Grounding 🌎 👣

🦋 Get yourself grounded and you can navigate even the stormiest roads in peace 🦋

June 2020 🇮🇪

I’ve heard about grounding many times before, but after watching this documentary “Earthing Movie-The Remarkable Science of Grounding” (available on YouTube) I became super interested in the concept. I decided to research this subject more and try it out on myself, as it really interested and intrigued me 🤓💁🏻‍♀️. Today I’m going to blog about the information I obtained, and also to share my own experience.

Let me start by defining grounding, because actually many people don’t know what it means…

Earthing (also known as grounding) refers to contact with the Earth’s surface electrons by walking barefoot outside or sitting, working, or sleeping indoors connected to conductive systems, some of them patented, that transfer the energy from the ground into the body.

PubMed

In other words, grounding or earthing is a therapeutic technique that focuses on realigning your electrical energy by reconnecting to the earth 👣🌍

From reading and research, I found out that grounding is currently a very under-researched topic, with very few scientific studies on the benefits. However most recent research has explored grounding for:

• Inflammation
• Cardiovascular disease
• Muscle damage
• Chronic pain
• and Mood

In a nutshell in one small study on grounding and heart health, 10 healthy participants were grounded using patches on their palms and soles of their feet. Blood measurements were taken before and after to see any changes in blood cell fluidity. The results showed a significant reduction in blood clumping, which definitely has huge benefits for the cardiovascular health. Thicker blood can lead to heart diseases like stroke (💁🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️), heart attack and so on, due to blood clot formation and higher blood pressure. Results of one treatment study, found that long-term self-administered grounding therapy helped to reduce blood pressure levels in participants with hypertension. 👍❤️ #hearthealth

Another (larger) study looked at the role of grounding on muscle damage (post-exercise). Both grounding patches and mats were used and measured creatine kinase, white blood cell count, and pain levels before and after grounding. The blood work indicated that muscle damage and pain were reduced after grounding. This suggests that grounding may influence healing abilities? In a study for exercise recovery after grounding showed that those who used grounding patches reported lower pain levels 💪. This research is supported by a recent study on grounding for pain reduction and mood improvement, where 16 massage therapists altered between periods of grounding and no grounding. Before grounding therapy, physical and emotional stress and pain were common side effects of their physically demanding jobs. After the earthing therapy, pain, stress, depression, and fatigue were all reduced among participants. Many reported decreased levels of fatigue after just 4 weeks of treatment with grounding mats. The massage therapists also experienced an improvement in sleep length and reduced sleep disturbances with grounding therapy. 😴👍

Most of the research and studies on grounding are very small and there’s a shortage, so definitely more research is needed-especially on inflammation. Still today, some health professionals believe that the benefits of grounding therapy may come simply from feeling like you’re reconnected to nature. Regardless, there is no harm, right!? 🧘🏻‍♂️🧘🏻‍♀️😌🦋

☝️ That was the scientist in me taking over☝️👩‍⚕️🤓🧐🤪 Proof of the studies mentioned can be found on PubMed.

I’m going to leave the research part at that (you can look into it yourself, if interested). I’m going to move on now to my own experience. Since watching the documentary I started experimenting with grounding myself 👣💁🏻‍♀️. Since I’m not able to walk, never mind walking barefoot, I’m doing my physiotherapy outside in the garden (using up this opportunity of being home, due to lockdown). Only when the weather allows, of course☀️ (which surprisingly happens a lot these days 👌😎💁🏽‍♀️. I practice standing outside, barefoot, with my dad‘s help. I usually stand up for few minutes and a few times, with a break in between, when I sit down, my dad presses on my knees, so my feet are flat on the ground. It’s very helpful and I’m glad to have this opportunity, as my wheelchair is always in tilt and my feet on the footplates. Since the stroke and being wheelchair bound I never ground 🙄, but to be honest most people who are able to walk don’t ground either 🤷🏻‍♀️. Think about it! 🤔 We wear shoes all day, going to school, university, work etc., then we come home and wear sleepers before going to bed, which also isn’t grounded. Anytime we’re outside we are wearing shoes most of the time 🙉🙈, so we live our lives never, or very rarely grounding.

