​Ever notice how you feel so energized and vibrant while walking on the beach? You probably attributed that to being on a beach vacation where your stress literally evaporated upon sinking your toes in the silky sand, inhaling that salty ocean air and soaking up some vitamin D elixir from the sun's healing rays, right? Well that's partially true. But there's something else going on that's creating this optimal state of health. What's the magical ingredient? Electrons.

Our feet contain a rich, intricate network of nerves and acupuncture points and are especially adept at picking up free electrons from the earth's surface. It's called barefoot or caveman medicine, and walking barefoot – aka earthing or grounding – may be the easiest, simplest and cheapest way of shifting your body back to an optimal state of homeostasis and health.

ELECTRONS: THE MISSING LINK

The gist of the earthing theory is simply this: the earth is negatively charged, so when you ground, you're connecting your body to a negatively charged supply of energy. And since the earth has a greater negative charge than your body, you end up absorbing electrons from it. These free electrons intercept the firestorm of free radicals (that create oxidative damage and inflammation) in our body and extinguish this fire. When you walk barefoot, you're literally soaking up millions of electrons that decoagulate and detoxify your blood.

So instead of your blood being all viscous and thick, like ketchup, it becomes free flowing, like red wine. Earthing also shifts the sympathetic nervous system back to the point where it has more tranquility, and clinical studies have shown that earthing helps with everything from inflammation to insomnia, and from autoimmune to heart disease.

BENEFITS

You may find that walking barefoot on either moist grass or the beach immediately produces a warm, tingling sensation or a sense of well-being. This contact can trigger health benefits, often within minutes.

These benefits include relieving muscle tension, headaches and menstrual symptoms. Earthing can also boost the immune system, combat inflammation, reduce stress hormones and improve blood pressure. For people who are ill – and therefore have the most free radicals – the benefits can be dramatic. Those who are healthy usually report sleeping better and having more energy.

A report in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine confirmed these benefits:

"It is well established, though not widely known, that the surface of the earth possesses a limitless and continuously renewed supply of free or mobile electrons as a consequence of a global atmospheric electron circuit. Wearing shoes with insulating soles and/or sleeping in beds that are isolated from the electrical ground plane of the earth have disconnected most people from the earth's electrical rhythms and free electrons.”

“A previous study demonstrated that connecting the human body to the earth during sleep (earthing) normalizes the daily cortisol rhythm and improves sleep. A variety of other benefits were reported, including reductions in pain and inflammation. Subsequent studies have confirmed these earlier findings and documented virtually immediate physiologic and clinical effects of grounding or earthing the body."

The concept of earthing is gaining momentum today because of the efforts of Stephen Sinatra, MD, a holistic cardiologist, and Clinton Ober and Martin Zucker, coauthors of Earthing, a new book about the health benefits of grounding.

For Dr. Sinatra, earthing is the most important health discovery made in his 40 years of practicing medicine. He believes that modern life has disconnected us from the earth in many ways. We live and work in multistory buildings high off the ground and spend our nights on thick mattresses far from the earth. This separation from the surface of the earth reduces our connection to its charge, which has resulted in our bodies being deficient in electrons, says Dr. Sinatra.

At the same time, modern life has brought with it a host of medical conditions associated with chronic inflammation, including heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and cancer. As Dr. Sinatra and his colleagues see it, inflammation in the body is out of control, mainly because we have lost contact with the earth. What a fascinating concept!

HOW TO GET GROUNDED

Simply slip off your shoes and plant your bare feet in the ground for thirty minutes. When you first start adopting a barefoot lifestyle, it's best to initiate on naturally softer grounds like grass, dirt paths and sand (instead of cement, asphalt or hardwood). When the muscles and joints of your foot become more stable, and the skin on the bottom of your feet thickens, you'll be able to handle progressively more time barefoot, and on a wider variety of surfaces. Although walking, wading or swimming in mineral-rich ocean water is ideal (oceans are highly conductive, more so than lakes), the key is to have direct, sustained skin contact (any part of your body will do) with the surface of the earth. This is why gardening, where you put your hands in and out of the earth, does not provide quite the same benefit.

