Earthed
The body's expected physiological state.
Earthing (also called ‘grounding’) is the process by which the human body is in direct contact with the electric field of the Earth. This most commonly occurred when we were walking with bare feet directly on the ground, swimming in natural, mineral-rich bodies of water and sleeping by a campfire or in a small, floor-less abode.
Until relatively recently in human history, we had maintained an essentially unbroken connection to the Earth’s electronegative surface. As a species, we spent substantial portions of our days ‘plugged in’ to the influence of this electric field as we foraged, hunted and socialised - there wasn’t really any alternative to this. In fact all life on Earth had intimate relationships with this subtle but critical signal.
But the intellect can often confuse forces that are so fundamental with ones that are superfluous. The earthed state was so fundamental; so ingrained and unavoidable that we never had to consider that perhaps it was contributing something of extreme importance.
“One of the most highly developed skills in contemporary Western civilization is dissection: the split-up of problems into their smallest possible components. So good, we often forget to put the pieces back together again.”
- Alvin Toffler
This is one of the biggest philosophical problems we face in the world right now. We have obfuscated and become severed from the very forces and signals that have sculpted what and who we are.1 This is exemplified in our modern relationship with Nature as a whole.
Man sees himself as divorced from Nature; something of his own creation and no longer tethered to and responsible for the earth from which he emerged. This precisely underpins that which has led us to a point where our species has essentially lost all of its contact with these essential forces of Nature.
We find ourselves in a unique evolutionary predicament. We have the requisite intellect, technology and desire to be comfortable; yet the many ways in which life has been uncomfortable for the vast, vast majority of time play irreplaceable roles in keeping us healthy and robust. It appears as though the widespread adoption of rubber-soled (insulated) shoes has granted us comfort, but set us up for long-term ills.
The Earth’s surface has a net negative charge. It is essentially a continuous repository of so called ‘free electrons’ that can be taken up through the body and be stored and used for a variety of purposes. The electronegativity of the Earth is a result of near constant lightning strikes that concentrate at the equator. It is estimated that at any one point, there are approximately 10,000 thunderstorms occurring (particularly in tropical zones) resulting in approximately just over 100 lightning strikes per second. This continually recycles charge and imbues the Earth’s surface with mobile charge in the form of these free electrons.
When we stand on the ground with our bare feet or swim in natural bodies of water, electrons enter our bodies through the point of contact with the Earth. These electrons travel through the collagen semiconductor network that spans our entire bodies2 where these electrons can be stored and used to quench reactive oxygen/nitrogen species, resolve inflammatory responses, supply charge to cell water and increase the electrostatic forces that help maintain proper cellular function and likely coherence.
It must be stressed that this storage and use of free electrons from the Earth’s surface is the normal and expected state of affairs physiologically. We evolved with these electrons at our disposal all day, every single day of our lives. Earthing, as it is described here, should be seen not as something that improves health per se, but rather something that allows us to meet the bare-minimum expectation for normal physiological function.3
Before getting into what roles these electrons play, it is useful to try and get a grasp on how these electrons are taken up, mobilised and stored.
In the 1940s, Albert Szent-Györgyi postulated that proteins are capable of semiconduction; a process by which charge is mobilised through a doped network of molecules. Doping provides ‘gaps’ or ‘spaces’ in the molecule where electrons can ‘jump’ through and in essence, flow. Unlike a conductor where charge flows freely, or an insulator with no gaps in the atomic network for charges to mobilise, a semiconductor provides an intermediate process. When a positive (p-type) and negative (n-type) semiconductor meet, flow can ensue due to the intrinsic electric field that is generated as a result.4
“Life is nothing but an electron looking for a place to rest.”
- Albert Szent-Györgyi
Twice nominated for the Nobel Prize, orthopedic surgeon Robert O. Becker discovered what he termed the analogue, or, DC (direct current) control system within the body. This system was centred around biologic semiconduction and generates a current throughout the body that is modulated by various perturbations. Becker’s focus was primarily on bone healing and regeneration - capacities intimately controlled by subtle and rapid shifts in localised charge density. By using extremely small currents through electrodes, Becker was able to essentially replace the damaged endogenous current flow and heal bone non-unions and even enhance the regenerative capacities of frogs and lizards. Needless to say, biologic semiconduction and current flow throughout the body play highly under-appreciated roles in homeostatic regulation and regeneration.
Earthing supplies the labile units of charge that participate in these semiconductor networks throughout the body. Chronic disconnection from the primary supply of these electrons likely causes a loss in current, electric field strength and consequently, rate of flow.
Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are in desperate search of electrons. With an unpaired electron, they wreak havoc until they can steal an electron from somewhere else. If an oxidant molecule steals an electron from water, for example, it itself becomes and oxidant and a chain reaction ensues.
The chain reaction of ROS-to-ROS is what makes them so damaging. If the reaction cannot be stopped by an antioxidant molecule, the reaction can continue, causing damage to DNA and cellular lipids, potentially causing irreparable damage. The problem is, the term “antioxidant” is a very nebulous term. Vitamin C, for example, can donate an electron (a process called reduction) to douse the flame of an ROS. However, once Vitamin C has done this, it itself becomes an ROS - the ascorbyl radical. The ascorbyl radical is far less dangerous than a hydroxyl radical though, making the trade-off a net-positive, but this is not exactly ideal. This is likely why Nature has relied so heavily on molecules like melatonin for modulating redox balance in the mitochondria. When melatonin donates an electron to quench an ROS, the resulting molecule itself is also an antioxidant. That molecule is also an antioxidant after that, making melatonin a much more useful and robust redox modulator compared to Vitamin C.
Redox modulation is of the upmost importance to cells. To be able to do this efficiently and effectively, cells need a constant supply of electrons. Antioxidants from food play a role5, but it is not reliable enough to ensure cells can balance charge and function optimally when exposed to stressors. This is where the continuous flow of labile electrons through the surface of the Earth into the body plays a pivotal role.
When earthed, electrons traverse the ground substance (aka. fascia, extracellular matrix, microvacuolar absorbing network) and either get directed to sites where they are needed (via electric fields), or they are stored in glycosaminoglycan (GAG) proteins that are studded in the hyaluronans. These GAGs have enormous charge storage capacity and likely explain why there is a latency period following chronic earthing where the body appears to retain the benefits of labile electrons.6
Earthing also plays another crucial role in human health - dissipating the AC fields that couple onto our bodies. When we use appliances (that do not have an earth pin7) that run on our AC grid, their AC field is picked up by our bodies; something referred to as ‘total body voltage’. This can be tested easily with a true RMS voltmeter8.
Throughout our evolutionary history, AC total body voltage would have always been zero. We can make a fairly safe assumption that chronic exposure to AC fields is impacting cell function, ground substance organisation and homeostatic mechanisms. AC fields (among other things nnEMF) apparently disturb water structure9; the implications of which are as broad-reaching as possible in biology.
This may be why many individuals have anecdotal evidence that sleeping earthed improves the restorative capacity of their sleep. By shunting the coupled AC field directly into the Earth, this connection can effectively protect us from the ubiquitous energy grid. Earthing almost instantaneously equilibrates our total body voltage to that of the Earth’s surface. This process does not protect from other biological effects of non-ionising nnEMF, although it seems possible that earthing could provide resistance to the stress responses associated with such exposures. In my podcast with earthing researcher Gaètan Chevalier, PhD, he relayed a story to me about a friend of his who measured his body voltage under a high-voltage power line (something I strongly recommend against). When he measured it again after consistently earthing for several weeks, his body voltage in the same place was notably lower than pre-earthing. This anecdote was presumably a consequence of stored charge.
Earthing also appears to play a potentially enormous role in a common predicament of modern life: living in multi-story housing.
It has been know for decades that there is a disparity in health outcomes in individuals living further off the ground compared to those living on the ground floor. This was a perplexing finding to the involved researchers and as such, efforts were made to explain the conundrum on the grounds of air quality. However, subsequent investigation suggested this may not be the case at all. Instead, it appears as though the increased voltage experienced at higher elevations from the ground increase the rate at which inflammatory processes take hold.
“[I]nflammatory processes are aggravated by the distance from the ground: the higher above the ground a person lives, and the longer they stay there, the more hazardous it is for their health. Grounding appears to eliminate one of the major contributors to these inflammatory processes and remediates many chronic diseases once they have begun. Stated simply, one of the best things a person can do to lessen the likelihood of developing a chronic disease is to spend at least part of their day connected to the earth.”
The further away from the surface of the Earth you get, the more the air becomes charge positive. So the air you are breathing in is more positively charged than air at the surface. This sets up a chronic depletion of negative charge that is further compounded by the inability to earth when in a multi-story building. This low-grade but chronic disturbance of the charge balance (loss of electrons) likely has tangible health consequences.
