Healing with "Earthing"
Earthing is an easy way to help your body overcome illness and injury and improve your overall health. Sound too good to be true? "Earthing" is not a new diet or exercise program, in fact it's old. Very, very old. What is new is our ability to scientifically support the benefits of "earthing".
What is "earthing"? It's walking barefoot on the earth. Yup, that's it. That's the whole enchilada - exercising on the earth in your bare feet. Here's a four minute video that gives you a quick overview of the oldest, easiest and free way to improve your health.
There's an excellent video here that explains in detail the research done to support the claim that earthing can help us avoid our body's inflammatory response and why this leads to better health. The video is just over an hour long but well worth the time investment. If you don't have an hour to spare you can read the highlights on the page below the video.
I realize all that glitters is not gold, but this seemed to make sense to me so I gave it a try. I had injured my back 6 days prior and was frustrated by my lack of recovery. Despite continuing to practice Tai Chi and Qi Gong through the injury, laying down was my only pain free activity. So I moved my Qi Gong practice outside, removed my socks and did a round of "Eight Brocades" - eight short exercises rooted in Traditional Chinese Medicine. It took about twenty minutes.
For the next two hours I had tingling in the bottom of my feet as well as tingling and warmth up my legs, half way to my knees. I have been practicing Qi Gong for years and had never experienced this. I had never done Qi Gong barefoot in the grass before either.
My back felt better, but I wanted it to be right, not just better. So I did it again the next day, only this time after completing the exercises I laid on my back on the ground. After about 10 minutes I was interrupted, my attention called indoors. Because I was focused on other things, I didn't realize until later that day my back was normal. Full range of motion - pain free!
If you decide to give earthing a try, please share your experiences here. I'd love to hear if others have similiar experiences.
