One thing that my clients often hear from me is that I want their “bare feet on the ground and bare body in the sun.” This article explains some simple reasons why.
I have come to find that many of us are Sun and Earth deficient. We simply don’t spend enough time in the Sun or on the ground.
Grounding
For the cost of taking your shoes off and standing outside, you have access to the most powerful anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant “drug” on Earth – the Earth itself. Our planet is a battery for practically infinite electrical charge relative to the human body. All you have to do to access this power is touch the ground.
The negative charge of the electron is why it feels so good to breathe the ocean air or the air during a thunderstorm. It is why we put salt lamps in our homes. It is why we enjoy long, hot showers. It plays a part in the healing power of stones like amethyst and tourmaline. The healing properties of these things come from negative ions (in this case, the electrons themselves) neutralizing the positive charge of the chronic inflammation in our bodies (reactive oxygen species).
The damage we accrue from stress and toxicity that leads to aging is fundamentally a result of not having enough charge to neutralize the free radicals that cause oxidative damage. The instant your feet touch the ground, the positive ions in your body are neutralized and your bodies electrical imbalance is brought into harmony with the charge of the Earth.
- While your feet are on the ground, there is virtually no inflammation present in your body. [1]
- Being grounded activates the parasympathetic nervous system, reduces cortisol, and synchronizes the left and right hemispheres of the brain. [2]
- When you are grounded it thins the blood (by lowering the zeta potential of the blood, a measurement of electrokinetic attraction between red blood cells) and allows the RBCs to communicate more effectively and find resonance with one another rather than clumping together. This improves circulation tremendously. [1]
- Your feet are designed to be maximally conductive to the Earth’s negative charge! (Especially given the very special acupuncture point on the bottom of the foot: Kidney 1 Yongquan – one of my favorite points)
- Grounding is ~10,000x more anti-inflammatory than curcumin (one of the most popular plant-based anti-inflammatories). You can take all the turmeric in the world (and it’s great!) but only grounding is so anti-inflammatory that it actually expands the congealed blood in your veins within minutes.
- Grounding quickly normalizes heart rate variability (HRV), a factor that shows promise as one of the best measurements of overall wellbeing and reduced incidence of all disease.
In the words of James Oschmann, “do you want your blood to be ketchup or red wine?”
The take-away: The single most anti-inflammatory thing a person can do is have their feet touching the bare ground.
Taking time to get grounded can easily be integrated into your life.
Here’s a video of Dr. Mercola interviewing one of the leaders in Earthing research:
Getting Tan
Many of us avoid the Sun because we have been brought to believe it is bad for our health. Sunscreen use and shoes with plastic soles that insulate us from the Earth are ubiquitous. We have been taught that the Sun causes cancer and wrinkles the skin. This has been shown to be true, but there are confounding factors at play. I believe that the Sun only causes this kind of damage under the conditions: 1) when the body is toxic and overburdened by stress and oxidative damage, especially over-exposure to artificial light. 2) when we aren’t used to the Sun and get it only in spurts rather than purposefully maintaining a tan. 3) when we aren’t grounded while in the Sun.
When you get in the Sun it recalibrates your body to its natural circadian rhythm! This normalizes your leptin response and regulates appetite (more strongly than any “appetite suppressant” out there). The light from the Sun is what tells your body what hormones to produce and when. Getting morning and afternoon Sun tells your body to make growth hormone and sex hormones. Midday Sun tells your body to work hard and focus on producing neurotrasmitters to get the job done.
Two of the most powerful anti-cancer compound in your body are made in the Sun: melatonin and Vitamin D. Melatonin has shown numerous anti-cancer and anti-aging benefits in studies. It is the “master of sleep” and amazingly it is produced in the eye and in the skin – during the day!
For more information on these topics, check out this article.
Vitamin D controls the expression of over 5% of the human genome and is implicated in cancer and many chronic conditions (in fact, low Vitamin D is associated with increased risk of all cancers and shorter lifespan). Most don’t know that Vitamin D isn’t actually a vitamin – it’s a hormone and is necessary for life! It is so powerful that it binds directly to DNA to control their expression. It’s not enough to take supplemental Vitamin D – you must get it from the Sun if you really want enough! Your body even has special built in mechanisms to shut off Vitamin D production when you’ve had just the right amount.
How could the Sun be bad for you when we must have it to produce these crucial chemicals? I believe it is because the level of oxidative damage from other causes can outweigh our bodies ability to use the potential of the Sun. This is another reason why it’s important to increase your Sun exposure gradually but also to be grounded. You literally become a solar panel when you are in the Sun – you make electricity! The best way to safely balance this extra power (so you don’t fry your mitochondria) is to simply have your body touching the ground while you are in the Sun. I like to have my feet flat on the ground and “plug” my fingertips into the Earth. The best nap you’ve ever had is a ground nap!
A tan is a sign of good health. The more tan you are, the less likely you are to be damaged by the Sun and the more likely you are to utilize the Sun’s health-giving rays. When you have a tan (also known as a solar callous), you actually absorb more of the sunlight and use it for energy and for photochemical reactions (making Vitamin D, melatonin, etc.). A tan comes from the increased melanin your body puts out in order to make use of the sunlight. We now know that melanin is a superconductor and is being used in high-level electronics development. It is worth 400$ per gram. A gram of gold is only worth around 50$!
Being in the Sun also burns fat and benefits circulation. Your mitochondria thrive while operating off of sunlight. Being in the Sun is the equivalent of being in an infrared sauna (42% of the Sun’s rays are infrared), which promotes the detoxification of plastics along with many other benefits.
In my practice I encourage people to get back in touch with the Sun and the Earth. I am sure you will reap the benefits if you take this information to heart and proceed carefully. Go get your feet on the ground! Get some sunlight! Your body will thank you.