● 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.
“First my ankles and then the knees became normal size without the swelling. I could actually see my kneecap for the first time in five years. My pain was reduced. The contraction in my right thigh (my body trying to protect the hip) went away. The position of the femur corrected itself, and was no longer pressing against the side of the hip socket. This meant a greater range of movement, less pain, and for the first time in years, allowed me to start exercises to reverse the muscle atrophy that had developed over the previous decade. Walking and other forms of exercise had been very painful. I could now do those things.
“In recent years, my hip pain and restrictions had increased to the point where at times I couldn’t manage anything greater than a 4-inch stride. I am a tall woman with a 36-inch inseam. I was barely able to get my leg over the side of a tub and had to lift my leg with my hands to get into bed or to get into a car. Gradually, I’ve been able to extend my stride to 18 inches on a good day. That’s not much for a woman of my age with very long legs, but it is so much better, and it has been getting better all the time.
“I still walk with a cane most of the time, but when I don’t my side-to-side hip sway is less than half of what it was before. The sway increases pain so I use the cane to minimize the sway. It provides support as I get better. My ability to bend my knees has increased. I can cross either leg over center now and I could not before. I can lift things now that before would cause severe pain in the hip. I have been able to do yard work on my half acre, walk readily back and forth to the chicken coop, and sometimes get in a total of a mile-and-a-half of daily walking. I am working continually to strengthen the weak leg muscles so that maybe one day I will be able to walk without a cane. Meanwhile, it looks as if I am pushing off further into the future a hip replacement that I was supposed to have at one time.
“Previous to all this, I had developed arthritis in my right pinky. It was swollen and bent, and painful when I put pressure on it during my work as a massage therapist. The joint has straightened dramatically (though not completely yet) and is much more normal now. I can now put maximum pressure on it without any problem. I had pain in one wrist and that went away as well.”
“My night sweats stopped, and then my hot flashes diminished, and stopped completely in December 2011. After 15 years, it was a great relief.”
“I hadn’t realized how depressed I was until after I started Earthing and having a growing sense of well- being and return to health. It is a wonderful feeling. I can do so much more now, although I am aware of my limitations. If I do too much or eat too much bread, then I can only get about 4 hours of sleep. That used to be my maximum but not enough to lose weight. I love the fact that my maximum is my minimum now. My capacity keeps growing and the improvements continue. Clearly the more time I spend Earthed, the better I feel.”
Muscle pain
● From an Arizona sales manager of fitness equipment: “I have experienced less post exercise muscle pain from my workouts. This became very evident when I embarked on the squat workout. Anyone who works out will know, when you workout a muscle group hard that you hadn’t worked out in months, like I hadn’t with the squats, better be ready for some serious muscle soreness the next 3 days. Well, I had very minimal muscle pain day one and NONE the 2nd, 3rd days. Pretty amazing! I have also experienced deeper sleep, an overall calmness and a more balanced energy throughout the day.”
● From EMB, 60, male, from Alberta. Canada, been grounding many hours both indoors (universal mat at desk and TV chair, sleep mat) and grounded footwear outdoors. “For more than 10 years my partner and I have been committed to the healing power of the Earth. Been perfectly healthy. Been symptom free this flu season. Not even seasonal allergies. Many benefits, most of which have elevated us to a new state of health that we don’t notice as much as we did at the beginning. Sleep improvements, muscle and joint, vision, immune system and inflammatory modulation.”
● From Ryan, a former professional athlete: I’ve consciously been practicing earthing for a week or so now. I realised its healing power after I finished playing football (soccer) in my garden with my son. My groin was very tight before we started playing and I said to him that I’d have to go easy on him as I felt that it may tear. An hour later we finished our fun and the feeling had gone. At first I thought that it may have been down to the fact that we were having so much fun and I’d forgotten about the pain but for the first time ever, I was playing with no shoes on. That’s when I received the thought to look into the benefits of earthing. I now believe that it was due to the fact that I was playing barefooted so I’ve continued to ground myself and any muscle tightness I had disappeared which confirmed that earthing was the reason.
Not only does my body feel the best it has ever felt, I’ve had more joy because I want to be outside, barefooted, playing with my beautiful children. I’ve been in the garden before 7am every morning this week playing barefooted football with my son before he goes to school. We’ve also been walking through the woods barefooted after school to a green space to continue our fun.
Wanting to be outside earthing has also eased my mind of being a serious adult, keeping my shoes on because my feet would get dirty and there’ll be more cleaning to do. I feel childlike and It feels amazing.
I am an ex professional football player who’s career ended very early due to a broken leg which has been operated on 5 times. I would have loved to have known about earthing many years ago but I’m extremely grateful now that I’ve gained the knowledge
I’ve remained disciplined and still think of myself an athlete, looking after my body to the best of my abilities. I am always searching for new ways to improve my health and I thought I’d been introduced to the missing link which was the way we breathe. Making nasal breathing a habit of mine has improved my health in similar ways that people are saying that earthing has improved there’s. My breathing would be classed as very efficient and I encourage as many people as I can to use there nose to breathe, so they can feel the benefits that I’ve felt.
I honestly didn’t think that there could be anything else out there that was more powerful than the breath for improving people’s health but I believe that I was incorrect. Breathing correctly has improved my life dramatically but I thought that muscle soreness was something that was natural but earthing has proven me wrong.
