Using Grounding To Treat Anxiety … What The Medical Literature Says

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I’ve been anxious my entire life.  I can’t remember a day when I did not wake up with a huge knot in my stomach that felt like death was gripping my solar plexus and sneering up at me.

Unfortunately the medical literature is pretty clear — anxiety has major health effects, but it’s equally clear that those deleterious health effects are actually reversible.  Meaning, if you suffer from anxiety, it’s very worth addressing, not just for the relief on a daily basis but also for the longevity benefits.

Today, as someone who very much knows the felt sense of existential anxiety haunting me day in and day out, and someone who reaches for grounding to effectively help cope with this, I’d like to encourage you to include grounding in your anxiety treatment plan.

Grounding to the earth to help regulate the body’s fight or flight, panic state, and bring balance back to your autonomic nervous system is easy to do, readily available to you at all times, and works to alleviate anxiety immediately (loosening the grip of that impending panic attack within milliseconds) as well as with incredible long term anxiolytic benefits too.

Because it’s so helpful, and because I have both professional and personal experience using grounding to decrease anxiety, I wrote a medical literature review article on this so that other health care professionals can start to incorporate this free healing treatment into their patient recommendations as well.  Grounding can work adjunctively with all other treatment plans for anxiety, so it is a ground add-on therapy for anyone who feels like their anxiety is not adequately controlled even if they are already one a good treatment plan.

 

 

It was published a few weeks ago on Dec 30th in the European Society of Medicine and I have it here as a printable PDF for you, so that you can have it, share it, and even send it to any physicians, nurses, PAs, NPs, chiropractors, social workers, therapists, counsellors and other health care professionals you know that might be open to using the healing properties of grounding to help their patients and clients get deeper relief, faster and for free.  Also consider forwarding this info to any loved ones you have that deal with anxiety — and that’s most of us, right?

 

Grounding To Treat Anxiety — free printable PDF

 

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Here we go, I encourage you to read through the full article, below, so that you understand just how much support is waiting for you outside — our entire planet is waiting to calm, soothe, and center you.  Here’s why it works and how to do it to help with anxiety symptoms:

 


Grounding To Treat Anxiety

Laura Koniver, MD

Abstract

Background: Anxiety disorders are prevalent worldwide, affecting approximately 34% of the U.S. population and contributing significantly to global disability and disease burden. While effective treatments exist, access remains limited, with only 25% of affected individuals receiving care. This review explores grounding, a holistic practice that connects individuals to the Earth’s electrical field, as a potential adjunctive treatment for anxiety.

Methods: This review examines the existing literature on grounding and its physiological effects on anxiety. Key mechanisms of action include the regulation of the autonomic nervous system, reduction of muscle tension, improvement of mood and cognitive clarity, with a focus on how this support can help reduce anxiety and anxiety related symptoms.

Results: Grounding has been shown to provide immediate benefits, such as the regulation of heart and respiratory rates, reduction of muscle tension, and calmer brain wave patterns. Long-term effects include improved mood, enhanced cognitive function, and better sleep quality. Grounding may also decrease markers of inflammation, potentially reversing the telomere shortening associated with anxiety disorders.

Conclusion: Grounding presents a safe, accessible, and cost-effective strategy for alleviating anxiety symptoms and improving overall well-being. Given it is a free healing modality that offers immediate and long-term benefits, and that it is a universally available treatment world wide that removes the obstacles of cost and access to healthcare facilities, grounding should be integrated into comprehensive anxiety treatment plans. Further research is warranted to explore its full potential and mechanisms of action in anxiety as well as other mental health disorders..

Keywords:  Grounding, Earthing, Mental Health, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders, Autonomic Nervous System, Cortisol, Sleep Quality, Circadian Rhythm, Inflammation, Telomere Shortening, Mood, Cognitive Function, Muscle Tension, Heart Rate Variability, Adjunctive Treatment, Vagal Tone

 

Introduction

Anxiety disorders are extremely common in every country in the world.  Not only is it the most common metal disorder in the United States, affecting about 34% of the US1, it’s the most common mental disorder in the entire world collectively2. Anxiety has a major impact on daily function and can cause significant impairment as well as a huge impact on the global burden of disease3. Anxiety can impact school attendance, job performance, harm important relationships including marriages and friendships, increase the incidence of other comorbid health conditions as well as increase the risk of substance abuse4 culminating in one of the top causes of disability in the world5. 

