Over a dozen years ago a retired cable television executive began to explore the health benefits of connecting to the earth’s natural energy. Clinton Ober possessed a good understanding of how electrical signals travel—through cables, wires and the air–to power appliances, transmit digital information and light our world. But he also understood that the earth itself is a source of energy and that our skin is very conductive to electricity. Throughout most of history, humans have connected to the earth by walking barefoot, sitting or sleeping with nothing more than an animal skin to separate themselves from the ground.
As Ober sat on a park bench one afternoon in Sedona, AZ, watching well-heeled tourists amble by, he wondered if our modern propensity for wearing synthetic soled-shoes—which, unlike natural materials like leather, prevent our bodies from conducting the earth’s energy–might be robbing us of some of the healing effects of nature. Thus began a long journey to test his hypothesis. He conducted Oshman his own experiments then funded research by other scientists to demonstrate how “Earthing,” the term he coined for grounding ourselves to the earth, helps balance the body’s electrons, providing a myriad of health benefits.
One scientist who came on board the Earthing bandwagon is biophysicist James Oschman, an international authority on energy medicine. His work has appeared in major peer-reviewed journals such as Science, The Journal of Cell Biology, The Journal of Cell Science and the American Journal of Physiology. When Ober and co-authors Stephen Sinatra, MD and Martin Zucker—wrote Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever? they asked Dr. Oschman to write the forward to their book, which is adapted here. In it, he provides an introduction to the concept and the science behind Earthing.
A Foreward-Thinking Scientist explains Earthing
by James L Oschman, Ph.D.
It is a rare and humbling experience for a scientist to have the opportunity to explore new ground–and this story is all about ground–and participate in research that quickly infuses better health and more happiness into people’s lives. It has been an exciting and challenging process for me. I was forced to ask questions that had never been asked before. The answers have ranged from fascinating to astounding, and they have shed light on some of the most important unsolved problems in physiology and medicine.
Among the many surprising revelations Earthing holds is an obvious, fundamental, and yet overlooked answer to the question of inflammation–recognized as the central health issue of our time–that surely will lay the foundation for many academic investigations and doctoral projects well into the future. I say that without equivocation, as an experienced academic cell biologist and biophysicist who has published dozens of articles in some of the world’s leading scientific journals. The research in this book puts forward, and from a completely unexpected direction, a powerful reason for the proliferation of inflammation and, most importantly, what we can do about it.
Earthing spells out some profound and life-impacting facts you never knew before about our relationship with the planet we live on. You’ll learn, for instance, how electrons play a central role in this relationship. I have published a series of articles and two books on the ways electrons can move about within the human body and the ways various therapeutic methods influence electron motions. The research summarized in Earthing adds a whole new dimension to our understanding of electronic biology. This book traces the discoveries of Clinton Ober, a pioneer in the cable TV industry, who uncovered the health benefits of Earthing–his term for connecting ourselves to the surface of our planet by sitting, standing, or walking barefoot on the Earth or by sleeping on special conductive sheets and pads connected to a simple metal rod stuck in the ground outside a bedroom window. Clint invented these sleep systems and a number of other devices that help us to restore a vital but previously overlooked connection with Mother Earth.
Many people describe a sense of well-being when they walk barefoot on the Earth. The stories and the research in the book reveal the background, dynamics, and implications of this feel-good sensation, a real experience indicative of something profoundly important that most of us have been missing in our lives. This missing link is so profound in fact, that it seems to do away with or dramatically improve so many health challenges common in this day and age: insomnia, the chronic pain of multiple diseases and injuries, exhaustion, stress, anxiety, and premature aging. I was quickly and enthusiastically drawn into this research when I saw how many people experienced a wide variety of health benefits from simply connecting their bodies to the Earth. My own challenge was to determine precisely how Earthing produces such benefits and to find a way of explaining this accurately in the language of science.
Our research on Earthing has uncovered what is perhaps the most simple and natural remedy against proliferating, painful, and often deadly conditions, including the disease of aging, created by various kinds of inflammation. As you will read further on, our hypothesis for how this remedy works is unlike any you have ever heard. In all its ramifications, we think it represents a new healing paradigm.
In short, Earthing restores and maintains the human body’s most natural electrical state, which in turn promotes optimal health and functionality in daily life. The primordial natural energy emanating from the Earth is the ultimate anti-inflammatory and the ultimate anti-aging medicine.
For more than a decade, Clint Ober has tirelessly pursued a one-man mission to awaken a skeptical world to a simple and forgotten fact: that the Earth beneath our feet contains great healing energy and that connecting ourselves to this energy is immediately beneficial as well as intuitively and remarkably simple.
As with any new discovery, Clint had to endure skepticism and derision from “experts”, some of whom regarded him as crazy. But he persisted and has now gathered significant scientific evidence for his out-of-the-box idea. Moreover, thousands of people who have applied the concept of Earthing in their lives feel, look and sleep better, and they have less pain.
As we explored absolutely new avenues of research in order to validate the concept of Earthing and determine how it affects the human body, Clint turned out to be a rock solid and dedicated guide to those of us with Ph.D.s after our names.
Steve Sinatra, a Connecticut cardiologist who specializes in integrative medicine and has an interest in electro-medicine, met Clint in 2001 and saw great promise for Earthing in his own field of cardiology, as well as medicine in general. Steve encouraged Clint to stick with it and pursue research, particularly the connection with inflammation, which had been recently found to be the probable cause of heart disease.
Persist he did. Eventually, Clint found open-minded experts in the fields of medicine, physiology, and biophysics and inspired a series of research projects showing that the surface of the Earth is like one gigantic anti-inflammatory, sleep booster, and energizer-all wrapped up in one.
To break new ground means to do something different from anything done before. If ever the term groundbreaking applies to a book, it certainly does here, literally and figuratively. This book is about the ground beneath our feet, and the revelation of a vital electrical continuum between the Earth and the living organisms that dwell upon it.
Walk, stand, and sit barefoot on the ground for a half hour or so. If you have PMS or arthritic pain or a backache or indigestion or jet lag or are just feeling fatigued, go outside (weather permitting, of course) with your bare feet placed directly on the Earth.
At the end of that time you will feel better. And as you feel better, a light bulb will go off in your head. You will realize that although you live on the surface of the Earth your lifestyle has separated you from the limitless healing energy that, unknown to you, the surface beneath your feet hold. It’s there, and always there, and yours for the taking.
Learn more about James Oshman, PhD.
Earthing is available at Amazon.
