Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever? Jed Diamond, Ph.D. has been a health-care professional for the last 45 years. He is the author of 9 books, including Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places, Male Menopause, The Irritable Male Syndrome, Syndrome, and Mr. Mean: Saving Your Relationship from from the Irritable Male Syndrome . He offers counseling to men, women, and couples in his office in California or by phone with people throughout the U.S. and around the world. To receive a Free E-book on Men’s Health and a free subscription to Jed’s e-newsletter go to www.MenAlive.com.. If you enjoy my articles, please subscribe. I www.MenAlive.com write to everyone who joins my Scribd team. Some things just feel so intuitively right, you know they are going to work. Earthing is one of those things. Never heard of Earthing? I hadn’t either until recently. I’m working on a new book about Energy Medicine for Men. One of the top researchers in the field is James James L. Oschman, Ph.D., author of Energy of Energy Medicine: The Scientific Scientific Basis. On his website, he described a new body of research about the health benefits of being grounded to the earth and the health problems that might occur if we weren’t. He also described a new book, Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever? By Ever? By Clinton Ober, Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D., and Martin Zucker. He also put me on to the Earthing Institute— http://earthinginstitute.net/ Welcome to the World of Earthing Throughout time, we humans have strolled, sat, stood, and slept on the ground—the skin of our bodies touching the skin of the Earth —oblivious to the fact that such physical contact transfers natural electrical energy to the body. Modern lifestyle has disconnected us from the Earth’s energy, making us more vulnerable to stress and illness.
Earthing is the landmark discovery that this energy upholds the electrical stability of our bodies and serves as a foundation for vitality and health. In an age of rampant chronic disease, reconnecting with the Earth’s energy beneath our very feet provides a way back to better health. We are bioelectrical beings living on an electrical planet. Remember When We Naturally Spent Time Connected to the Earth Through most of my childhood I remember the last day of school. My friends and I would be get antsy for the previous month or so, waiting, waiting, waiting for school to end and for Summer to begin. On the last day of school we would run home and take our shoes off. It would take us a few days before our feet would toughen up enough to walk around without having to take each step carefully, but it was the first rite of Summer and we knew we had to feel the pain temporarily until we were able to walk and run around the neighborhood barefoot. Summers were carefree times when I was growing up. We played sports, dipped our feet in the stream that ran by our house, and felt the joy of being outdoors. It never occurred to me that one one of the reasons the summers were so joyful was that we spent so much time connected to the earth. But wait until you hear what they’ve they’ve learned about Earthing (a great term that so well captures that carefree and joyful way of life). What the Science is Saying: Stephen Sinatra, M.D., M.D., F.A.C.C. Throughout practically all of history, we humans have walked barefoot and slept on the ground, largely oblivious to the fact that the gentle surface energies of the Earth harmonize and stabilize the body's fundamental biological rhythms and keep inflammation at bay. In our contemporary Western world, the widespread use of insulative rubber or plastic soled shoes has disconnected us from
these nurturing energies and, of course, we no longer sleep on the ground as we did in times past. New research, which I am proud to be involved in, indicates that this physical disconnect from the Earth creates abnormalities in the physiology and contributes to the chronic inflammation, pain, fatigue, stress, and poor sleep that are so rampant in our modern society. Along with the research has emerged an amazingly simple remedy for many health problems, including the chronic inflammation regarded as the cause of most common modern diseases, including cardiovascular disease. The remedy is something something right beneath our feet - the Earth itself! “The Greatest Health Discovery in My Career” says Dr. Sinatra: During my nearly forty years as a practicing cardiologist, I have encountered and used many wonderful natural treatments and seen first-hand astounding lifesaving technological advances. The greatest health discovery of my career, however, is something totally different and more natural than anything I could ever have imagined. This discovery is called Earthing and it means reconnecting the human body to the Earth's natural and subtle electric frequencies that few people even know exist. The surface of the planet, science tells us, brims with health-sustaining energy, but until recently the extraordinary benefits that it offers were basically unknown. Connecting the human body to this natural resource is utterly simple - just go barefoot outdoors. If you have ever walked along the beach near the surf, or on a grassy field wet with morning dew, you may have felt the energy in the form of gentle tingling or warmth in your feet and legs. You can also connect to this energy by sleeping, working, sitting, or resting on specially designed and inexpensive conductive sheets, bands, or mats that transfer the energy via a wire into your home and office. These unique devices often relieve common health and pain problems. Recovery from surgery, injury, and extreme athletic performance is accelerated. People report sleeping better with more
energy during the day. They feel better. For more than ten ten years, thousands of people around the world - men, women, children, and athletes - have incorporated Earthing into their daily routines. The results have been documented and they are extraordinary. This surprising yet totally intuitive subject is the focus of a new book that I have had the privilege to co-author. It is called Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever? (Basic Ever? (Basic Health Publications, 2010). In the book, my co-authors and I present research and observations collected during more than 12 years that strongly suggest that the biggest anti-inflammatory on the planet is get this! - the very planet itself. Basically, we live on top of a global treatment table! A Missing Link to Health? The research also suggests that direct physical contact with the Earth reconnects you to the natural electric signal from the Earth governing all living organisms dwelling upon it. The signal restores your body's natural internal bioelectrical stability and rhythms, which in turn promote normal functioning of body systems, including the cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, and immune systems. It shifts the nervous system from stress-dominated functioning to one of calmness. By reconnecting, you enable your body to return to its normal evolutionary electrical state, better able to self-regulate and self-heal. The Earth's surface energy takes the form of a virtually unlimited reservoir of free electrons, subatomic particles. When "uploaded" into your body as a result of direct physical contact with the ground, these electrons appear to quell the rampage of destructive free radicals at the basis of chronic pain and inflammation. Our hypothesis is that this effect takes place as negativelycharged electrons - like reinforcements swarming into battle - suffuse the body, basically overwhelming and neutralizing positively-charged free radicals. Earthing, we say, remedies a commonplace electron deficiency and thus reduces or eliminates inflammation.
I see Earthing as a profoundly simple, practical, effective, and cost-cutting way to combat common illnesses and pain problems, and, from a preventive standpoint, keep people healthy. To me it represents a missing link in the health equation. In my own field of cardiology, Earthing has great promise for improving arrhythmias, blood pressure, circulation, and the vital pumping activity of the heart. I recently participated in a pilot study on the electrodynamics of blood cells that indicates Earthing significantly improves viscosity (blood thickness) and flow. Another study I was involved in showed how Earthing contributes to a de-stressing and balancing effect on the nervous system. It's fascinating to think of the Earth as a medically-significant and natural blood thinner, tranquilizer, and anti-inflammatory. I fully expect many more benefits to emerge with ongoing research. Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever? Part 1, 1, Part 2, 2, Part 3, 3, Part 4, 4, Part 5
Stephen Sinatra, MD, FACC, FACN, CNS, is a board-certified cardiologist and certified bioenergetic analyst with more than 35 years of experience in helping patients prevent and reverse heart disease. His specialty is integrative cardiology that combines conventional medical treatments with complementary nutritional and psychological therapies. Note from Jed: Today I start my own Earthing Earthing experiment. My sheet just arrived along with everything I need to ground it. I also got a pad I can use while I working with my computer that will keep me grounded. I’ll report my results in future articles. Stay tuned. Or better yet, get grounded!