As I wrote in Living A Fully Optimized Life, chronic inflammation is the primary culprit in ALL age-related diseases.
Many of these diseases are “the most significant cause of death in the world” and “the greatest threat to human health”.
Diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, autoimmune disease, allergies, bone fracturing, erectile dysfunction, low testosterone levels…
Name any age-related disease off the top of your head and I’d be willing to bet chronic inflammation is a significant contributing factor.
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ToggleThe Difference Between Chronic And Acute Inflammation
It’s important to distinguish between the two types of inflammation, as inflammation itself is not inherently bad.
Acute inflammation is the body’s natural healing response to your tissues when they are injured or infected.
Your body will produce neutrophils and leukocytes in response, while your arteries and capillaries expand.
This allows the neutrophils to transfer more easily between your blood and the tissue’s cells, while supplying additional blood to the damaged tissue.
The leukocytes can be thought of as the “garbage men”: They remove cellular junk from the site of injury/infection while destroying any foreign agents contributing to the condition.
If you’ve ever had a body part turn more red and swell up, or even form a scab over a cut, that’s acute inflammation in action.
It will go away within a few days, a few weeks at most.
Chronic inflammation is an entirely different monster.
It can last several weeks, if not for many years and possibly your lifetime.
The inflamed tissue continually tells your body to send more leukocytes to the damaged tissue.
Over time, this leads to a non-stop inflammatory response.
In an attempt at “over-healing”, the additional leukocytes end up destroying healthy tissue and compromising the rest of your body’s biological systems.
With this in mind, reducing inflammation in your body should be your #1 priority.
How Does Chronic Inflammation Appear?
I’ll spare you having to read thousands of scientific papers and give you the cold hard truth:
Chronic inflammation arises when you CHOOSE to degrade your body and treat it poorly.
I’ve discussed the multiple lifestyle factors causing inflammation in The TOT Bible, but here they are for your convenience:
- Being fat (+25% body fat)
- Lack of physical activity (i.e. intelligent resistance training and cardiovascular training)
- Excessive sugar intake
- Drinking alcohol on a frequent basis
- Certain drugs and medications prescribed by your doctor
- Not getting enough sunlight
- Eating an “American” diet consisting of manufactured and processed foods
- Chronic stress levels
- Poor sleep
- Overstimulation by blue light via spending too much time on screens
Sadly, this is the everyday life of the average man and woman in America.
It’s no surprise that our health is at an all-time low despite living in the most prosperous time in history (from a medical and technological standpoint).
Inflammation-related disorders are skyrocketing in our seniors, working adults and even our children.
Fortunately, there’s a natural practice which serves as a powerful anti-inflammatory solution.
What Exactly Does “Grounding” Mean?
Grounding means placing your bare feet on natural earthen ground (grass, soil, etc.) and staring into the bright sunlight.
That’s literally all there is to it.
This description taken from Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever sums it up nicely:
“It simply means living in contact with the Earth’s natural surface charge-being grounded – which naturally discharges and prevents chronic inflammation in the body.
This effect has massive health implications because of the strong link between chronic inflammation and virtually all chronic disease, including the diseases of aging, and the aging process itself.”
In modern-day living, it is extremely rare for anyone to be connected with Mother Nature.
We spend the majority of our lives indoors, living out our working days above ground.
In a way, we have lost touch with what it means to really be in tune with nature.
Fortunately, grounding can help us get connected with our roots.
It’s also a highly recommended health practice for anybody who suffers from chronic pain and neurological inflammation.
What’s The Scientific Evidence Behind Grounding?
To date, over 20 peer-review studies have been published regarding grounding’s profound ability to reduce chronic inflammation.
Here’s an eye-opening conclusion from a prominent 2015 paper examining grounding’s ability to treat autoimmune diseases:
“Accumulating experiences and research on earthing, or grounding, point to the emergence of a simple, natural, and accessible health strategy against chronic inflammation, warranting the serious attention of clinicians and researchers.
The living matrix (or ground regulation or tissue tensegrity-matrix system), the very fabric of the body, appears to serve as one of our primary antioxidant defense systems.
As this report explains, it is a system requiring occasional recharging by conductive contact with the Earth’s surface – the “battery” for all planetary life – to be optimally effective.”
You can literally SEE grounding eradicating inflammation through medical thermography.
Dr. William Amalu, president of the international Academy of Clinical Thermography, conducted 20 clinical cases studies to see how grounding can treat pain and inflammation.
Between 2004 and 2005, he had each of his patients take “before” and “after” thermography images to assess changes in their bodies.
The results were nothing short of extraordinary.
A 53-year-old man with 10 years of chronic inflammation noticed a significant reduction in pain after 4 nights of “sleeping grounded” (more on that later).
Another 44-year-old woman suffering from back pain had a 30% reduction in pain and a 70% reduction in pain interfering with sleep following the same “sleeping grounded” protocol.
For some patients with localized conditions, it took as little as 30 minutes to treat localized conditions using grounded electrode patches.
(Don’t worry – I’ll show you how to get your very own at the end of this post)
Dr. Amalu’s concluding remarks just go to show how a long-forgotten practice has held the hidden key to our health problems for thousands of years:
“Use of high-resolution medical infrared imaging [medical thermography imaging] as an objective assessment of both inflammatory and neurophysiologic conditions demonstrated significant immediate changes in both acute and chronic inflammation related conditions.
“Grounding is showing incredible promise as one of the most significant advances in the treatment of both acute and chronic inflammatory conditions.”
As amazing as grounding is, I do want to step in with my own personal warning…
If you are NOT taking care of yourself via living a fully optimized life, you cannot expect grounding to miraculously improve your health.
Grounding is just one of many practices you can use to take yourself from great health to absolutely phenomenal living.
If I was a doctor, my prescription for every human being would be a minimum of 30 minutes each day spent fully grounded in nature.
My Recommended Grounding Resources And Products
Clint Ober is hands-down the world’s most authoritative expert on the subject of grounding.
His incredible mini-documentary details how he discovered grounding, along with heartfelt testimonials from people whose lives were changed by grounding.
Clint is also the author of Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever, the definitive book on the subject of grounding.
I was incredibly fortunate to have done TWO podcasts with Clint himself and you can watch them by clicking here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).
For those of you who live in climates where you are unable to ground effectively, Ultimate Longevity has created several indoor grounding products.
Having personally used them for years, they receive my highest endorsement.
I use this indoor grounding mat in my office while working barefoot to mimic the experience of grounding outside.
My wife and I also use this ground therapy sleep mat to fall asleep faster and get more deep rest at night.
They also have grounding electrode patches available for sale, along with many more indoor grounding products.
No more excuses – go outside, take your shoes off and be ONE with Mother Nature!