GROUNDING-The most accessible health hack that 99% of people don't do

Grounding or Earthing, names for getting your good ole bare feet on the surface of the earth. Sounds simple because it is simple, but are the benefits really that profound? Short answer: YES

Grounding is really only so a modern health hack because we are so disconnected. Until the invention of modern footwear with insulated rubber/plastic soles, we were connected to the surface of the earth pretty much 24/7. Why does this matter? The Earth’s surface is a POOL of free electrons waiting for us to tap into. Electrons? Why do those matter. Electrons are the true currency of energy and the input to our energy production system (Electron Transport Chain) that produces ATP. The human body, like all other living things is electromagnetic. We use electrical signaling to operate our biology. Without a sufficient amount of electrons and sufficient voltage potential, our body will not function properly. However, it is not so simple to say more electrons = more health. If that were the case then we’d all be hooked up to copper wires absorbing current to level up our biology.

TOO MUCH of anything is bad. Our skin has resistance to protect us from shocks and lightning strikes (absorbing too much electrical current at once). However, our hands and feet (with thousands of nerve endings) have lower skin resistance. Lower resistance = better ability to conduct electricity. That is not a mistake. Through contact of our feet or hands on the ground, we are able to sustain a voltage differential up to a few hundred millivolts (depending on the surface). These electrons on the surface of the earth are willing to move to a less negatively charge area (us), and thus we are able to absorb a small amount of free flowing electrons into our body through our semi-conductive tissue on our hands and feet. Sounds cool, right? Now what are the actual benefits?

1. Managing Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) and/or free radicals

2. Maintaining Proper Blood Flow & Pressure

3. Regulating Cortisol & Circadian Rhythm

Oxidative stress. Anti-oxidants. Free radicals. These are all terms you MAY be familiar with, but what do they actually mean? If you read my newsletter from last week on Travel, you will know a bit more about oxidative stress and the function of anti-oxidants (if not, I will link it HERE). The TLDR is that our energy production process in our mitochondria, otherwise known as the Electron Transport Chain (ETC), is not perfect. As a result of this, free radicals are generated. Free radicals are typically oxygen molecules or molecules that contain oxygen (aka reactive oxygen species) that have an unpaired electron in their valence shell. O2 is supposed to be converted into metabolic water (H2O), but as mentioned the efficiency is not 100%. Therefore you get molecules like superoxide (O2-) or hydroxyl radical (OH) that are hungry to fill the unpaired electron and go back to stability. “Anti-oxidants” combat these radicals by attempting to supply an electron before they steal one from elsewhere in the cell and cause damage. Enter in newly absorbed electrons from grounding. These free electrons absorbed from the earth can help combat the free radicals/ROS by acting as an anti-oxidant. This will in turn help your body get back to redox homeostasis and not suffer cellular damage from oxidative stress. Grounding, in turn “reduces inflammation”. The thermal images often touted alongside grounding (before/after) show a positive response (thermal imaging can be a bit dodgy in accuracy but it captures some essence of effectiveness).

Maintaining proper blood flow and blood pressure. Perhaps the most interesting and fundamentally undebatable benefit of grounding. As stated above we are electromagnetic beings, and our blood flow exemplifies that. Both the lining of the blood vessel and surface of our red blood cells have a negative charge. This negative charge is imperative because it prevents rouleaux and coagulation, or the stacking of blood cells. If you blood cells stack, they are far easier to clump/clot and cause a blockage. Like charges repel, so having a sufficient “zeta potential” or negative charge on our RBCs will keep the blood flowing smoothly. Grounding helps maintain that. A study linked HERE showed how Earthing/Grounding reduces blood viscosity.

“Grounding increases the surface charge on RBCs and thereby reduces blood viscosity and clumping. Grounding appears to be one of the simplest and yet most profound interventions for helping reduce cardiovascular risk and cardiovascular events.”

Regulating our circadian rhythm. A lesser touted benefit to grounding is its ability to influence our circadian rhythm or our “body clock”. I am under the belief now that our circadian health is THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT of HEALTH. Why? Because literally all of our downstream biological functions are dictated by our circadian rhythm. This is why light, meal/exercise timing, sleep, connection to nature are all so important & interconnected. The main input might be light, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more inputs to the complex system that is our body. Connection to the earth is another. How do we know? Grounding has been proven to regulate cortisol rhythms. One of the biggest signs of a irregular circadian rhythm is cortisol and melatonin cycles that are out of whack. When you are grounded you are connected to the earth in the position of your geographical location. This is not proven, but its quite logical that the reason grounding helps regulate circadian rhythm is because along with those electrons you are getting a signal sent to your brain about the location/time/season it is where you are in that moment. It is the only logical explanation and it is one of the reasons I am such a big fan of grounding as MUCH as possible, especially after travel.

I recently released my first health optimization guide that includes all the travel hacks I use (including grounding) to completely avoid jet lag on long haul flights: AVOIDING JET LAG-An In Depth Guide to Hacking the Stressors of Travel.

This guide is extremely comprehensive, and application specific. It is a 30 page PDF that goes into WHY travel is so bad for us, and what you can do pre/during/post travel to avoid jet lag completely. If you travel often, this is worth checking out…but I warn you it is dense and only worth purchasing if you are willing to learn.

Grounding PROTOCOLS:

1. Just do it-bare feet on the ground

2. Length? 1 min is better than 0…5 min even better…2 hours even better still. There is no threshold dose.

3. Surfaces? Dirt/Grass/Rocks/Sand/Ocean all great. If it is wet and post thunderstorm, even better. Concrete works but asphalt is not the best.

4. Grounding shoes? Not comparable to barefoot but still better than rubber/plastic soled shoes. I will write more about this in the near future as I am conducting experiments with different shoes on different surfaces.

5. IT IS LITERALLY FREE

Big Grounding did not pay me to write this, even though I am an electrical engineer. Seriously, grounding is a no brainer. You may not “feel” anything, but the more you do it and the more disconnected you are to start…the better you will feel I can guarantee that. We are electromagnetic creates of Earth, it is about damn time we get back to connecting with our natural input signals.

Stay Sovereign,

-Tristan