SOME DOS & DON'TS:

• Do walk on grass that is slightly moist, as the water helps conduct the electrons; dry grass won't be as effective
• Don't walk on grass or soil that is littered with dirt, dog/bird droppings etc. Because the soles of our feet are very effective at absorbing the earth's energy, they can also absorb toxins -- use commons sense before you ditch your shoes. Pristine forest or beach soil is ideal
• Do ground, especially after flying, as our bodies bioelectrical rhythms are thrown out of balance in flight and grounding restores that electrical equilibrium
• Do wash your feet with soap and water, after grounding, to get rid of soil detritus that you may have picked up
• Don't go barefoot if you have any open cuts/sores on your soles, as that can be an entry point for parasites/fungi

GROUNDING: RADICAL DISCOVERY OR HIPPIE HOAX?

They say the most radical ideas are the most simple ones but, I must confess, after perusing through all this grounding literature, it seemed too good to be true. Does grounding really work or is it something dreamed up by barefoot radical hippies?

I decided to toss my inhibitions about parasites and calloused feet (along with my trusted flip flops), and give this barefoot medicine a real try. The truth is that I've been going through an egregious period of stress with my mom's lung cancer diagnosis, and have been on an insatiable quest to discover new stress relieving strategies that I can add to my go-to stress toolbox when I'm practically ready to tear out my hair! And I figured, why not give this a try for a month?

A yoga teacher suggested this barefoot medicine, attesting to the sense of grounding it has provided her, "We need to feel the earth – to contact it, to connect to it directly. It brings us back into ourselves and reminds us of our place.”

Impelled, I went home, kicked off my sandals, and set afoot. I took each step slowly, consciously, deliberately. I'll admit that at first it was because I was afraid of stepping on something sharp or prickly, but then it was because it felt so good to be aware of my feet – and most of all, to be aware of the earth underneath them. There were a million sensations – blades of grass, dried leaves, mud, dew, dandelion flowers – tingling my feet as the over 200,000 nerve endings were actively responding to the ground. It was living reflexology.

I’ve since been walking barefoot in the park across my home every day (keeping an eye out for errant dog poop), and over the past weeks, I must admit, my vague sense of anxiety has all but disappeared and my stress is definitely down from a level eight to a manageable four or five. I've also been sleeping better.

Walking barefoot upon the earth is like a silent prayer. Every blade of grass and every dew drop invites you into the present; invites you to be conscious and connected to your world. There is a secret language spoken between the bottoms of your feet and the ground below it – a direct communication between spirit and earth that the mind can barely fathom.

As it turns out, the benefits of barefooting it are not simply of the esoteric spiritual kind either. Walking barefoot, our most natural state of footwear, has been found to cause less impact stress on the body – reducing collision force by promoting a more natural gait. Indeed, studies show that those who run in padded running shoes suffer far more impact stress and are significantly more prone to injuries than those who run either barefoot or in non-padded shoes. Imagine that. Yes, for you shoe addicts out there, I have grim news: shoes are bad. And I don’t just mean those four-inch stiletto heels, or cowboy boots, or any of the other fairly obvious foot-torture devices into which we jam our feet for the sake of fashion.

“'Natural gait is bio-mechanically impossible for any shoe-wearing person,” wrote Dr. William A. Rossi in a 1999 article in Podiatry Management. “It took 4 million years to develop our unique human foot and our consequent distinctive form of gait, a remarkable feat of bioengineering. Yet, in only a few thousand years, with one carelessly designed instrument, our shoes, we have warped the pure anatomical form of human gait, obstructing its engineering efficiency, afflicting it with strains and stresses and denying it its natural grace of form and ease of movement head to foot.' In other words: Feet good. Shoes bad.”

So ditch those rubber-soled shoes (that insulate you from the earth's healing energy) the next time you walk out the door. Your feet certainly won’t miss them, and I doubt you will either. And remember, barefooting doesn't have to be an all or nothing decision. Simply incorporate a few minutes here and there and you'll naturally find yourself kicking off your shoes whenever the opportunity presents itself.
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Now, I'd love to hear from you regarding your barefoot experience. What positive changes have you noticed?
May you enjoy the ripe abundance of a barefoot summer and revel in the bliss of this sultry season! - Rupina Meer

​I recently came across Mark J. Pellegrino, MD, and was completely fascinated by the concept of fibronomics. Fibronomics is an interesting term related to how we move our body when we have fibromyalgia. It’s like ergonomics with a FM twist. Pellegrino, who coined the term, has had FM since childhood.

