Grounding: What’s the Big Deal?

Grounding or earthing refers to direct skin contact with the surface of the Earth, such as with bare feet or hands, or with various grounding systems. Subjective reports say that that walking barefoot on the Earth enhances health and provides feelings of well-being and can be found in the literature and practices of diverse cultures from around the world( Ober CA, Sinatra ST, Zucker M., 2014).

In short, grounding is a therapeutic technique that involves doing activities that “ground” or electrically reconnect you to the earth.

Research has shown that grounding produces intriguing effects on physiology and health. Such effects relate to inflammation, immune responses, wound healing, and prevention and treatment of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Specifically, grounding an organism produces measurable differences in the concentrations of white blood cells, cytokines, and other molecules involved in the inflammatory response.

(Oschman JL, Chevalier G, Brown R., 2015)

So, as you can see from the image above, grounding is a therapeutic technique that focuses on realigning your electrical energy by reconnecting to the earth. You can choose to do this inside or outside, with or without grounding equipment. No matter how you perform grounding, make sure that you’re always aware of your surroundings outside and use earthing equipment safely to reduce risks.

In a nutshell, what we are trying to explain is that the importance of running around barefoot with your feet physically touching the floor is somewhat underrated, and so are all the benefits that come with it. So, start taking off your shoes and run around barefoot*. Go get dirty with your kids in the sand or soil, or simply do your workout barefoot and feel the incredible effects.

*Always make sure that when running barefoot you check your surroundings to avoid any injury.