Grounding/Earthing as treatment for COVID-19, long Covid and vaccine injury

Bathing in electrons may help treat joint pain, myocarditis, clotting, PoTS and many other issues. It's simple, free and they can't take it away from us... yet.

Mar 05, 2023

Back-ground

Electricity is found everywhere in nature. An electric eel can generate a powerful electric shock to protect itself. It can also electrocute its prey. Bees detect changes in the electric field around flowers. Ballooning spiders can fly hundreds of miles through the air on a thread of negatively charged silk. Sharks can produce an electric field to help them ‘see’ in dark, murky water. The oriental hornet has pigments that act like miniature solar panels, capturing light and turning it into electricity for reasons that aren’t yet clear. Pea aphids use photosynthesis for energy, just like plants.

Our bodies use electricity too. Our brains, hearts, nerves and muscles all run on electrical impulses. Without electricity, our hearts wouldn’t pump and our brains wouldn’t function. So how does it work? Our cells use charged ions of elements like sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium to generate electricity. The inside of a resting cell is slightly negatively charged and the protective lipid membrane of the cell wall is positively charged. Cells maintain this differential by controlling the flow of charged ions through their membranes. Special proteins on the cell’s surface create openings for specific charged ions to pass through. These proteins are called ‘ion channels’. When a cell is stimulated, ion channels open to allow positive ions to enter the cell. The inside of the cell becomes more positively charged, which triggers further electrical impulses, called ‘action potentials’. Our bodies use various patterns of action potentials to control every aspect of our functioning, including the absorption of proteins and nutrients. Red blood cells carry a negative electrostatic charge to help them repel one another so they don’t clump together.

Electrical disruption in the body can lead to illness. The timing of the electrical impulses in the heart can go wrong, leading to cardiac arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation or tachycardia. Inflammation of the spinal cord can damage the insulating sheath around the nerve cell fibres, interrupting the electric signals travelling along the spinal cord and causing pain, weakness, paralysis, sensory problems and organ dysfunction.

Since life on Earth depends so much on electricity, it should come as no surprise that the Earth also has an electric field. In fact, the Earth behaves like a giant spherical capacitor, with the upper atmosphere being the ‘top’ plate, and the ground below being the ‘bottom’ plate. The sun’s radiation ionises the molecules in the upper atmosphere, making it electrically conductive. This layer is called the ‘ionosphere’. During fair weather, the upper atmosphere carries a positive charge and the Earth’s surface has a negative charge. This induces an electric field between the sky and the ground which gets stronger as you get nearer to the ground. If you were to stand in the middle of a level, empty field, the potential difference between the soles of your feet and your head could be as much as 400 volts. Particles in the air can move, so there is always a steady flow of negatively charged ions flowing upward from the Earth, and positive ions flowing downward. This flow is called the ‘global atmospheric electrical circuit’. Thunderstorms and lightning form part of this circuit. Thunderstorms and the movement of electrified clouds and air help transfer electrons back to Earth, maintaining its negative charge.

Grounding or Earthing

Recently, I learnt of the practice of ‘grounding’ or ‘earthing’ for pain relief, as popularised by American telecommunications engineer and author, Clint Ober. My introduction was through this short video on YouTube.

Here is the 15 minute must-watch version.

And here is the full length movie.

Ober had observed that electrical equipment worked better if it was electrically grounded to earth. He began to wonder if human beings might benefit from being grounded too. He recalled as a child, growing up around native Americans, that they often went barefoot, believing the practice of wearing rubber-soled shoes to be unhealthy. In his own words:

‘I wondered if it’s possible that humans are no longer naturally grounded. I wondered if these shoes could be interfering with us. So I went to the hardware store and I bought a roll of metal duct tape and I just taped it across the bed. I threw a wire out the window and I had a ground rod outside. I connected it to the ground rod on one side and I connected it to the metal duct tape that I had laid on the bed. So when I laid down on the duct tape, I was grounded, because it was connected to the earth…
…and I woke up the next morning and I thought, “Holy cow! There’s something going on here because normally, for me to go to sleep, I had to take Advil.”’
—Clint Ober, author of ‘Earthing - The Most Important Health Discovery Ever!’

