- [Instructor] It sounds like common sense, right?
A walk in nature is great for you and has tons of benefits
both mentally and physically, almost every spiritual system
in some way has expressed a sense of power
in the natural world.
So it's a real wonder why something as profound and amazing
as earthing has taken this long to get recognition
in the scientific community, but in recent years, it has.
this episode was inspired by an amazing movie
by Josh and Rebecca Tickell here on YouTube
about this new healing method.
After watching this, make sure to check it out,
we'll share a link in the comments below, it's fantastic.
(upbeat music)
So I know, to some of us this sounds like a no-brainer
the fact that our planet has the ability
to regulate and balance out our own biological systems
like it does for basically every other ecosystem
really doesn't seem that crazy.
But until recently, a large number of people laughed it off
as this kind of new age pyramid scheme, wink wink.
In a nutshell, earthing AKA grounding
is the amazing, magical, super efficient way
of healing yourself by none other than walking barefoot
on the earth, or just lying down in some grass.
It's legit that simple.
And yet numerous studies,
all pilot, blind, double blind and control
have shown measurable psychological,
physiological and bioelectrical results.
Now the umbrella term nature therapy
or environmental medicine has a long history of study
but they usually focus on interactions
between human health and the environment
including stuff like compromised air and water
and toxic chemicals and how they cause or mediate disease.
But until recently, the positive and beneficial effects
of the environment on humans
weren't really looked at very much.
So how does this stuff work exactly?
Well, before we start talking about the earth itself,
we need to do a quick high school science lesson.
From physics class,
you probably remember the three subatomic particles,
protons, which have a positive charge,
neutrons, which are neutral and have a zero charge
and electrons, which have a negative charge.
These three charged carriers
make up every atom in existence,
which in turn make up all of the molecules
and elements in the universe.
Super simply if an atom has more protons than electrons
it'll be positively charged,
and if it has more electrons, it will be negative.
And if it has the same amount,
the charge will be neutral and balanced.
See, physics is easy.
Now where it gets interesting is that the earth itself
actually has a negative electrical charge
and is even conductive.
Basically the earth surface has a limitless
and continuously renewed supply of free electrons.
How that happens is still up for debate.
But the two main theories
are that the changes and geological events in the core
produce the different charges
or that the negative charge is maintained
by the global atmospheric electrical circuit
AKA the ionosphere and lightning strikes,
which also fun fact was the main premise
behind Nikola Tesla's idea of free and wireless electricity
that we could use the earth as a big natural conductor
by plugging resonance rods into the soil.
The history of grounding is actually pretty interesting
with a legend going all the way back
to Cyrus The Great in Persia,
who after seeing the disconnection from nature
that has capital city cause built the oldest paradise garden
in the middle of the city
in an effort to reconnect people with nature.
Much more recently though, the discovery of modern earthing
is thought to have come from a man named Clint Ober
who wrote the 2010 book,
"Earthing The most important health discovery ever?",
but he was working on it long before that.
See, Clint was a cable company engineer
way back in the 60s who used to work
on grounding electrical cables
when installing them in houses.
As any electrical engineer knows
that grounding a cable provides a return point
in the circuit and completes the system.
In other words,
you make the cable maintain at earth potential.
Now, in theory, if a TV cable wasn't grounded,
you'd either get a bad picture
or you get a knock on the door
from the communications divisions of the government
saying that it was interfering
with local communication and radio waves.
So it used to be a pretty big deal.
Clint had the amazing idea that
if an ungrounded cable would affect
or even be affected by its environment,
what kind of effect would all of the electromagnetic waves
that are bombarding us in modern society
have on an ungrounded human.
As after all, we are kind of like big receivers ourselves
even producing a bioelectric field.
He saw that in ancient times
our natural state of being was closer to the ground,
we would walk barefoot and sleep on animal hides
right there the ground.
Since the 1960s though, we've increasingly worn
insulated rubber or plastic sold shoes
instead of the traditional leather fashioned from hides.
Although we probably could just use hemp plastic
as a modern substitute, you know, but anyway,
as a result he thought our modern lifestyle
is more disconnected from the natural earth
than ever before.
You've probably heard that common saying,
that parents should let their kids play in the dirt
because it helps build up the immune system.
But is there something more to that
than we're currently considering?
Turns out this was a huge deal.
During recent decades, chronic illness, immune disorders
and inflammatory diseases have increased dramatically.
And some researchers have cited environmental factors
as the cause.
