What Is Earthing? And How Can You Practice?
If you have not heard about earthing, buckle up, because it is an amazing practice that has been around for millennia that can only do you a ton of good.
A free, natural resource that has the potential to heal pretty much any illness, why would you not be into earthing?!
Look, I have a lot of practices that I integrate, most of them free, because, hello? Spiritual hippie witch over here!
But earthing is my all-time favorite practice that is super easy to do and literally only requires your time. That’s it.
So let’s jump right in.
Table of Contents
What Is Earthing?
Earthing is the practice of putting your bare skin on the bare ground.
This practice could be simply putting your bare feet on your grass outside or even on concrete, it could include swimming, and it could even be lying on the beach.
The trick is to not have anything blocking your body and the earth.
Research and anecdotal evidence over the last 40 years has shown that the earth is naturally charged with negative electrons, and our bodies are charged with positive electrons.
And this situation has only gotten more extreme.
As we sit at computers all day, front of televisions, on our smartphones, and in front of any other electrical device, we are taking in positive electrons.
Add to that the stress we all naturally experience every day – the challenges of life like parenting and partnership, driving to and from work, work itself, any anything else that stresses us out creates those positive electrons that create inflammation.
Inflammation is the primary cause of the vast majority of all illness.
From cancer to nervous system issues to brain conditions, inflammation is at the root of it all.
Inflammation merely means our bodies are “on fire.” They have too many positive charges racing through them, and no way to release them.
We have become, over the last few hundred years, but seriously over the last 50 years, a global society of overweight couch potatoes with too much stress and not enough release.
And it is not all our fault!
Extreme capitalism and industrialization have driven us to work more to buy more to work more to buy more and so on in a vicious cycle.
This cycle then exhausts us, and we reach for something to make us feel better.
Cue all the companies selling us alcohol, processed food, fast food, endless streaming entertainment on our phones and devices, and we are desperate just to numb ourselves into unconsciousness.
As the author of The 12 Hour Walk, Colin O’Brady points out, most of us are living in the emotional range of 4 to 6 on a scale of 1 to 10.
Afraid to drop down into the 1 to 2 range, so we never reach for the 8 to 10 range.
It is no life to be proud of, but it is also nothing to be ashamed of.
We have long been conditioned to toe the line and live a life of productivity and exhaustion.
And it is slowly killing us.
As Integrative Medicine godfather Andrew Weil points out, yes, humans are living longer than we ever have, but we are sick for the last 30 years of our lives.
And it is the human lifestyle that is contributing to it; there can be no doubt.
We are killing ourselves.
And it is time we break free.
The earth offers the medicine we need in more ways than one.
We can integrate more plants and pasture raised animals into our diets and cut out toxins, but yes, that will take more time, more money, and more practice.
In the meantime, we can earth.
We can just get outside and connect with nature for 30 minutes, minimum, each day.
The Benefits of Earthing
Dozens of studies have shown earthing to have tremendous benefits:
Reduces/Eliminates chronic inflammation
Reduces/Eliminates pain
Improves sleep
Improves sexual function
Improves blood flow
Improves vitality
Decreases stress in the body
Reduces hormonal and menstrual symptoms
Reduces muscle tension and headaches
Accelerates healing from trauma
Protects body against EMF
And this list does not even speak to all the illness and disease that is linked to these issues.
Earthing literally changes your life.
Earthing Is not New
Realize that while the research on the benefits of earthing is new, earthing itself is not.
We have always, in pagan societies, called it grounding.
We have long gone outside, placed our feet on the earth, and danced under the moon.
Even after we industrialized, we brought this thousands of years old practice with us.
Our children ran around barefoot, and most of us continued this practice into adulthood, only wearing shoes when we had to go to work, and spending the rest of our lives barefoot, usually on bare earth or concrete, which is a conductive material that also allows grounding.
Societies across the earth have lost our connection to the earth from which we came, and it has had a direct impact on our health, with the rise in chronic conditions starkly correlated to the increase in the amount of time we spend indoors and on screens, stressed out or comfortably numb.
The founder of the Earthing Institute, Clint Ober, grew up on a farm and interacted with the local Native American tribes who actively engaged with the practice of earthing or grounding.
When he grew up, he went into the electrical industry and ended up working for many years with cable companies.
As he got older, he began to make the connection between the chronic pain he was experiencing and his disconnection from the earth.
From his very first experiment with grounding to the dozens of studies he conducted and published and the millions of people his work has helped literally heal from seemingly irreversible conditions, earthing is finally hitting the mainstream awareness.
It’s time to get back to earth.
Types of Earthing
Forest Bathing
Forest bathing is an age old practice still common in Japan today.
People head out into the woods to be surrounded by nature, with as much bare skin as possible, and simply allow the earth to absorb your positive charges and literally ground you.
Swimming
Swimming in any natural body of water is another way to get grounded. In fact, moist surfaces are better than dry ones when it comes to grounding.
Barefoot on Ground
The easiest form of grounding, and one Ober recommends the most, is to simply put your bare feet and hands on the ground for at least 30 minutes each day.
Lying Prone on Ground
Lying on the ground is another option, just be sure you have your bare feet firmly planted on the bare earth.
How to Practice Earthing
There are many ways to integrate earthing into your daily life, and the key is to actually integrate it into your daily life.
Earthing off and on will not do the trick, and Ober notes that often, people with serious chronic conditions don’t find relief from earthing because they are not giving it enough time.
Some people have to invest in earthing pads on which to sleep, earthing mats to work on at their desks, and leather soled shoes to walk in.
The worse your condition, the longer you will need to spend connecting to the earth.
The nice thing is you cannot overdose on earthing!
To integrate this practice in, you will have to gauge your personal situation and adjust your required hours of earthing accordingly.
If you don’t have serious inflammation and are taking a more proactive and preventative approach, 30 minutes a day will be plenty to bring your levels into healthy range.
If you are managing serious stress and inflammation, aim for an hour or two.
If you have a chronic illness, you will likely want to be looking into several hours if not most of your day and night grounding your body’s charge.
For me, I like to hit the ground barefoot in the morning before I do yoga and meditate, and then I spend 30 minutes to an hour outside after dinner lying in my grass reading a book or watching my kids play.
If you don’t have a yard, find a local park or forest to sit with your shoes off.
You can build this visit into your daily routine.
And look there really is no downside.
Let’s say all the science is flawed, there is no evidence at all to earthing, and we’ve got it all wrong.
What’s the worst that earthing can do to you?
Give you more peace in life? Make you slow down? Cause you to stop and smell the roses?
It is for reasons like these that practices like earthing end up having so many benefits that we cannot even list them all.
It is a fully integrated approach that addresses so many issues you don’t even know how beneficial it is until months later when you look back and go “hey. I feel great!”
And that, really, is all that matters, right?
Happy manifesting!
