Imagine the sensation of grass under your bare feet. Or your toes squishing through sand at the beach. When this happens, not only does it calm you down by providing pleasurable sensations, it turns out that it grounds our bodies in the same way that an electrical appliance is “grounded” by touching the earth. Since electrical ions always travel from an area of higher concentration to lesser, anytime we touch the earth, we discharge ions that are associated with inflammation.
Benefits of Grounding
Cultures where people walk barefoot are benefitting from discharging these ions all the time, but most of us now walk around in rubber soled shoes, and even if we’re barefoot in our homes, we’re insulated from the earth by wooden floors, carpet, etc. I’ve recently come to realize that “grounding” by touching the earth with our bare bodies is a potential source of healing for my patients with arthritis, stiffness, pain, etc. A documentary I recently watched even included people curing themselves of snoring by grounding. To determine if there was a benefit beyond the placebo effect, they also put cut flowers in two vases and grounded one of them and time and again, the grounded flowers lived longer.
I recommend trying this practice for 5 to 20 minutes per day for a couple days and seeing if it helps you.
There are many various grounding exercises you can do – some with your mind by “imagining” and others by actual physical contact with the ground.
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