Grounding - Help with Inflammation and Sleep

For this blog, I wanted to share about grounding. A few weeks ago I asked people in a group if they have done some grounding that day and a lot of them asked, “What is grounding?” That’s why I wanted to talk write about it because it has so many benefits, especially with inflammation and healing, as well as sleeping.

Recently, I received a pair of shoes from a company that I've used in the past and I love their stuff. The company is called Earth Runners and the pair of shoes they sent me are grounding footwear.

When I originally sought the brand out, I was looking for minimalist sandals because I was getting into wearing minimalist footwear. I checked out Vivo barefoot and similar brands during the winter months. Also, I hate wearing shoes in the summer, so I wanted to find a sandal. A lot of times I struggle with finding sandals that aren't flip flops and that are fully attached to your foot that don't have a very heavy soul with a big arch.

So, I really wanted to get a minimalist sandal and what I mean by that is something that has a super flexible sole and a wide footbed. I also wanted something that held onto your foot because with flip flops, we tend to grip with our toes and that is going to alter the biomechanics from that end standpoint. I’ve written blogs in the past on minimalist footwear and you can check that out to understand more about how to shift to wearing something minimalist. 

More on the brand Earth Runners, their shoes and sandals are great for avoiding that clawing effect of the toes with flip flops. I've loved them and I've used them for a couple of years now. When they sent me this new pair, I noticed that it is actually much thinner than the pair I had before. I think I like the thinner sole better. So they're great in the respect of the minimalist footwear, I would just be cautious of wearing these for long periods of time until you build up your foot strength so that you're used to not having a built-up arch to artificially hold your foot up.

So, slowly work into it and build up your foot strength before you go on a long hike or run in these. And if you're having a plantar fascia issue, plantar fasciitis, or tarsal tunnel syndrome, I'd probably wait until you get that under control before you hop into using these. But once you are strong, and not having an active issue, these are great to use.

The Earth’s Electromagnetic Frequency – What You Need To Know, How It Can Help You

So once I got these in 2020, they also had the benefit of having this copper plug at the bottom there. You might ask why would you have a copper piece of whatever on the sole of your shoe? It is helping you to ground into the Earth's electromagnetic frequency.

Not only does it have the copper piece here in the straps of the sandals or two stainless steel threads that then wrap around your foot and conduct the electromagnetic frequency of the earth to your body.

Why does that matter? And why do we care? The Earth has this residence or this frequency and it is called the Schumann resonance. It has a distinct peak at 7.83 hertz. That matches the frequency of brainwaves associated with meditation, inner calm, healing, mindfulness, and creativity. If you look back at all the 50 plug blogs we've done, we touch on how it affects our physical health. So we've got, the meditation aspect, I've been really terrible at my meditation practice, I'm not going to lie to you. Lately, it's been super stressful a lot on my plate, but it's definitely something I know that benefits me and I need to get back to. But if you can create that same frequency that you're creating in meditation, through grounding yourself and absorbing the frequency of the earth, that seems like a no-brainer to add to your routine.

What’s even more beneficial regarding the earth’s frequency would be the healing. If you can match up the frequency with optimal healing, that would be so beneficial for my patients who have chronic issues –  chronic headaches, Monat migraines, chronic autoimmune issues, arthritis, any kind of disease process has an inflammatory component to it. Inflammation is huge and how we feel and how we move through life. So, if we could do something so simple as getting more body contact with the ground, the earth, that seems like a no-brainer.

The Subtle Shift Of Not Having More Contact With Nature  

If you look back through the decades, we have made this subtle shift from foraging, farming, working, probably being barefoot a lot of the time, hands in the actual dirt ground - not asphalt, not concrete - but the grass, the moss, the dirt, those kinds of things. We spent a lot more time outside and touching Mother Nature than we do now, at least for myself, because it depends on your profession.

You should also think about the kids. They are forced into an indoor setting for long, long periods of time. In school, and then studying afterward, they might come home to do more homework and the like. Are they ever really getting that much outdoor time in the school year? Going from possibly school to homework to sports – do they get outside? Do they touch the ground unless their sport is outside? And then if they're doing a sport outside, are they touching the ground, or are they insulated by rubber-soled shoes? Because if you're wearing rubber-soled shoes, you're not absorbing that electromagnetic frequency of the earth.

So we went from the olden days, where we were physically touching the earth way more to wearing rubber shoes, and spending mass amounts of time inside. And then to take it even a step further, working against us, we have the increase of being constantly bombarded with non-native electromagnetic frequencies. So that would be emitted from electric devices such as cell phones, microwaves, power lines, light bulbs – any electronics that you have in your house. I don't know about your house, but my house has a truckload of electronic devices. Everybody's got a tablet. My husband and I work on computers, we have multiple monitors and wireless printers and our Wi-Fi and smart TVs and ring doorbells, and nest smoke detectors in every room and nest cams in the kids’ rooms. We have just so much electronic stuff happening in our house. And that's just in my house because when I go to work, I also have people sign in and do their paperwork on iPads, we have Wi-Fi, we have wireless printers, and we've got a computer in every room. We wear air pods and all those different things that are emitting these waves that are working against that frequency produced by the Earth that promotes calm and better vagal tone. I would have to think that that is part of our shift to the chronic stress that everyone seems to be experiencing from the stress of life and stress of all the outside things that we've added in that we didn't have even 20 or 30 years ago.