Given that the ‘earthed’ state is the normal and expected state of the body, it is probably no surprise that it influences almost every aspect of our physiology. The more ancient and fundamental environmental influences are, the more deeply they are rooted in the actions of the body.
Earthing also has important effects on hormonal fluctuations, circadian alignment and immune response.
Earthing has a salutary effect on morning cortisol rhythms - a hallmark of normal circadian signaling and immune preparedness. Although the study was relatively small, it is a clear indication that the earthed state is what the body relies on for optimal sleep architecture. Cortisol is a critical hormone and plays a role in immune suppression and alertness. Cortisol and melatonin typically (but not always) have an antagonistic relationship whereby in the morning, cortisol with rise with melatonin dropping and at night, melatonin rising with cortisol dropping. This phase response is why the onset of colds and flus generally take place in the afternoon when cortisol is dropping, lessening its immunosuppressive effects.10
Extrapolating from this data, it could be suggested that daytime alertness, mood, mental health, sleep quality and immune balance may all be positively affected simply by sleeping earthed; the way we had for the vast majority of our evolutionary history.
By providing labile electrons the way the body is expecting them, earthing provides other vital benefits with regard to hemodynamics. Red blood cells hold a charge. Like all cells, a separation between internal milieu and external milieu necessitates charge gradients and electrostatic forces.11 These charges essentially cause red cells and the endothelium to repel due to their negative charges. This repellant mechanism keeps the cells flowing freely and prevents them from clumping together and sticking to the walls of the arteries, a critical variable with regard to blood flow and blood pressure.
Unfortunately, evidence suggests that the charge that surrounds the red cells and perhaps the endothelium is either directly or indirectly supplied by earthing12, leaving most people in the modern world with poor blood flow and increased risk of hypertension.
Given that cardiovascular and peripheral vascular disease is the single biggest contributor to death worldwide, these implications should be seen with great potential to reduce disease burden and the taxes that go toward treating these conditions.
Electrons themselves have properties that distinguish them from one another. Electrons have varying energies, orbitals, angular momentum (spin) and vibrational states. Not all electrons are the same, and the body certainly pays attention to these quantum details. For example, the spin states of the unpaired electrons in molecular oxygen is what prevents it from becoming too reactive. Both of these unpaired electrons have parallel spin states, making oxygen more stable. If energy is supplied (ie. via a photon), the spin state of one of these electrons can shift to anti-parallel, generating what is know as singlet oxygen. Singlet oxygen is much more reactive and can participate in redox reactions and cause damage to subcellular components much like ROS do. So it is fair to say these details matter.
With much attention being paid to the biological impacts of nnEMF, little is paid to the native EMFs such as the Schumann Resonances. The Schumann Resonances are very low frequency peaks in the Earth’s natural electromagnetic spectrum. With the main peak at approximately 7.83Hz, these fields are generated via interactions between electric discharge and the ionosphere and exert numerous biological effects.
These oscillations are picked up by the electrons in the Earth, giving them a unique vibrational energy. When these electrons are subsequently taken up by our bodies through contact with the Earth’s surface, these electron’s vibrational state is also transferred. While this concept remains speculative, it may explain why earthing appears to curtain the negative effects of jetlag. By imbuing oneself with locale-specific electrons, the body can more effectively and efficiently calibrate itself to the new time zone and environmental influences, or so the theory goes. So by engaging with electrons with specific properties particular to your locale, it is possible that these electrons are not only supplying labile charge, but also information that helps choreograph the body’s homeostatic mechanisms.
The earthed state is the normal, expected baseline state for humans. By disconnecting with the surface of the Earth, we have simultaneously lost one of the fundamental environmental signals. With a chronic deficiency in free-electrons and the information they carry, inflammatory conditions can fester with ease. Hormonal and immune regulation become aberrant, circadian rhythms lose their robustness and the extracellular matrix becomes incapable of dynamic adaptation.
Earthing is a key pillar of health; one that is commonly overlooked and underappreciated. This is perhaps in part due to the fact that there are no financial incentives. Earthing should be prioritized in everyone’s day-to-day lives, possibly even to the extent where it displaces exercise in an indoor setting. This should particularly be the case in those who live above the ground floor.
While there are many companies out there selling earthing equipment, I personally do not feel that it is absolutely safe to earth using the grounding port of an electrical outlet. It seems that there are risks involved that are difficult to assess and discern. It is a much better option in my opinion to earth using a stake placed in the ground outside if you choose to use earthing equipment at all. This equipment should not displace the time you set aside for proper earthing barefoot on the ground or swimming in natural bodies of water - there does genuinely appear to be something special about earthing through the soles of the feet (likely due to energetic meridians).
