● From an 86-year old insomniac: “I had been suffering a sleeping problem for years. Waking up after fifteen to thirty minutes and being unable to get back to sleep again. I discovered Earthing and have never looked back. Asleep almost as soon as my head hits the pillow, never open my eyes again for several hours, wake up fresh as a daisy. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”
● From Karen Ball, 63, massage therapist, Beaverton, OR:
“In 2011, I was in terrible shape. I had been suffering with serious insomnia for 22 years, sleeping maybe 2 -3 hours on average per night. I had developed an inability to break down carbohydrates and had other digestive difficulties, mild depression, bloating, 15 years of hot flashes, bone density issues, and severe arthritis and muscle contraction in my right hip that caused pain and restricted movement. To top it off, at 244 pounds, I was 80 pounds overweight.
“Sleeping pills, mega-doses of melatonin, antihistamines, supplements, hot baths, herbs, teas, meditation, breathing exercises, relaxation CDs, and so many more things were making little impact on my problems. I read everything and tried everything I found, many times over. I checked out every book the library had on insomnia and read anything I could find on the web.
“In July 2011, I started sleeping on an Earthing sheet. The first three nights I didn’t get any sleep, but I had massive amounts of energy from laying on it 7-9 hours per night. Within the first 2 hours I lost considerable inflammation so that my ankles which had been severely swollen now appeared normal. I weighed myself and found I had lost 4.5 pounds of swelling those first 3 nights. Not real weight loss; just a very noticeable decrease of swelling.
“It took 6 nights before I got a good night’s sleep. But from August of 2011 to the present, August of 2013, I have had 4-8 hours of sleep every night except for 2 nights. In that time, I’ve had more than 40 nights where I slept through the night through without getting up to urinate. The better sleep is a big deal. I can only lose weight when I sleep five hours or more. I have now lost 40 pounds, and basically by not doing anything, just sleeping more. I need to lose another 40, and to do that, I’ll need to stop eating bread when I shouldn’t.
Clearly the more time I spend Earthed, the better I feel.”
● CM, male, 65, Bogota, Columbia, has been walking barefoot in the morning for a half-hour for two-and-a half-years. “I have not had even a minor flu. Helps me get through the day. I have insomnia, without feeling tired.”
● From Karen Blaine, 66, Yakima, WA (2020): “I first heard of Earthing from my younger sister who said she and her husband tried all the Earthing products. They have both been fighting autoimmune issues, inflammation, and lack of sleep. They have 5 adult children who are also Earthing. My sister told me this is something absolutely incredible, and knowing all the health issues I have had for years, she wanted to share it with me immediately!
“I spent 15 years in a literal nightmare locked up in my body, from chronic pain, chronic insomnia, terrible inflammation, PTSD, anxiety disorder. The list is long. I have had nine concussions over the course of my lifetime, just one too many injuries to my body, starting at a very early age.
“I started using the smaller Earthing mat sitting at the kitchen table with both bare feet on the mat twice a day an hour each time. In 5 days, I was out of pain, and the feeling in my head was that of total clarity. I was sleeping at least 4 hours a night, which is better than no sleep. I thought I had died and gone to heaven!
“I then decided to try the bed mat. That was the ticket to freedom! In maybe 3 weeks if that, I was sleeping each night 7-8 hours straight, waking up with ZERO pain, I could not believe what was happening! I started going barefooted outside, either in the grass, or on dirt.
“I have now been using both these products for about 5 weeks, and I will use them until it’s time for me to leave this Earth! The Earthing book has literally saved my life, and given me freedom from all of my ailments. I have shared the book, and all the links to the earthing products with about 30 of my friends. They have all ended up Earthing now, and thanking me, but in my heart, the thanks do not belong to me, it was the Lord and the men that wrote this incredible book.
● From MP, 65, retired nurse, Indio, California (2020): “When I first began grounding I did not have the immediate results that I have read about others having. In fact I felt worse. I had more fatigue & pain. I was walking 20 minutes a day & struggling to do that due to overwhelming fatigue and pain. Now, instead of struggling to walk 20 minutes a day I have been able to work up to over 3 miles a day! My fatigue has improved & I’m able to be more active.
● From a man in Australia: “For years I suffered chronic insomnia, caused mainly by ongoing gut trouble. Nothing helped. When I started sleeping grounded on a grounding sheet, however, my sleep began to improve. The improvement was very slow at first; just one good sleep in the first week. In the next three weeks the sleep varied, sometimes good, sometimes disrupted and restless. After a month the good sleeps began to be a regular occurrence – every two or three days, but with a few hours’ sleep even on the bad nights. After three months I was sleeping fairly regularly. Now after two years, my insomnia has vanished. Of course, I have to get up about once a night, but that is probably average for most 53 year-olds. It has to be the sheet, as I made no major changes to diet, lifestyle or routine during this period.”
