brain activity (as shown in the measurable shifts of brain waves), which governs the overall body functions.
The challenge though is meditation is an active practice. You have to actually do it, which requires time and effort. And many find meditating to be a difficult task.
If you happen to be one, no problemo, amigo! Mamacita provides an easier alternative, a passive one. Just put your feet on the ground and that’s it. Effortless healing.
The 2003 electrophysiology study done by Gaetan Chevalier and Kazuhito Mori confirms the impact of Earthing on the bioelectrical activity of the body, particularly the brain through EEG (for the brain’s electrical signals) and EMG (for the electrical voltage generated by the muscle cells).
The overall results provided additional proof of reduced stress and tension levels (muscle), and a shift in nervous system balance from a stress-stimulated sympathetic mode to a calmer parasympathetic mode (brain).
On a personal note, I’d highly recommend both meditation and grounding. They are a perfect combo! Grounding serves as your steady anchor while you explore the mind with meditation.
Besides, why settle for one when you can have the best of both worlds? As above, so below. 😉
Accelerated Healing
The changes in terms of body recovery from day to day, the ability to repair tissue, to recover from activity and the stresses and strains of the day, are amazing.
Simply put: the body is different—and heals much faster—when connected to the Earth. Earthing = Power Healing.
Those are excerpts from several testimonials of people that you will find in the last chapters of the book. Among its extensive applications, Earthing has gained a solid reputation in the field of sports.
They call it Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), the type of acute inflammation that athletes get from overdoing an exercise. That’s also what we get when we’re not used to physical activity and dive right into it without any warm-up. It develops in the overtaxed muscles within the next 24 to 48 hours and persists for over 96 hours.
So that’s what they measured in an experiment involving 8 male athletes. They divided the group in half: grounded and sham-grounded (placebo).
Here’s what they got:
The left graph (pain scale) shows that the ungrounded subjects had higher amounts of pain all throughout compared to the grounded ones. It is also reflected on the right graph that the grounded subjects had lower white blood cell response indicating less inflammation, equating to faster healing.
In this study published online, you’ll find a more detailed explanation including photos documenting evidence of accelerated healing through Earthing.
One of which is that of a Tour de France cyclist who sustained lacerations to his arm and other cycling wounds on other parts of the body. He was not expected to return to the race. But after sleeping with grounding patches on his arms and legs, he quickly recovered overnight and was able to join back the next day.
If Earthing was proven to aid professional athletes, think of how it can improve our productivity in any chosen field when we’re able to perform at an optimal level.
Earthing for Heart Health
I feel the same way now about grounding, a simple and safe remedy that seemingly and surprisingly addresses so much of what ails us. It is perhaps the most natural prescription we can recommend to any patient— a perfectly natural adjunct to any clinical strategy… It’s almost amusing to think that in our pursuit of expensive high-tech solutions, we all have access to a low-tech solution right there on the ground we walk on. Just connect to it one way or another, and heal yourself.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Earth and heart are composed of the same letters. From the quoted statement, cardiologist Dr. Steve Sinatra thought likewise. This, he came up with after experiencing firsthand the benefits of Earthing and witnessing the same on his patients.
He sums up his findings with regard to heart health:
- ATP production
If you got your free copy of The Awesome Life, you may recall that ATP (adenosine triphosphate) is the energy unit on the cellular level, a.k.a. mitochondria, the “power plants” that fuel the cells in the body (mostly in the heart and kidney cells).
Dr. Steve says grounding helps deliver energized electrons into the mitochondria and thus assists in the production of ATP.
- Sympathetic nervous system activity
In his next book, Becoming Supernatural, Dr. Joe Dispenza discusses the two branches of the Autonomous Nervous System (ANS) – the parasympathetic and the sympathetic – and how they relate to Heart Rate Variability (HRV), the indicator of coherence between the brain and the heart.
In a 2008 study conducted by Dr. Steve with Dr. Gaetan, they found significant improvements in the HRV of the grounded subjects, indicating its potential for balancing the nervous system and supporting cardiovascular health – similar to Dr. Joe’s perspectives.
- Arrhythmias
Because the nervous system returns to balance, and there’s a brain-to-heart link, the heart rhythm also becomes regulated. Earthing helps in stabilizing the electrical signal connection between the two.
- High blood pressure
High blood pressure is regarded to be caused by oxidative stress (inflammation), free radicals harming the endothelial cell linings of blood vessels. Which, as we’ve learned, is addressed by Earthing.
- Blood viscosity
Despite these findings, please consult your doctor on how you may incorporate Earthing to your health regimen, especially if you’re taking medication.
