What if simply connecting to the earth could boost your overall health and wellbeing? Explore the practice of grounding (or earthing), it's potential benefits, risks, and ideas for how to get started. A little more on grounding from ⁠Huberman Lab.

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In this episode, I discuss:

• 00:39 - Grounding and Check-In
• 01:45 - What is grounding/earthing?
• 02:16 - Benefits of grounding.
• 05:47 - What else is going on when we're grounding?
• 07:40 - How and where to ground?
• 09:12 - Encountering internal resistance.
• 09:56 - Safety precautions.
• 10:58 - Challenge: Add earthing to your week!

Episode transcript:

"...How are you doing? How are you feeling? Take a moment to check in with yourself, to check in with your body. Perhaps notice if there's anywhere you're holding a little tension in the moment. Do a few easy shoulder shrugs. Take a couple of gentle neck rolls. Circle the wrists. Circle the ankles. Take a nice deep breath in through your nose. And an easy breath out through your nose or your mouth.

I want to continue musing on the healing power of nature today. And I want to dive a little more specifically into the practice of grounding or earthing. Very simply, this is the process of connecting our bodies to the earth. Connecting our bare skin to soil, moss, a body of water, a tree, grass.

And there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence and much emerging research around the benefits of regular earthing or grounding. Many of these benefits overlap with what we talked about last episode, with generally spending more time outdoors in nature.

Connecting our bodies to the earth seems to reduce cortisol, reduce stress, enhance our overall feelings of calmness, and relaxation, while also providing a boost to our overall mood and supporting overall mental health.

And related to that, it seems to increase people's perception of their quality of life.

Getting connected to the earth regularly also supports our circadian rhythms.

So this is improving our ability to fall asleep, stay asleep, and get really good quality, deep, restful sleep.

And it also seems to support our body's overall wellness and healing ability.

So it boosts our immune function.

And then there's also some evidence that it may actually promote tissue repair and muscle recovery.

And part of the reason behind that is that it really helps to bring down overall inflammation throughout the body.

And also seems to bring down our pain sensitivity.

So a reduction in the experience of chronic pain.

Getting directly connected to the earth also seems to support our overall heart health.

So it may lower our blood pressure, it may enhance circulation, and it may improve blood flow.

So this is actually bringing down our blood viscosity and reducing the risks of things like strokes and clots.

It may also improve your heart rate variability.

If you want a little review on HRV, what that is and the benefits of improving your HRV, go back and take a listen to episode 10, the breath-heart connection.

And then regular earthing, grounding may also improve your vagal tone.

And if you want a little review on vagus nerve and improving vagal tone, that's episode 11.

There is so much anecdotal evidence.

And as we discussed last time, many of us have just had the experience of how good it feels to be outdoors, connected to nature.

There is emerging interest in, and thus emerging bodies of research in, the potential benefits, but why?

As you know, I am always so curious about the science behind why things work.

I'm very interested in an objective explanation.

My skeptical mind really loves that data.

And with earthing, with grounding, there are so many things happening when we are spending time outdoors in nature, in addition to being physically connected to the earth.

So there's being removed from some of the stresses of life.

There's breathing fresh air.

There's being in natural light, in addition to this actual physical connection.

So the theory around the physical connection itself is that we are directly linking ourselves to the electrical fields of the earth, and that has inherent benefit to our body systems.

I will leave it at that today, but I will link in the show notes an episode of the Huberman Lab podcast that chats a little bit about this exact thing.

If you, like me, gravitate toward the woo-woo and also really like the science, Huberman Lab is a really, really wonderful resource.

He dives into many, many different health-related topics and has many, many wonderful guests and always tries to take it back to the research.

So I will link that for you to go explore.

And I want to talk a little bit about some different examples of things that you could do to earth or ground yourself.

Perhaps the easiest, simplest, is just taking a barefoot walk outdoors.

If you have access to a coastline, something that many of us have already maybe normalized more than walking barefoot through, say, a forest, is walking barefoot on a beach.

If you are in the Pacific Northwest like I am, you might have to put a little more time and attention into finding a comfortable sandy beach and not a rocky beach or an oyster shell beach.

But if you have access to a sandy beach or even a nice sandy lakefront, while you're there, you could do some wading or some swimming in some natural open water.

You could also find a place to lie on some moss and let your arms and legs connect to the ground.

You could stand or sit on that moss in a forest to meditate.

You could find a grassy lawn and do some barefoot yoga or some Tai Chi.

Or you could do some gardening with your bare hands and really let your hands and fingers get in that soil.

You may notice that some of these things bring up a little bit of resistance for you.

I would say that is completely normal.

Many of us are conditioned to walk in shoes, to not lay in the dirt, to wear gloves when we garden.

And that's totally okay.

Maybe spend some time just pondering the why.

Is there an underlying rationale that really makes sense as far as wanting to protect yourself?

Or is it something that you could let go of?

And related to that, I do want to offer just a few cautions.

These are very practical things.

But I do just want to mention, if you are walking outdoors barefoot, and that's not something that you normally do, be mindful, depending on how far out in nature versus how near to an urban area you are.

Watch out for human hazards, like other rapidly moving runners or bicycles of things on the ground that could poke or cut you, plants or animals that could bite or sting.

If you have seasonal allergies, be mindful of the time of year and where you're going.

If you're closer to a more urban area, be aware of any chemicals that may be sprayed on the lawn.

And with any of these practices that you choose to do, again, just be mindful, take care of yourself.

So again, today, rather than doing a practice with you, I'm going to invite you to bring some earthing, some grounding into your week.

So where in your day and where in your life, is it where you live?

Is it a park you love?

Is there a hiking trail?

Where could you go and spend some time either taking your shoes off, getting those feet connected to the earth, doing some gardening, getting those hands connected to the earth, touching some trees, go hug a tree.

If that is your thing, go literally hug a tree.

See how you feel.

Or other activities that you could do.

If you're a swimmer, again, some open water swimming.

If you have access to a coastline, go take that slow walk on the beach and really let your feet connect to the sand.

And see how you feel.

As you move into these practices, again, especially if it's something that you wouldn't normally do or a place you wouldn't normally take your shoes off, notice any feelings of resistance.

Notice how you feel when you're doing the activity.

Notice how you feel after the activity.

If it works for you, spend that time in reflection, perhaps journaling, noticing what you enjoy, what works, what feels good, what practices would you like to put into place on a more regular basis so that you can start to reap all of those incredible benefits of earthing, of grounding yourself.

As you explore, please feel free to reach out and let me know how it is going.