● From a 2016 book review on Amazon: “After reading the Earthing book I immediately started earthing/grounding naturally in my backyard and obtained Earthing products to ground myself at night. I have had insomnia for about a year, ever since I moved into a house where there was a Smart Meter on my back bedroom wall. Not sure if this has something to do with it or not, but if you read all the horrific health complaints people are having regarding smart meters, it is probably the likely culprit.
“Immediately when I started grounding myself during the day and night my insomnia seems to have completely disappeared. I slept nearly 9 hours the first night I had it which is unreal to me. It only has been a little over a week now of using the earthing products. But I feel great. Instead of only getting 5-6 hours of restless sleep, I have been getting 7-8 of really deep/good sleep. Yes, I realize it could be a placebo effect. But I highly doubt it at this point. Time will tell if it is or isn’t. I have more energy in the day now as well. My brain is working better. I was starting to develop memory problems due to being sleep deprived. I am not noticing that anymore. I am amazed.”
Beating Insomnia, Fatigue, and Adrenal Exhaustion
● In early 2015, Barbara, a disappointed West Coast businesswoman, contacted us to say that she had been grounding for three nights and hadn’t experienced any improvements.
“I want so to be among the people who have great results,” she said. “But right now I am a little discouraged. Maybe my sleep is a little better, but nothing obvious and miraculous. I am so hopeful, even desperate, to be well.”
Barbara, 57, is the proprietor of a landscape business. She said she has had chronic insomnia ever since her college days. Over time she developed adrenal exhaustion, anxiety, depression, chronic coughing, and joint and muscle pain flares. She’d lived in a compromised state for the previous eight years, and been fatigued continually for almost a year-and-a-half. At the end of 2013, she became severely ill and weak, and had to be treated repeated times at the emergency room or in urgent care.
Stress played a big part in her health problems, she admitted.
Doctors had provided little help or guidance.
“They cared, but they didn’t know what to do with me, other than to prescribe medication,” she said. When one physician put her on an anti-depressant, her exhaustion and despair only deepened. “If only I could have slept, I could have climbed out of this awful pit. But sleep to me was unattainable.”
Two naturopaths told her the problem was adrenal exhaustion, something that conventional doctors often do not recognize. They said her recovery would be complex and slow. They suggested natural remedies. Very slowly she began feeling better but for more than a year she still felt compromised, “a shadow of who I used to be.”
“I needed something to work,” she said. “I was desperate. I was still not sleeping well.”
By chance, Barbara came across an online health forum where Earthing was mentioned. The idea resonated with her. She read the Earthing book and obtained an Earthing sheet.
“I had more hope for complete recovery than I had had in a very long time,” she said.
And that’s why she contacted us after three nights of sleeping grounded and feeling disappointed that her expected dramatic relief hadn’t come.
Many people like Barbara are hopeful that Earthing will generate a quick and significant turnaround in health. When it doesn’t happen as soon as expected, they contact us.
From our side, we can’t predict how fast any particular individual will respond to grounding. We know that grounding works, whether dramatically or subtly, and at many levels.
In Barbara’s case, we told her that we have heard from people over the years with adrenal exhaustion, typically a result of chronic stress, who have reported major improvement. We asked her to be patient and be grounded as much as possible. We directed her to read our article that we wrote specifically for people who are new to Earthing.
About a month later, Barbara contacted us again – with good news.
“I am sleeping longer and more soundly than I have slept in years,” she said. “My energy and vitality are vastly improving. My blood pressure is improving, my aches and pains are far less pronounced. I believe all the other therapies I’ve been doing needed the Earthing as a sort of catalyst to experience true recovery. Earthing has been the missing ingredient. I told two family members about my experience and they, too, started grounding. One with asthma and one started to speed athletic recovery. Both are seeing results and are very enthusiastic.”
Barbara said her life had changed in a single month of grounding: “hugely improved sleep, less joint and muscle pain, feeling less foggy, and, gratefully, having my joy of life return.”
With renewed energy, Barbara was also able to re-energize her business that had suffered due to her personal health and the overall economic malaise.
In October 2015, Barbara contacted us again to report she was “doing amazingly well.”
She hardly recognizes herself, neither can others, she said. “I’ve healed. I’m sleeping well. Handling the added stress of new business excellently. I’m in an uphill spiral so to speak. I feel whole and strong, and so grateful.”
Anemia and pneumonia overcome, energy boosted, skin radiant
● Sarah Laucks, York, PA, wellness educator, (2017): Sarah Laucks is a former education director of an organization that stages events in the U.S. and Canada for people with disabilities, their caregivers, and healthcare professionals. She shared her grounding experience with us in December 2017: “The first week of March 2017 I ended up in the hospital for four days with pneumonia and iron-deficient anemia. Looking back over the preceding few months, my physician felt I acquired walking pneumonia several weeks prior to the hospital stay after fighting off a cold since the end of January. The walking pneumonia left my immune system very weak and I picked up a more dangerous type of pneumonia as a result (there are more than 30 known causes of pneumonia and most are contagious).