A very funny anecdote, from back when I was a kid, spending summer holidays in my grandparents house in the countryside (🇵🇱) 👧🏻👩🏻‍🦳👨‍🦳. One summer I remember my grandmother constantly encouraging me to walk barefoot on the grass in the garden: “Klauduś, please take them shoes off”…but there was no way of splitting the relationship between little Klaudia and her shoes 🙉🙈😂. In fact anytime I was barefoot on the grass I walked like I was walking on needles 😂👧🏻👣. I don’t know when the changed happened or how, but one day I ran upstairs to the kitchen, of course leaving the shoes at the bottom of the stairs (we were never allowed inside the house with shoes on). My grandmother was in the kitchen making me a sandwich, I quickly grabbed it and before my granny even turned around I was at the bottom of the stairs shouting: “I’m going to Ilona’s house”, she was my friend there, that lived just next door. After only few minutes my grandmother walked downstairs, to see my shoes just laying there 🙉😂, I cannot help but laugh every time I think of this story. To get to her house you had to walk on grass, concrete, stones, you name it! And I ran up there without shoes! 😂 My grandmother wanted me to walk barefoot just on the grass and just sometimes, but from that day on she had to make me put my shoes on, because I never wanted to wear them 😂. Anyway, at least I was grounding most of my childhood. What’s very interesting is that the older generation just knew it was good for you to walk barefoot 👣. This knowledge must have been passed on throughout generations, and we definitely lost that! Children want to walk barefoot, and I can’t help but hear everywhere around me parents saying: “put your shoes on!”. It’s very interesting because kids still have those instincts that we lose as we grow up. Why do they want to walk on the grass without their shoes on? Coincidence? 🤔🤷🏻‍♀️👣

Coming back to the documentary, I loved the fact that there was a person also in a wheelchair, talking about her perspective and experience with grounding. When you’re not a wheelchair user you can simply take your shoes off and walk on the grass, on the beach, or lie down on the ground in your garden. For wheelchair users there’s alternatives available, which is great 👍, especially if you cannot weight bare, or aren’t able to get the help needed. There are:

• Grounding mats
• Grounding sheets and blankets
• Grounding socks
• Grounding bands and patches

🦋 By discovering nature you discover yourself 🦋

“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better”

~ Albert Einstein

After watching the documentary I decided to do my standing practice outside in the garden, barefoot of course 🤗👣. As probably most wheelchair users I suffer a little with blood circulation in my feet, they’re usually very cold from below my knees down, especially if it’s cold out (just another reason I should live in hot climate 🤷🏻‍♀️🥰😎☀️💁🏽‍♀️😂). I do it about 40-45mins altogether, even sitting down in between my dad keeps pressing on my knees, so my bare feet are touching the ground. While I am there I also visualise this energy-in the form of light 🌟 just entering my whole body, coming from Mother Earth 🌍 🥰. Something amazing happened that first time I did it! In the evening…my feet were very warm-very rarely that happens to me 🙈🙉. When I was falling asleep I had this feeling as if someone was putting fire 🔥 at the soles of my feet. Coincidence again? I never had this feeling before…

I am a HUGE believer that there’s a cure for everything in the nature! And guess what?! It’s free! I’ve experienced the power of natural alternative medicine on myself (but that’s for another, separate post) – I even have my own, private and qualified herbalist/nutritionist at home 👩‍❤️‍👩👌. Grounding is something I implemented into my life just recently, and I’ll continue to ground myself. From my experience it makes me feel great. I feel stronger and my feet are warm afterwards. Most importantly, it improves the mood, and let’s face it, our mental health is so important 🧘🏻‍♀️ I actually think it’s the most important. We need to have things organised in our heads first?… Everywhere we hear that this century is the pandemic of stress and stress-related illness. We need to do something to change that, so look after your mental health, and why not try everything that’s out there? Connect to what we disconnected from through years, perhaps that’s the answer?… In one small study, it was shown that only as little as 1 hour of grounding therapy can significantly improve mood. That’s proven 😊👍! So give it a try to see for yourself! #mentalhealth

🦋 We often forget that we are nature. Nature is not something separate from us. So when we say we have lost our connection to nature, we lost our connection to ourselves…🦋

I’ve just watched this “Proven” limited access series of documentaries last week. It’s on all the alternative medicines, proved and backed by scientific research. They mentioned a lot about grounding, so I decided to screen record some of it to attach here, and share with you. It’s actually so funny that when you’re on a specific subject you seem to attract information about it, it shows up everywhere 🤔 power of attraction perhaps? Or just coincidence again? I’ll let you decide. 👇 VERY GOOD WATCH! 👇

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