The Secret

“Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.”  (Walt Whitman)

You’re walking barefoot on the beach one warm summer afternoon in June. You feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, and hear the rhythm of the crashing waves. You smell the ocean wind as it brushes against you. Notice your feet. Do you feel a tingly sensation in your feet or legs as a warmth rises up your body? Perhaps you’ve noticed a similar feeling while walking barefoot on the grass. In those moments, you are grounded.

Being grounded (earthing) can mean being fully present in your body and/or feeling connected to the earth. Many of us have experienced the fleeting understanding of being grounded, or a feeling of being “at home.” Grounding is a therapeutic technique that involves doing activities that “ground” or electrically reconnect you to the earth. Below are five benefits of grounding:

Anti-Aging and Anti-Inflammation Inflammation is one thing that literally all chronic diseases have in common. It's imperative that you know the causes of inflammation in order to properly treat these conditions. When you break things down to a scientific level, considering the fact that everything is vibrating with energy, one of the biggest contributors to chronic inflammation may actually be a lack of electrons - meaning too many positively charged ions and not enough negatively charged ions. Connecting directly to the earth is one of the best things that you can do to slow down the aging process because it can lessen inflammation and associated free radical damage.

Boosts Healing and Immunity While you might not think about it on a regular basis, the earth is actually a massive electrical object, and your body is a conductor of electricity. When you are connected directly to the earth's electric field through direct contact with our skin, the earth's negatively-charged electrons flow through us and our electric charge goes from positive to negative. Negative electrons (those flowing from the earth) are known as healing electrons while positively-charged electrons are those that contribute to disharmony and disease. Negatively charged electrons, or "ions", can boost the body's resiliency and vitality, and can help increase our immunity and rate of cellular repair.

Improves Body Awareness The bottoms of your feet are loaded with nerve endings. Yet because you insulate our feet in thick rubber shoe soles, you miss out on a lot of sensation. Walking outside and experiencing the various textures of the earth such as grass, dirt, or small pebbles can help stimulate the nerves. This brings awareness out of your thoughts and more into your body.

Grounding can help relieve energy blockages by putting pressure on reflexology points found throughout your feet. You can instantly ground yourself by standing barefoot on the earth and can get even more negative ions by standing next to a flowing body of natural water such as a waterfall, river, or the ocean. However you manage to fit grounding into your lifestyle is up to you. Just make sure you don't miss out on all of the incredible benefits this simple action can have on your overall health.

Improves Sleep People who ground themselves on a regular basis report an improvement in their quality of sleep, resulting in feeling more rested and energized in the morning. You can even find grounding technology used in bed sheets, blankets, and mats so that you can get the benefits of grounding while you sleep. This largely has to do with the lessening of cortisol in the body.

Stress Reducing Have you ever spent a few hours at the computer and felt drained of all energy with an increase in irritability? For many of us, it is a common - maybe even daily - occurrence, especially for those of us working with computers for 8+ hours per day. Positively charged Electromagnetic Fields (EMF's) have been shown to elevate cortisol levels, one of the most powerful stress hormones in the body. The good news is grounding tends to lower it. It may be pretty much impossible to avoid electronics in this day and age, but getting outside and taking those shoes off even if for a few minutes can help you feel calmer, balanced, and far less stressed.

 “Illnesses do not come upon us out of the blue. They are developed from small daily sins against Nature. When enough sins have accumulated, illnesses will suddenly appear.” (Hippocrates) [i]

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[i] Sources used:

·        “9 Powerful Grounding Techniques to Achieve Instant Calm and Regain Your Center “by Scott Jeffrey

·        “Are You Grounded? 5 Benefits of Earthing You Need To Experience” by Alex Malinsky

·        “Grounding: Exploring Earthing Science and the Benefits Behind It” by Eleesha Lockett

 

This post was suggested by my friend and blog member, Tom Critser.

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2019