Here are some of Pellegrino’s best fibronomics tips:

1. When changing a lightbulb, hold up your elbow with your opposite hand to give it support, while standing on a stool or ladder to get closer to the lightbulb. This example made so much sense to me. I never would have thought of that.

2. For driving a prolonged distance, switch your hands between the 10:00 and 2:00 position, and the 4:00 and 8:00 positions. This technique helps those of us with FM avoid getting too stiff while driving.

3. When you’re washing dishes, put a foot on a stool or open the door to the cabinet underneath, and rest your foot on the shelf. It will take some stress off your back. It’s also helpful to use a dish scrubber with a long handle so you don’t have to bend over so much.

4. When applying makeup, set a magnifying mirror on a table. That way you don’t have to bend over a sink to get close enough to the mirror, or tip your head back while applying makeup. Personally, I just use lipstick. It’s been a long time since I wore any makeup.

Pellegrino’s four rules of fibronomics are as follows:
 
Arms stay home.

Unload the back. 

Support always welcome. 

Be naturally shifty

How does that look on a practical basis in our daily lives?

Whatever job or chore you’re doing, keep your arms below your shoulders, elbows touching your side. One way to do this while cleaning your bathtub would be to use a mop to wash the tub and surrounding tile, rinse and you’re done. Make use of stools and/or step ladders when you can to keep your arms at home.

When sitting, use afoot rest to take pressure off your back. You can also alternate crossing your legs. Just keep shifting your position.

With dusting you can use a long-handled dusting tool. I have one with an adjustable handle that makes dusting so much easier! For cleaning ceiling fans, you could stand on a stepladder and use a hair dryer to blow off the dust.

If you spill something on the floor, rather than bending over to wipe it up, use a towel and your foot to wipe up the mess.

I have an issue with bending over my washer to get the clothes out to put them in the dryer. I use an assisted grabber device to help with that, so I don’t hurt my back or aggravate my shoulder/arm pain.

Using a step stool to get at things in upper cupboards is something I should do more frequently. Store in such places only things you don’t need to use often. For heavy lifting, I get my husband to help. I also use my grabber tool to reach things I’m not worried about dropping or breaking.

Moving and shifting our position and muscles regularly make a difference as well. I set an alarm to go off every 45 minutes, and I stop what I’m doing — even when it’s just laying in bed — and walk around and do some gentle stretching. It keeps my muscles from tensing so much, and helps with the pain.

Pellegrino’s book, Fibromyalgia: Up Close and Personal covers this topic and more. He has written at least 10 books on the subject. - Fibromyalgia News Today

It's the summer before sixth grade, and Clark (Armani Jackson) is the new-in-town biracial kid in a sea of white kids on the movie Little Boxes. Discovering that to be cool he needs to act more black, he fumbles to meet expectations, while his parents, Mack (Nelsan Ellis) and Gina (Melanie Lynskey), also strive to adjust to small-town living. Equipped for the many inherent challenges of New York, the members of the tight-knit family are ill prepared for the different set of obstacles that their new community presents.

​With her family's livelihood imperiled by the farm crisis during the 1980s, 11-year-old Gitty loses herself in a world of fantasy and make believe. But she stumbles into her own fairy tale when she makes a startling discovery: a well-dressed mystery man being held captive in her family's silo. It's the beginning of a labyrinthine journey that will turn Gitty's world upside down and force her to question her loyalty to her own family.

​Ellen is an unruly 20-year-old anorexic girl who spent the better part of her teenage years being shepherded through various recovery programs, only to find herself several pounds lighter every time. Determined to find a solution, her dysfunctional family agrees to send her to a group home for youths, which is led by a non-traditional doctor. Surprised by the unusual rules, Ellen must discover for herself how to confront her addiction and attempt self-acceptance.

American businessman Jack Dwyer (Owen Wilson), wife Annie and their two young daughters arrive in Southeast Asia to begin a new life. As his company plans to improve the region's water quality, the family quickly learns that they're right in the middle of a political uprising. Armed rebels attack the hotel where they're staying, ordered to kill any foreigners that they encounter. Amid utter chaos, Jack must find a way to save himself and his loved ones from the violence erupting all around them.

​After the 2014 Somerset floods, a young woman returns to the family dairy farm following the tragic death of her younger brother.

