The Benefits of Grounding

Such an important aspect of any spiritual practice that many people overlook is grounding, or earthing. Grounding is simply when you go outside and put your bare feet on the Earth. It can be on the grass, dirt, rocks, etc. That's all there is to it! Or is there?..

There are two perspectives about grounding that I want to share today: The spiritual implications & reasons, and the physical benefits received.

Let's start with the physical benefits. The benefits are quite extraordinary, and not surprising to me, not very well known- but I'll touch on that later. Some of the benefits include balancing out hormonal levels in the body such as cortisol; lowering blood pressure or decreasing the viscosity of blood (which is a HUGE benefit for anyone that may have a cardiovascular disease or high cholesterol), and an elimination of free radicals in the body. The Earth emits negatively charged ions into the body through our feet, which negate and cancel out all of the positively charged free radicals that we are constantly accumulating via our environment, EMF, etc.

Regarding the spiritual implications and reasons for doing so, there are some ideas that I want to cover. From an energetic perspective we are here to ground the celestial energies to the earth. As humans, we anchor in the light- humans are the conduit. It’s through us that Gaia absorbs these energies. When we touch the ground with our bare feet, not only do we help ourselves, but we are helping Gaia ascend and evolve as well (yes, all entities are ever expanding and evolving - even the planet). Think of this as an energy exchange because that is exactly what it is. We give our energies and help Gaia, and she does the same by offering us her energies that help us maintain a more balanced energy body. In other words when we ground, Gaia balances out our energy levels. Energetic benefits include discharging unwanted energies, rejuvenating our energy field, and calmness. Remember, as humans, we want to ground the more celestial energies into our body and then to the earth. Our job is to anchor them into this realm.

As far as how long we want to be barefoot on the ground for, I've seen everything from 5-20 minutes to get the full benefits of grounding; however, the evidence points to benefits occurring immediately. When I ground; however, I like to spend some time outside and enjoy the present moment. I usually meditate outside if I can.

There are also some interesting facts about grounding that I want to cover. The reason why we want to be barefoot is because shoes typically have rubber soles. Rubber is an insulator and will block the transaction of energies, the electrical charges, between us and the earth. So in most cases even if we are barefoot in our house, it won't have the same effect. Especially if we have carpet with a rubber mat underneath, or any oil based flooring like Vinyl.

I've seen some people claim that is the real reason why our shoes have rubber soles, along with the use of polyester, nylon, and other oil based synthetic materials being used in our modern clothing. They claim that there is some sort of malevolent agenda to keep us as unhealthy as possible. I've thought about this before, and wondered if the reason why the benefits of grounding are not more widely known is because the pharmaceutical and medical industries cannot patent and make money off of grounding?

Is it true? Who knows. Maybe. Maybe not. But what IS true, are the benefits. And to bring the point home, I'm going to link some scientific studies that indicate that the benefits I mentioned are in fact true. A quick google search actually reveals a multitude of scholarly articles and scientific studies showing the benefits of grounding.

1. https://forestbathingcentral.com/health-benefits-grounding-negative-ions/

2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25848315/

3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22757749/

4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3265077/#:~:text=The%20logical%20explanation%20for%20the,has%20been%20documented%20%5B15%5D

- Jason