“The iron-deficient anemia was likely due to six months of intense work and stress, coupled with increased weight lifting workouts, and diet that was not supporting me properly.
“My ‘adventure’ with pneumonia meant four trips to the ER (three in an ambulance), 4 full days in the hospital, three doses of the powerful antibiotic Levaquin followed by an allergic reaction to that antibiotic, and lastly intense digestive trouble as a result of nearly 20 days on antibiotics.
“To resolve the iron-deficient anemia I was taking iron supplements which are known to cause digestive troubles. I needed to rebuild my reserves after the pneumonia, had constant shortness of breath due to the anemia, and a stomach that couldn’t handle much in the way of food.
“While I was in the hospital a long-time friend and colleague was also hospitalized for a pressure sore (she has spina bifida and is a wheelchair user). We texted each other while in the hospital and she told me she was using grounding mats. I had heard of grounding a full four years prior but had never looked deeper or tried it for myself. When she got out of the hospital in half the time compared to her last pressure sore (which was approximately 15 years prior) I decided to pay attention. I got out of the hospital on March 9. I continued to hear from my friend about how well she was doing. “Meanwhile I was trying to get better with nutrition, probiotics, and other supplements. I’d feel better for a few days, then have a few bad days. I was very frustrated. Finally, on May 17 I bought two grounding mats. I was somewhat skeptical. I thought, ‘this is ridiculous.’ But I went ahead, read the directions, tested an outlet, and put my bare feet on the mat.
“Within 60 seconds I could feel it. Twenty minutes later I felt significantly better. I started using those two mats obsessively. I slept with them at night. I had them under my desk during the day – with my bare feet on them at all times. Used them on the couch at night – resting my feet and ankles on them. My husband thought I was crazy but there was no doubt to me that the grounding was helping, and it was helping more than anything else. “When the weather warmed up, I was also outside in my bare feet constantly. I spent at least a full hour, often more, outside from the end of May until the weather got cold in late October 2017.
“The improvements I’ve experienced are like nothing I’ve ever had before. I’ve been on a wellness adventure since I was 19 and I have tried everything including chiropractic, massage, acupuncture and acupressure, nutrition, supplements, juicing, smoothies. I’ve tried a lot of things. I have a litany of long-term health challenges including three herniated discs in my lumbar spine since I was 23, Celiac disease and more. Nothing has helped me as much as grounding.
“Here’s a list of improvements:
- “I have not been sick with a cold or any other contagious disease since I started grounding. In spite of organizing large events, with thousands of people at each event, shaking many hands, hugging many people. I’ve also had four trips during this time period where I flew – time in airports surrounded by hacking, coughing, sneezing passengers.
- “Within six weeks of grounding I started to notice a change in the skin on my hands. The skin was becoming smoother, less red, and more full. My nails, which were heavily ridged from the anemia, were also smoothing out – not as they grew out but the entire nail bed was smoothing out. At first my husband said ‘no way.’ But within the next month he had to admit my skin all over my body was changing – for the better. It was like I was getting younger. People constantly comment on how much my skin is improving.
- “I sleep very soundly. I’m rested and ready to go when I wake up. I no longer need a few hours to ‘get going.’ My husband says he’s never seen me have so much energy. We’ve been together for 12 years. And he’s right I have so much more energy than I did before.
- “I am doing things again that I haven’t done in years. I used to be a figure skater and I’m going back to the rink after 10 years away from it. I run with my son to school each morning, turn around and run back home. Six months ago I was out of breath walking him the two blocks to school!
- “I resolved my iron deficient anemia by September 2017, just six months after it was diagnosed. My hematologist was so surprised he wanted to know exactly what I’d done.
- “I am more motivated. I am more focused, significantly so. I am not struggling to stay focused by giving myself little rewards – breaks in the day to look at social media or watch a movie trailer.
- “My husband has not snored one night since we got the grounding sheet. He used to snore all the time.
“I can breathe better than I can remember. It’s a physical sensation throughout my sinus cavities that I don’t remember feeling before.
“Within a few minutes of beginning grounding I can tell that I am grounding. My lips begin to feel fuller – in fact they are much more red these days, an indicator of improved circulation and better oxygenation in the blood. I also feel tingling in my tongue.
“I’m so excited for the future! I feel that I am aging in reverse. I absolutely feel that my body is younger and more vibrant than it was six months ago. When I got sick I was feeling frustrated on so many levels – my skin was looking old with lots of wrinkles, my lips had no color (an anemia indicator), I had no energy – no motivation, I was burned out, all I wanted to do was rest, I was pushing myself to get through every day. Now I am vibrant and excited for each new day.
“Every day I have this thought: I have my life and health and vigor back.”