Being a mother can definitely be a very joyous experience, but it can also be difficult if you have to deal with fibromyalgia while simultaneously raising your children.

Is it possible for you to raise your kids while also trying to cope with your fibromyalgia?  The answer is yes, and we’ll go over some of the ways that any mother with fibromyalgia will be able to balance her chronic pain with her responsibilities as a parent.

Energy

The most challenging aspect of being a mother and living with fibromyalgia is that you’ll find it difficult to get the energy to handle both. You should be able to keep informing your family of how you feel so that they don’t expect too much or too little from you on any particular day.

If you’re feeling more energized today, let them know and maybe you as a family can do something fun.  If you’ve never felt in so much pain before, lay down on the couch.

​Spending Time with Your Kids

You should take your kids out whenever you feel great. But should you take them out when you feel bad and are trying to get through another lousy day?  A good way to cope with this is to run on errands only for essentials when you don’t feel well, and to take your children out to the park when you do feel well so that you’re good days aren’t spent on getting things such as groceries.

In the event that your kids are dying to go out when you aren’t feeling well, you may have to alternative things to do, such as giving them an art project, a toy or a game of some kind.  There’s nothing wrong in pushing things off when you feel bad, but remember not to make any promises that you can’t keep to your kids.

​Multi-Tasking

In our culture today, multi-tasking seems to have been accepted as a part of daily life. Mothers especially have to learn to multi-task.  Unfortunately, the more you multitask, the slower things will get done and the less organized you will be.  You’ll become significantly less stressed out if you take things one step at a time.
This means taking breaks when you need them and focusing on getting one task done.  Once that task is done, you can move on to the next.  Yes, this is a challenge especially if you’re trying to juggle around a bundle of different responsibilities, and it’s even more of a challenge if you have children to care for.   You have to learn to live without multitasking.  But is this possible?

If your kids are old enough, you can give them certain chores. Not only does this free up time for you to focus on one task at a time and get the stress out, it teaches your kids responsibilities.  Right now, all you may be focusing on is raising your kids, getting them fed properly, and work at your job.  There’s nothing wrong with that, but you must try to get as much of the stress out as possible.

Additional Tips
Here are some additional tips that you can go over for trying to balance your fibromyalgia symptoms with motherhood.

​1- The first tip is to get plenty of exercise. Yes, it is true that people with fibromyalgia do find difficulty in getting sufficient exercise due to the pain, but exercising is still a great way to energize your body and get your muscles to heal themselves.  A major reason why you are in so much pain is due to your muscles, so exercising stimulates them.  You also don’t need to put a lot of time into exercising each day.  Twenty to thirty minutes of exercise per day will drastically improve your strength.
2- You should also a void smoking. This is because nicotine is bad to the muscles by decreasing blood flow to them, which in turn lowers the amount of oxygen your muscles receive and increases the pain that you feel.
3- If you haven’t looked into fibronomics, you probably should now. Fibronomics is not only useful for mothers, it is for mothers to be as well.  Fibronomics is manipulating your body in order to minimize the pain as much as possible and result in being able to complete tasks more efficiently.  There’s so much information related to fibronomics that we can’t go into all of it now, but it’s still something worth looking into.
4- Remember to get as much rest as you can. Fatigue is a common symptom of fibromyalgia, so getting the sleep at night that you need can be tough.  Nonetheless, being rested will reduce your chances of developing illness and stress, and thus allow you to cope with your fibromyalgia better while raising your children.  Another way to get plenty of stress is to schedule some time each day to your personal hobbies, such as listening to music or reading a book.
5- The last thing we’ll go over is coping with fibromyalgia while in a pregnancy.  Most pregnant patients with fibromyalgia report feeling more pain towards the pregnancy’s end.  This is because each factor that can cause pain all join together at that time.  It will be very difficult for a mother-to-be to be able to get comfortable at this point.

In order to get as comfortable as possible, you can participate in a physical therapy program that will provide heat and massages to your lower back.  An alternative would be to get trigger point injections, but you should carefully review this with your fibromyalgia doctor to make sure that it will have no negative effect on your pregnancy.
​
While suffering from fibromyalgia while late in your pregnancy will be difficult, just know that you’ve almost reached the end.  With help from treatments and physical therapy, hopefully you can get as comfortable as possible. - Fibromyalgia Treating

Filmmaker Kip Andersen uncovers the secret to preventing and even reversing chronic diseases, and he investigates why the nation's leading health organizations doesn't want people to know about it.