Now, there's a lot more to cover about the history and stuff
but we're gonna leave that for the movie
because in this video,
we wanna look at some of the more recent studies themselves.
When Clint first discovered the process,
he wanted to get authentication
from a respected science source.
So he went to the guys over at UCLA to see what was going on
and they pretty much laughed him out of the door
because grounding sounded so ridiculous.
At the time, not being able to find anyone
to do a study for him,
Clint pulled the most pro gamer move ever
and did one himself.
In a blinded pilot study, he recruited 60 subjects,
22 males and 28 females who suffered
from self-described sleep disturbances
and chronic muscle and joint pain for at least six months.
All of the people were randomly divided
for a month long study in which both groups
slept on conductive carbon fiber mattress pads.
Half of the pads were connected to a dedicated earth ground
outside each person's bedroom window.
While the other half were sham-grounded
to account for placebo.
While you can read the amazing results in his paper
which we'll link below,
for the most part, grounded people
described symptomatic improvement
while most of the people in the control group didn't.
Some people even reported significant relief
from asthmatic and respiratory conditions,
rheumatoid arthritis, PMS, sleep apnea
and hypertension while sleeping grounded.
It didn't end there though, over the next few years
people started to catch on and do more and more studies.
A 2004 experiments showed that cortisol levels
as well as sleep dysfunction,
pain and other mental health issues were all reduced
after spending a night sleeping grounded.
In fact, all 12 participants of this study
reported waking up fewer times at night
and having a better night's sleep.
The benefits of earthing go way beyond
just helping you sleep though.
There's even a wide body of research
that shows that walking barefoot on the earth
not only facilitates the free movement of electrons
into the body, but also that the body's electrical potential
becomes equalized with the Earth's
leading to internal balance.
It's long been suspected
that electrons could act as a form of antioxidants
in the body helping to stabilize cell environments
and contribute to a healthy immune system.
In fact, a 2013 study showed that the effects of earthing
on the electrodynamics of red blood cells
significantly reduced blood viscosity,
allowing for better oxygen delivery to the tissues,
which is one of the theories
behind why earthing works so well at treating inflammation.
Like inflammation, earthing apparently also has a big effect
on the immune system response.
In a 2010 study, a team measured the blood markers of men
would just come back from a session of intense exercise
and had bad muscle soreness,
probably from pumping too much iron or something, IDK,
I have no idea what goes on inside gyms.
But you could probably check out the mechanics and methods
used in the study below but the results were pretty cool.
They showed that grounding the body to the earth
actually changed measures
of immune system activity and pain.
With the ungrounded men,
there was an expected sharp increase in white blood cells
at the stage when the muscle soreness
is known to reach its peak,
which meant a greater perception of pain.
In contrast, all of the grounded guys
only had a slight decrease in white blood cells
which meant less pain and a shorter recovery time.
In short, maybe they should just make outside gyms
more common or like make the floors grass,
or just at least ground them,
I don't know something like that.
Either way, it looks like something's going on here
that is way beyond just a placebo effect.
We'll link a few more studies in the descriptions below,
but seriously, if you just look up earthing or grounding
and start reading on the web, you'll be amazed seriously.
Naturally, even after all of this awesome work
coming out on earthing, people still weren't convinced
and trying to group it in with other wishy washing therapies
which is what this 2012 meta study tried to do
when they said that there were methodological problems
with most of the studies,
but a new meta study in 2018 actually overruled that
and showed that over 143 different studies
showed that green space exposure
is associated with numerous beneficial health outcomes
in intervention and observational studies
both psychological and physiological.
The bottom line is there's something amazing
about connecting to the earth with our bare skin
and the recent publications in a lot of major journals
seems to indicate that it has something
to do with sharing of electrons
and interaction with our own biological electrical field.
As with any alternative medicine though,
don't just give up established Western medicine
in place of it but rather act like our own natural mother
and work towards a balance of medical and natural therapies
and healing yourself.
Is walking around barefoot gonna hurt you in any way?
Well, of course not.
Well, unless you like, you know, step on a bee or something.
So, you know, watch where you're going,
but really there's nothing to lose by trying it out.
And who knows, you might just get the best night's sleep
of your life while healing yourself along the way.
So with that, thank you so much for watching,
go outside if you can, sit, lie down, walk, smell,
do basically anything on some grass or some dirt
and go feel great about it.
Breathe in all that good product
and just be in harmony with nature,
perhaps it's the cure that we really all need right now.
Toodles.
(upbeat music)