Ober searched the medical literature for the cause of chronic pain and drew a blank. He reached out to academia but no one seemed interested in his discovery. Undeterred, he eventually found an anaesthesiologist in San Diego who was willing to conduct a study. The initial study of 60 patients showed promising results. But the science of grounding was still unclear. Then cardiologist Stephen Sinatra suggested that Ober look at inflammation as one potential cause.

The most abundant protein in the body is collagen. It’s the building block of our tissues. And we have gadzillions of collagen molecules in our bodies. They are all embedded in a gel. This gel has a huge surface area and it absorbs electrons and releases them when you have an injury.
—James L. Oschman, Ph.D. biophysicist/author of ‘Down to Earth’

A major threat to our cellular health comes from chemicals known as ‘free radicals’. Free radicals are formed when we turn food into energy, after exercise, exposure to pollution, smoke, electromagnetic radiation or sunlight. They have a voracious appetite for electrons, stealing them from any nearby substance that will yield them. This electron theft causes damage to many parts of our cells, even our DNA. An excessive chronic amount of free radicals in the body causes a condition known as ‘oxidative stress’, which may lead to many chronic diseases.

The body defends itself from free radicals by making molecules called ‘antioxidants’ to deactivate them. Antioxidants work by donating spare electrons to neutralise the free radicals without becoming electron scavengers themselves. We obtain some of our antioxidants from the food that we eat. But what happens when the body runs out of antioxidants—spare electrons—and can no longer neutralise free radicals? In this fifteen minute video, Ober describes—in layman’s terms—the science of how free radicals or ‘reactive oxygen species’—made by our own white blood cells—can cause both acute and chronic runaway inflammation:

‘Inflammation is produced by neutrophils, which are white blood cells. If you have an injury, you have a damaged cell. And so these white blood cells come over, and they encapsulate the damaged cell and they release ‘reactive oxygen species’ which rip electrons from the damaged cell and that destroys the damaged cell. If there’s not enough free electrons to reduce the remaining [free] radicals, they’re going to steal an electron from a healthy cell and—in the process—damage it. Then the message goes out to the immune system, and another neutrophil does the same thing—eliminates that cell—and then you end up with a chain reaction.’
—Clint Ober, author of ‘Earthing - The Most Important Health Discovery Ever!’

Clearly, something is going badly wrong in how our bodies deal with injury and illness. Could it be that by insulating our homes, cars, beds and feet from the soil, we have lost our healing connection with the most abundant source of electrons?

We tried to figure out how much charge the body takes in when you touch the Earth. The body saturates with electrons practically instantaneously. It’s so fast that you can’t measure it. Electrons from the Earth enter the body… and they coat the red blood cells so that the cells repel each other. They can’t clump. Blood viscosity goes down and it’s easier for the heart to pump the blood. Blood pressure goes down. All kinds of cardiovascular issues go away.
—James L. Oschman, Ph.D. biophysicist/author of ‘Down to Earth’

It would seem that the normal state of the human body is earthed. Depriving the human body of its natural electrical connection with the planet on which it evolved has serious negative consequences for our health and wellbeing:

In situations where we are insulating ourselves from this surplus of electrons entering our body, we’re going to get the absolute opposite. So instead of having low levels of inflammation and a thin blood, we’ll have thick blood that’s more likely to clot, and our levels of inflammation tend to increase.’
—Dr Joseph Mercola, Founder: MERCOLA.COM

So the ground beneath our feet provides an unlimited reservoir of health-protecting, free-radical neutralising, inflammation-quenching electrons.

“In simple terms, grounding is literally putting your bare feet on the ground. When you do that, you’re in contact with the earth. Mother Earth is endowed with electrons, and these electrons are literally absorbed through your feet. It’s like taking handfuls of antioxidants, but you’re getting it through the feet.’
— Stephen Sinatra, MD, cardiologist/integrated medicine specialist

And all we have to do is reconnect.