The Different Ways To Ground Yourself

So there are different ways to ground yourself. Like with the shoes, we've got the copper conduction that you're standing on ground, not asphalt but grass or dirt, and it's conducted into your body through these stainless-steel threads. Or you can go barefoot in the summer, or when it’s even remotely nice out, I make my kids go barefoot when they're outside, much to some of their grandparents’ dismay, but it has so many other good benefits. They know that when they're done playing it's been a good grounding day if their feet are very dirty. So we could take a page out of little kids’ playbooks by getting a little dirty each day.

You can go barefoot or you could just lie down on your grass. I make my kids do this with me and my husband laughs at us but when is the last time that you laid down in your yard, and just touched a lot of surface area? I guess if you garden that would be a big thing. You're digging through the dirt and stuff. And that's great but I just am really bad at gardening. So that for me is not something that I do and not a way that I can incorporate it into my routine.

But human beings function optimally when we have a slightly negative charge and that would be the same to that of the Earth. That happens naturally, when we connect to the Earth through that grounding through bare feet, hands digging in the dirt, lying down in the dirt. That's electron-rich natural rhythms with that sunlight, lightning in the Earth's cycle change. The Earth has an unlimited supply of negative ions. That unlimited supply of negative ions and us absorbing them plays right into reducing inflammation.

This is going to probably maybe bore some of you but I’ll quickly tell you about inflammation. It is primarily caused by neutrophils, which is just a type of white blood cell that the body releases when it detects a pathogen or damaged cell. The neutrophils are sent there, where the pathogen or damaged cells located encapsulates it and then release a reactive oxygen molecule. Now that reactive molecule is missing an electron, it needs an electron to fill it and it takes it from a healthy cell, and then it starts the process all over, which in turn is giving you that chronic inflammation.

So how do you combat that? We need an extra surplus of these negative electrons. We can get that from grounding or from the natural grounding, trying to touch the Earth. Some people also use grounding mats, and grounding sheets that you can use inside. I live in Pennsylvania so it's easy to do right now, it's beautiful out, and it's nice to be outside. In the winter, it still can be done because I have friends who do it in the snow. I hate to be cold, so I'm really going to have to work on that but I am going to make that one of my goals to do grounding even on those days.

Some of my days are exceptionally long when I treat patients. I leave the house at 7, and I don't get back until 10 or 11. So I'm not home to see much sunlight. I usually don't wake up super early because I've gone to bed really late. I also don't have time in the middle of my day to go outside and we don't have a lot of dirt or grass around my office. So what I need to make a concerted effort with is getting outside before I leave and just touching the ground for at least so many minutes before I move on with my day because my day is devoid of natural sunlight and contact with the Earth and I am bombarded with electronic stuff in my office all day long. So that is something that I need to do. And you could try to make those shifts throughout your bad busy days as well. It would be nice to get some of that grounding in each day, rather than leaving it just to stock up on other days.

The Benefit Of Grounding For Sleeping And More

The other thing that really piqued my interest again in grounding even though I've heard of it for years and years is that they help with the benefit of it and sleeping. So that's something I've struggled with since having kids and it helps with your circadian rhythm and walking into nature and that natural sleeping process.

The other thing that they have associated grounding with is pain reduction. It will also affect your inflammation processes and expedited wound healing, which is going to be great and necessary for me as I have a surgery coming up. Who doesn't want to speed up till late-onset muscle soreness or help yourself and your immune system in a natural, easy, free way?

There are also some studies that show that Earthing or grounding has been shown to increase the surface charge of the red blood cells, and then that helps with viscosity and clumping, so it makes them move more smoothly.

I feel like everything that people put out there as healthy for you, costs a lot of money. And this is an interesting one because it costs nothing. I suppose it would cost something if you went and got like the grounding mat, or grounding blankets and that kind of thing, or the shoes, but you can do it just for free.

Grounding Is Great For Kids, Too

You can make your kids do it because little kids get inflamed and get stressed, too. I see it in my office, it is a thing. They're not in an insulated bubble that totally takes away all their stress. They have worries and they hear us when we're not realizing it.

My husband and I were talking about the food shortages that are supposed to be on the horizon, and I had no idea that my daughter was even in earshot. She had mentioned the next night that she had been thinking about it and letting it brew and she said that she made a list. She noted, “I really need you to get extras of these favorite things of mine before the food shortages start.” Oh my gosh, she's only five and that is not something a five-year-old should have to worry about. But, with this real experience, you can see that they worry about stuff too.

So, grounding is good not just for the adults, but for all ages. I’d like to share about this thing that I saw where they did a thing with putting a grounding patch on preemies in the NICU because there's so much electronics and going on in a NICU that it puts them in a basically more of a sympathetic state. To help shift them from that sympathetic to a parasympathetic state, they used grounding patches and saw positive effects from it. So that is pretty cool, too. To reiterate, grounding is not just for adults but for everyone.

How You Can Get The Shoes From Earth Runners

For the shoes, If you want to be out in your yard you hate being barefoot, you want better biomechanic sandals than your flip flops with that toe clawing, I would try earthrunners.com. You can use the code that they gave me and you will get 10 percent off if you put in DrKate10.

I really love these. I've been using them for years.

If you have any questions about grounding, I'm by no means an expert, but I will try to find the answer for you. If you have anything to add, let me know. Have a great one!

If you have any questions, you can drop it in the comment section or you can send me a message through Facebook or Instagram. I’d be happy to do another podcast about your questions. Also, if you want me to talk about something specific, let me know!

You can also check my TikTok account as I use the platform to educate viewers about movement, chiropractic education, yoga, pregnancy, and more!