Earthing Systems and Technologies
Earthing represents a discovery of the first magnitude, as potentially significant and globally sweeping as electricity, telephones, radio, television, and computers. Consider the changes that new technologies like these brought to society in their time. We are still riding the waves of innovation they generated in terms of jobs and economies. Earthing, like these concepts, is disruptive in that it changes how people live. It is something evolutionary and, at the same time, revolutionary.
Ever heard of the Atlantis tale? The pioneers of the human civilization who advanced their technology to a superb state, but forgotten their true essence that their creation brought upon themselves their own destruction. We’ll get back to this topic as we rediscover more about our lost heritage.
If we look now at the trajectory of our technology, it would seem like history is repeating itself. But with everything that is currently transpiring, with the number of awakening humans increasing greatly, we are reclaiming what was once lost — our sense of connectedness to everyone and everything, including our connection to the planet we live in.
And I couldn’t think of any easier, simpler way of rekindling that relationship than Earthing. It’s so natural, yet also revolutionary in terms of how it can better our lives. That, to me, is what technology is truly about — innovation not by creating something else, but by building upon what’s already there.
In the book, Clint envisions how Earthing can revolutionize health care not just for people but also for our pets.
There’s another chapter where Clint conducted an experimental study with 27 truck drivers who drive long hauls. He put a grounded pad on their seats and after their long drive, nearly all of them reported more relaxation and reduction in pain and stiffness. Around 70 percent experienced less fatigue and more alertness, while more than 60 percent had an improved night vision. Think of how it can revolutionize the automobile industry and the driving experience itself.
Of the innumerable possibilities, Clint sees the shoe and the mattress industries as having great potential. Imagine wearing a shoe with a sole that has grounding technology. And sleeping on beds made of a conductive material for grounding purposes.
Visualize how Earthing technology could make our homes, schools, and offices a healthier environment by employing ergonomically designed appliances and devices that keep us grounded while we go about our living.
Earthing Products
If you have the opportunity, connect with the Earth two or three times a day. The more time you put in, the more you benefit. The more compromised your health is, the more often and longer we recommend that you do this. But even in a half hour or so, you will have a remarkable shift. We have already measured some important physiological improvements within a half hour to forty minutes, and many more will come to light with continued research.
I couldn’t stress it enough, Earthing is the simplest, easiest, and could even be the fastest way to better health. Incorporate it into whatever tool or modality you’re employing now and gauge it yourself.
With that, Clint offers various ways of maximizing the benefits of grounding. In the book appendix, you’ll find the technical guidelines and procedures of how to set up grounding devices at your home. You can also learn from an online resource at earthinginstitute.net for further research.
But here’s for a start:
To make the Earthing experience most effective, dampen the soil or grass for added conductivity. Leave your feet squarely on the Earth and sit there for thirty or forty minutes. Actually, when any part of your body— your hands, forearms, legs, for example—makes contact with the ground, you are receiving the energy from below.
Clint says concrete flooring also works because concrete is a conductive substance, made from water and minerals.
Swimming in the ocean is a fantastic form of grounding, he adds, since saltwater is highly conductive. So the next time you accidentally gulped ocean water, just think of the benefits… Just don’t drown yourself for God’s sake! Do more of that strut on the beach sand under the moonlight to spice it up. Got to charge up those electrons, sweetheart.
Earthing Substitutes
Want to stay grounded but can’t go barefoot? The makeshift grounding devices that Clint originally used for the experiments were further developed to meet the demands of the growing Earthers.
And so, here they are, the Earthing substitutes that are now commercially available through our partners at Grooni:
I’d love to hear about your personal Earthing experience! Leave a comment below. And if you find this article helpful, I’d really appreciate it if you can share it with a friend or two.
Until then, stay connected…
Stay grounded, you Mother Earther!
Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever! (Second Edition)
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
CLINTON OBER started as a cable TV salesman in Billings, Montana, and rose to become a leader in the industry. In the early 1970s, he formed Telecrafter Corporation and built it into the largest provider of cable marketing and installation services in the United States. Following a near-fatal disease in 1993, he embarked on a personal journey looking for a higher purpose in life. During his travels, he discovered Earthing and has been resolutely focused ever since to promote the scientific exploration and practical applications for the concept.
STEPHEN SINATRA, M.D., F.A.C.C., F.A.C.N., is a board-certified cardiologist and certified psychotherapist with more than thirty years of experience in helping patients prevent and reverse heart disease. He also is certified in anti-aging medicine and nutrition. Dr. Sinatra integrates conventional medical treatments for heart disease with complementary nutritional, anti-aging, and psychological therapies that help heal the inflammation and plaque processes that cause heart attacks and stroke. He is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, and former chief of cardiology and medical education at Manchester (CT) Memorial Hospital.
MARTIN ZUCKER has written extensively on natural healing, fitness, and alternative medicine for thirty years. He has co-authored or ghostwritten more than a dozen books, and written many video scripts for the National Safety Council.