​Overtaken by the death of her beloved, a grieving woman decides to take a spontaneous trip to visit her friend and get her life back on track.

Based on the fascinating, true-life story of Michael Glatze (James Franco), a gay activist who becomes an anti-gay Christian pastor.

​Charles Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton), a rancher who once trained to be an astronaut, decides to fulfill a lifelong dream: He builds a rocket in his barn and plans to pilot it into space. Though he faces foreclosure on his ranch, the disbelief of his neighbors and threats from the government, Charles remains determined to reach for the stars.

​Five year old Saroo gets lost on a train which takes him thousands of miles across India, away from home and family. Saroo must learn to survive alone in Kolkata, before ultimately being adopted by an Australian couple. Twenty-five years later, armed with only a handful of memories, his unwavering determination, and a revolutionary technology known as Google Earth, he sets out to find his lost family and finally return to his first home.

"Take your shoes off they'll make you sick," is a powerful message depicting the notorious effect shoes have on every day life. Clint Ober offered this insight in the short documentary of What is Grounding.

​Have you ever noticed how good it feels to walk barefoot on a sandy beach, or in a forest? There is a reason for that—it’s called the grounding effect. The reason for this sense of well-being is due to the fact that you’re receiving a surge of potent healing electrons from the ground.

The earth has a slightly negative charge, so when you stand barefoot on that sand, electrons from the earth flow into your body, giving you a virtual “transfusion” of healing power.

The featured documentary, The Grounded 2, is a sequel to the film The Grounded, released in 2013. The sequel features Step Sinatra, the son of cardiologist Stephen Sinatra MD, astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, and yours truly, among many others.

Step was a Wall Street trader until his health suddenly began to decline, bringing him to the brink of death. He credits his ultimate recovery to learning about grounding, along with a switch to an all-organic diet.
In 2010, his father, Dr. Stephen Sinatra released a book on the healing power of grounding called Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever?, co-authored with Clint Ober, one of the pioneers in this field.

The Ultimate Antioxidant and Anti-Inflammatory

Grounding or Earthing is defined as placing one's bare feet on the ground whether it be dirt, grass, sand, or concrete (especially when humid or wet). When you ground to the electron-enriched earth, an improved balance of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system occurs.

The earth is a natural source of electrons and subtle electrical fields, which are essential for proper functioning of immune systems, circulation, synchronization of biorhythms and other physiological processes and may actually be the most effective, essential, least expensive, and easiest to attain antioxidant.

Modern science has thoroughly documented the connection between inflammation and all of the chronic diseases, including the diseases of aging and the aging process itself. It is important to understand that inflammation is a condition that can be reduced or prevented by grounding your body to the Earth, the way virtually all of your ancestors have done for hundreds if not thousands of generations.

How the Modern Running Shoe May Be Destroying Your Health

Materials such as metals are electrical conductors. They contain free or mobile electrons that can carry electrical energy from place to place.

Your body is somewhat conductive because it contains a large number of charged ions (called electrolytes) dissolved in water. Your blood and other body fluids are therefore good conductors. Free or mobile electrons can also move about within your body

Other materials, called insulators, have very few free or mobile electrons. Plastic and rubber are good insulators and are used to cover electrical wires to keep the conductors from touching each other and from touching your skin, which could otherwise give you a shock.

Traditionally, shoes were made of leather, which actually conducts electrons and therefore maintains a conductive contact between the earth and your feet. However, modern day rubber and plastics are electrical insulators and therefore block the beneficial flow of electrons from the Earth to your body.

Grounding Is a Foundational Aspect for Optimal Health

Free radical stress from exposure to mercury pollution, cigarettes, insecticides, pesticides, trans fats, radiation, and many others, continually deplete your body of electrons.

This is one of the primary reasons why antioxidants are used, which actually donate electrons back into your body, to help ward off free radical damage to your tissues.

You can also get these electrons by going outside, barefoot. Touching the earth helps neutralize the damaging positive charges of free radicals in your body.

According to Clint Ober, this lack of grounding appears to be an underlying thread in most chronic disease—a phenomenon he calls “electron deficiency syndrome.” - Dr. Mercola