
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