What is “grounding” or “Earthing” and is it really good for you? Or is it some hippy new-age gimmick that doesn’t actually have any science behind it? When searching for health-practices to incorporate into your life, one tricky bit is separating the science from the pseudoscience.

One moment, you’re reading about why 30 minutes of walking in the sun is good for you. Then before you know it, you’re suddenly reading some weird blog that claims you can improve blood circulation by shoving M&M’s up your nose.

You might ask “But I’m not a scientist, so how am I to know?”

Sometimes, if you’re smart, it can be easy to spot the whacko science from the real science. But there are many pseudoscientific, crazy bits of information that sound mighty convincing. Similarly, there are also real, scientific facts that sound unbelievable to most folks.

The best way to know which is which is to know what sources to listen to

If they cite good sources, then that’s usually the best. Likewise, even many blogs aren’t exactly bad sources of information, provided the author cites legitimate sources and has fair credentials. On the other hand, if the blog you’re reading sounds as if it’s just going “Trust me on this”, then probably stay away from it.

This brings us to Earthing, a therapeutic practice that makes us of the electrons on the Earth’s surface. The idea is that our bodies benefit from regular contact with the ground. Most of its basis lies in humans having evolved in conjunction with earth’s terrain. Much like how we need Vitamin D from the sunlight and fresh air.

Still, the thought that there is some physiological benefit hidden in an invisible electric field on the ground sounds too weird to be true, right?

Turns out, this isn’t that crazy of a hypothesis (and also be careful to remember the distinction between a hypothesis and a theory!). There are at least a few peer-reviewed and published papers that looked into “Earthing” and surprisingly, there is solid science behind it.

Earth’s electrical field can have an unseen effect on your physiology. It’s been observed that the bioelectrical field of your body (yes, it’s a real thing!) can influence your bodily functions and health as a result.

“Until recently, humans lived in direct bare skin contact with the surface of the Earth. Modern life has insulated us from this connection. The surface of Earth has a negative electric charge that is maintained by a global electric circuit created mainly by thousands of daily lightning strikes. Electrons from the lightning enter the Earth’s surface making it an electrical reference point with an electric potential set to 0 V by universal agreement.” – Brown, Chevalier and Hill 2015

In case you didn’t know, another thing this same bioelectrical field around your body does is allow touchscreens to work. The devices sense the faint electric charge from your fingers to activate and operate the touchscreen!

It’s not nearly enough to let you shoot lighting out of your fingertips at foolish Jedi knights, though

But there’s still other ways you can make use of it. Some of these include improving sleep and some small (but observable) difference in how quickly your skin heals from wounds and such. This happens when the bioelectric field of your body is stabilized.

For the fitness junkies who love to hit the gym, another benefit of “grounding” is that it can relieve and help with delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) as well. So if your biceps and thighs still ache from last week’s gym session, seems like a bit of walking barefoot outside might help.

Seems like it wasn’t just some hippie, new-age fad after all

Another surprising effect of grounding or earthing is reducing inflammation and helping minor wounds and cuts heal better. The improved blood circulation from your body’s bioelectric field interacting with the earth’s subtle electrical charge gets your blood cells, white and red, going.

In case you need us to tell you what your white and red blood cells are for, the short answer is that they’re your saviors

They help you fight off infections, and they also go to work constantly when you’re working out. When you work out, your muscles get damaged ever so slightly and repair themselves.

When they repair themselves, more proteins set in to replace the damaged ones and they get slightly larger. Thus, working out is really just repeating this process until they’re as big as you (reasonably) want. Of course, it can hurt quite a bit thanks to fatigue.

If you’ve been paying attention enough, you might see where this is going – does grounding work for muscle fatigue and soreness too?

At least one published study says yes. Who knew that a bit of electricity could go a long way! The improved blood circulation from this, as a result, helps your muscles repair and heal faster. Thanks to the stimulated white blood cells.

All of this is neat and fascinating to hear about. It might only sound weird at first because we’ve lost touch with the planet quite a bit, and we started wearing shoes only quite recently in human history.

And the best part is that you don’t need to shell out a ton of money for this, like an expensive workout kit. It’s all a walk in the park – figuratively and literally! Of course, you’ll need to watch your step if people have been walking their dogs nearby.

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Source: [Journal of Environmental and Public Health 2012 and 2015 , Healthline]