Ever heard of Grounding or Earthing? Want to learn how to ground yourself? To understand this, we must start with understanding free radicals. Free radicals are a big player in the human stress response system.
What’s a Free Radical?
Getting the goods on free radicals is a big part of understanding how to ground yourself and why you must. Basically, a free radical is an unpaired, positively charged electron that bounces around inside our cells doing a lot of damage all day long, every day.
However, the creation of free radicals is a very normal process in the human body and historically, the human body had the means to neutralize these little troublemakers, so the damage was minimal.
Nowadays, the problem is not that our behavior and lifestyles create free radicals, it’s that too many of them get created all at once, and human beings rarely do enough to neutralize them and respond to the damage they do.
Basically, we are all making far more free radicals than we ever have before, and we are doing far less to neutralize free radicals than we ever have before. It’s a problem.
How Are Free Radicals Made?
The human body produces free radicals as a by-product of the natural process of creating energy, the very energy we need to be living, breathing, carbon-based lifeforms.
Essentially, a free radical is created when our energy-production system misfires, kind of like when a car’s engine backfires.
All kinds of things can cause our energy production systems to misfire. For example, bad food, bad air, bad water, bad stress, radiation from the sun are all problematic.
Additionally, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, medication wreak havoc in the human body.
Moreover, unchecked pain, electro-magnetic frequencies (EMFs), and untended chronic illness are also troublesome.
And, of course, these are just a few of the causes of free radical over-production.
Four Main Fields of Stress
Another big part of understanding how to ground yourself revolves around the four main fields of stress. These are chemical stress, physical stress, emotional stress, and electro-magnetic stress.
Importantly, each one of these comes with a lengthy list of dangers that can and do cause the body’s energy-production system to misfire. Basically, modern life is free radical city and something must be done!
So, since free radicals operate as unpaired positively charged electron destroyers, one way to solve the problem is by filling our bodies with negatively charged electrons, so the two can find each other, fall in love, and go off and live happily ever after.
Or they can find each other and finally, do the job they were supposed to do in the first place, which was to provide us with a source of electrical energy, so we can continue to be the living, breathing, carbon-based lifeforms I mentioned earlier.
How To Fix It
This information is not new, of course. Over the years, the wellness industry has found many ways to help us solve this problem of over-production of free radicals, which is also known as oxidation.
In fact, one of the most common ways that people deal with oxidation is by taking supplements such as vitamins and minerals, also known as antioxidants. Basically, if you add an antioxidant to a free radical oxidant, you can neutralize that free radical because you are allowing it to find its match.
Essentially, you are taking a positively-charged something and adding a negatively-charged something and you end up with a neutral something. It’s kind of like agreeing to disagree.
By the way, you can also think of oxidation as internal rusting of the human body. In other words, oxidation is just like leaving a car out in the weather for several years with no cover on it.
Try Earthing or Grounding, Instead… Or As Well
However, supplements are not the only way to solve the problem. Another way to neutralize free radicals and help them find their match is by harnessing the power of the Earth’s surface. Negatively charged energy particles are abundant on the surface of the Earth.
Yes, that’s right, one way to neutralize free radicals is by getting down and dirty… literally.
Examples of How to Ground Yourself
Grounding and Earthing are the official names for the process of getting personal with the surface of the Earth, and thankfully, there are many ways to get the job done.
For example, you can:
- Take off your shoes and walk in the grass.
- Do some gardening and touch the dirt.
- Do pottery or work with clay.
- Get outside and chop some wood
- Move rocks around with your bare hands
- Get some crystals and try crystal therapy on for size
Or, you could even buy devices to use inside your home that connect to the ground circuit in your electrical system. I think it’s amazing you can buy grounding sheets for your bed and grounding floor mats for under your desk.
Both of these allow you to connect to the surface of the Earth through the grounded electrical system in your home. What a simple way to get grounded, so to speak.
Any way you slice it, it’s time to take back control from all the free radical damage or oxidative stress that is torturing your body every day. Some people call this electromagnetic stress damage. Whatever you want to call it, it’s no joke.
However, if you do decide to practice grounding or earthing, by going outside and touching the Earth with your actual skin or by investing in some grounding and Earthing devices for your home, you will sleep better, you will breathe better, you’ll be healthier, and you will have far more energy, and that’s not all…
Benefits of Earthing or Grounding
Of course, once you know how to ground yourself and you build it into your stress management plan, you will find the list of benefits is very lengthy. For instance, grounding or Earthing:
- Increases Energy Levels
- Reduces Inflammation
- Lowers Chronic Pain
- Affects Autoimmune Diseases Positively
- Aids in Deeper Sleep
- Slows Down the Aging Process
- Improves Blood Flow and Blood Pressure
- Relieves Headaches
- Speeds Up the Healing Process
- Decreases Muscle Tension
- Lowers Stress Levels and Promotes Calmness
- Lessens Menstrual and Hormonal Symptoms
- Supports Adrenal Health
- Offers Protection from EMFs
- Shortens Recovery Time from Injury Or Athletic Activity
- Reduces Snoring
- Eliminates Feeling of Jet Lag
- Improves Pregnancy
- Improves Mood
- Helps with Self-Regulation
- Lessens Depression and Anxiety
- Promotes Healthy Feet
To learn more about stress and stress management, follow me on Twitter & Facebook.