Get outside. Get grounded (in both senses of the word).13
An interesting theory on explaining the Fermi Paradox has been put forward regarding how this bias could explain the apparent lack of life in the universe. The idea roughly states that there are forces within a system that forge the self-organisation and resistance capacity of the life within. These forces have hormedic properties and are by definition, uncomfortable - but they keep the organisms robust, strong and capable of reestablishing homeostasis following even novel perturbations. Once these organisms progress to a certain point, they are able to disconnect with these very forces that sculpted them, not knowing how fundamental and critical they are in maintaining their thermodynamic capacity. Once this occurs, they lose their vitality and ultimately succumb to their own innovation. This is what we see with climate-controlled buildings, diets low in plant-hormedic compounds, reduction in sunlight exposure, rubber-soled shoes and sedentary lifestyle. These uncomfortable aspects of our environment actually matter and our divorce from them has weakened us - perhaps even to the point that it will impede our ability to traverse space.
See the work of Robert O. Becker for a detailed understanding of this network; particularly his first book, “The Body Electric”. Traditional Chinese Medicine has understood and integrated this knowledge for centuries within modalities such as acupuncture; a topic discussed by Becker himself. This work can be further contextualised by that of Jean-Claude Guimberteau and his endoscopic investigations of the living extracellular matrix.
I emphasised this notion in a previous post about why red light therapy improves various aspects of health. It is primarily due to the disconnection with environmental signals that result in chronic loss of proper function that can be temporarily restored by artificial means. Again, this is not increasing the health ceiling, but rather shifting health closer to the expected and normal baseline level.
I suspect that the electric fields generated by surrounding cells and tissues play an important role in the rate of electron flow through biologic semiconductors; not just the intrinsic fields that are generated by doped semiconductors. The implications of this might be related to loss of DC current throughout the body due to impaired bioenergetics. With a loss in this current, wounds would heal slower, inflammatory conditions would be resistant to resolution and muscular function would likely be impaired. This is precisely what we see in diseases like type 2 diabetes. Disturbed energy production necessarily results in shifts in bioelectricity, having widespread consequences.
Melatonin technically comes from food as it is built on the amino acid tryptophan which humans are incapable of producing endogenously.
This concept is discussed in much more detail in my podcast with Gaètan Chevalier, PhD. Consistent earthing fortifies against temporary disconnection from the Earth and limits the negative impacts of AC field coupling.
This is a huge nuisance in the modern world. Most appliances now do not have an earth pin. In conversation with Tristan Scott of Decentralised Radio, he relayed to me that so much of modern EMF exposure could be eliminated if we just properly earthed everything. We can either earth the appliance or ourselves - or ideally, both.
I recommend that people know how to do this not only to measure and quantify their EMF environment, but also to test any earthing products that one might be using.
Personal communication with Gerald Pollack.
This concept was brought to my attention by Scott Zimmerman in our first podcast together. We discussed the synergy between melatonin and cortisol in relationship to stressors including exposure to NIR light.
This idea is elaborated on by Nick Lane’s origins of life theory.
It is possible that the labile electrons provided via earthing actually participate in the charge separation of water which then creates zones of negative charge and gel-like water that intrinsically and spontaneously initiate flow. This concept is theorised by Gerald Pollack in various podcast interviews and some research papers. Either way, the availability of these electrons is necessary for optimal hemodynamics.
Please note that any unreferenced images here are taken from the works of Ober, Oschman, Chevalier and Rosch. Chapter 38 of Rosch’s “Bioelectromagnetic & Subtle Energy Medicine”, my conversations with Gaetan Chevalier, and James Oschman’s “Energy Medicine” proved vital in putting these ideas together and credit should be given to their collective works.
Cameron: Thank you for yet another thoughtful synthesis of the body of knowledge from many complementary sources. Much appreciated!
I am curious to your thoughts on the potential of PMF devices to help in earthing. Instead of Electromagnetic charging, a device like Harmonizer (https://harmnizr.com/) generates some amplification of the Schumann frequency via a combination of metal magnets and acoustic vibrations. This device does not claim to provide health benefits, and its goal is much simpler, but I wander about its potential efficacy for earthing as well, given the ancient use of sound therapies (and at least one sound therapist in today's Australia). Did you happen to look into PMFs as alternative to PEMP devices? Your thoughts?