‘All the systems in the body, all of them that we’ve measured—and we’ve measured just about everything that you could think of—go to balanced and normal when you’re grounded.’
—James L. Oschman, Ph.D. biophysicist/author of ‘Down to Earth’

Could electrons treat COVID-19, long Covid and vaccine injury?

Anyone working on the front lines of the pandemic will be familiar with the terms, ‘oxidative stress’, ‘clotting’ and ‘inflammation’. A prelimary study of the effects of earthing on 71 patients has already been carried out at the University of Basrah in Iraq. It showed promising results for both prevention and treatment of COVID-19. The author describes a ‘spectacular’ response in one critically ill patient.

The overlap between vaccine injury and long Covid is becoming clearer. I hear the same story from my vaccine-injured and long-hauler friends: Tiredness. Joint pain. Muscle pain. Inflammation. Brain fog.

One friend—vaccine injured in the prime of his life—struggled to open jars or make the bed. He needed to hang onto the bannister to get down the stairs in the morning. His body was wracked with inflammation and joint pain. A short course of ivermectin relieved the symptoms for a week or two, but they always returned.

Another friend is a long hauler. He never quite got over his first bout of Covid. He suffers from constant fatigue, muscle and joint pain, loss of muscle tone, weakness, debilitating brain fog, memory and concentration problems. “After getting Covid in September 2020, I felt like I aged ten bad years in three months!” he said.

DIY earthing experiment

Most of the stuff I needed to repeat Clint Ober’s experiment was already in my toolkit. A roll of strong, conductive aluminium tape, some duct tape, about 15 metres of thinwall copper wire and a large tent peg. Most commercial earthing products are connected to the earth pin of an electrical plug, but I opted to run my wire through a window and connect to the Earth itself. After a little experimentation, I fashioned a single strip of aluminium tape, backed with duct tape (for reinforcement) and wired it to a tent peg. I soldered some of the joints, but twisting wires and fixing with sticky tape will also work. I positioned my ‘Ober Strip’ across the bed, under the sheet. A single layer of cotton sheet doesn’t adversely affect the conductivity.

Case Study: My Story

Before earthing

I’ve suffered lower back stiffness and pain for 25 years, plus osteoarthritis in my left ankle since childhood. About ten years ago I worked a stint as a washing machine installer and damaged the load-bearing joints of my fingers. This left me with Heberden’s nodes and chronic pain. Because I never learn, I later exacerbated this damage by working with brushcutters in the forestry and highways. The vibration and wear-and-tear led to painful inflammation in both hands and a dislocated bone. Something moves in the wrong direction when I clench my left fist. For months, my fingers would stiffen up and lock in whatever position I slept. On waking, I’d have to spend a few minutes working to straighten (or bend) my fingers. Unless I followed this routine, I would be unable to shower, dress or hold a mug of coffee. It wasn’t improving. To add insult to injury, two bouts of Covid—in 2019 and 2022—weren’t kind to me. I’ve never been formally diagnosed, but the constant tiredness, joint pain and debilitating brain fog are depressingly familiar.

After earthing

After just one night, the stiffness and pain I normally experienced on waking was gone. I felt more supple than I had in years. My sleep improved and my dreams became vivid and memorable. I felt refreshed. And the benefits were cumulative. After just five nights of sleeping earthed, I could sleep on my back without stiffness and pain. I haven’t been able to do that for years. I could also put weight on my arthritic left ankle as soon as I stood up, another thing I haven’t been able to do for years.

Most importantly, I can flex my fingers as soon as I wake up. There is a little stiffness, but no pain. I can shower and dress and make coffee without a struggle.

Conclusion

Since my positive experience, I have urged a number of friends and family to try earthing. They all report better sleep, significant reduction in joint pain and improvements in general wellbeing. One vaccine injured friend reported that his tachycardia had settled after just one night.

I’ve made contact with one of Clint Ober’s main distributors in the UK, and they will be working with me to find a longer term earthing solution that I can live with.

Earthing has enormous potential to help sufferers of COVID-19, ‘long’ Covid and vaccine injury. Electrons from the earth are nature’s simplest and most abundant antioxidants. It just makes so much sense to try this natural approach first.

Teresa Tannahill’s Commentary

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