While anxiety has major health effects, it’s equally clear that those deleterious health effects can be reversible. When looking at telemeter length relative to chronological age, there is significantly accelerated aging in all anxiety disorders including social phobias, agoraphobia, panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorders (GAD). On average, anxiety disorders significantly shortened telomere length by 75 base pairs, the equivalent of aging more than 5 year.  However, adequately treating anxiety resulted in a restoration of telomere length to almost the same length as non-anxious controls, and the longer the patient has been anxiety free, the closer it was in telomere length to those who had no history at all of any anxiety disorder6. Unfortunately only about one in every four people who suffer with anxiety get medical treatment7.

It’s important to increase global access to competent medical care, as well as increase awareness for safe, effective treatments that patients utilize in a addition to, and in between medical appointments that provide significant anxiety relief.  Breath-work8, mindfulness meditation9, 10, music therapy11, exercise12, 13, 14, 15, 16, dietary changes17, and readily available supplements such as probiotics18, 19, omega-3 fatty acids20, magnesium21, and ashwagandha22, have been shown to provide benefit in reducing anxiety.  Another one of those holistic healing modalities is grounding, an easily accessible healing modality that is absolutely free and globally available, with immediate neuromodulative benefits23. 

Grounding is the healing practice of directly touching the earth outside, touching the human body to the surface of the earth, which connects the conductive human body to the global electrical circuit that the earth produces in order to regulate and calm the central nervous system24.  Although there are many reasons that patients may have difficulty obtaining treatment for anxiety, from poor access to medical services, to the high cost of anxiety treatment mediations and mental counseling, touching the earth outside routinely is an option that is a round-the-clock, readily available treatment option easily accessible to everyone on the planet. 

Grounding to the earth helps regulate the body’s fight or flight anxiety state, and brings balance back to the autonomic nervous system by instantly boosting vagal tone, activating the parasympathetic nervous system and decreasing over all markers of stress on the body (including the brain25. Grounding can begin to work to alleviate anxiety immediately (as the entire human body becomes grounded within milliseconds upon contact with a grounded surface) and provides long term anxiolytic benefits too26. Here are what we know so far about how grounding can help with decreasing anxiety, from short term immediate benefits to long term support.

 

1.  Grounding instantly regulates heart and respiratory rate

Connecting the fully conductive human body to the global electrical output of the earth grounds the body from head to toe immediately, providing immediate regulation to the central nervous system and directly support healthy autonomic nervous system function27.  In anxiety, hyperventilation, heart pounding, syncope, and other anxiety related symptoms that occur because of the activation of the sympathetic nervous system going into fight or flight, panic mode can be counterbalanced by the activation of the parasympathetic system that occurs during grounding.

This includes a boost in vagal tone support by almost 70%28 with the parasympathetic nervous system immediately supporting healthy heart rate, respiratory rate, improved oxygenation29 and a significant reduction in autonomic nervous system stress30.

 

2.  Grounding releases muscle tension immediately

When you touch the earth outside, your entire body is instantaneously grounded and that includes every single muscle in the body31. Because the entire musculoskeletal system is conductive, grounding leads to a near instantaneous effect of decreasing muscle tension, reducing muscle inflammation, and ameliorating muscle soreness.  

For those with anxiety, this offers the immediate relief of relaxing muscles that are being held tight in fight or flight mode, even loosening trigger points in tight neck and shoulders muscles and stopping a tension headache in it’s tracks. Medical studies have found that grounding immediately and significantly reduced muscle tension within seconds, and that this lowering of muscle tension is effective even in distal points of the body far removed from the point of contact of grounding32. 

Multiple studies using many different muscle straining exercises have all found that this protective benefit of grounding translates into decreased muscle damage and reduced delayed onset muscle soreness, of example one study had subjects carry one-third of their entire body weight in barbells on their shoulders and preform repetitive toe raises until total muscular exhaustion and found grounded subjects had significantly reduced muscle soreness and enhanced muscle recovery after exertion compared to ungrounded controls33. Not only do grounded subjects report lower pain levels after a muscle loading challenge, but they also have significantly lower creatinine kinase levels, confirming a protective effect of grounding against muscle damage during exertion34. Another double blinded medical study found the same significant muscle protective benefits during an exhaustive deep knee bend challenge35 as well as decreased muscle damage and improved muscle recovery when test subjects were grounded on a downhill stress test challenge as opposed to ungrounded control subjects36.

 

3.  Grounding lowers blood pressure

Bloop pressure can significantly raise during anxiety and panic states, as a result of skyrocketing heart rates and a over activated sympathetic nervous system response37, 38, 39, 40.  As a result of the calming effects of grounding that include a reduction in muscle tension as well as a boost to vagal tone and a calming of the autonomic nervous system, a regular grounding practice can help lower high blood pressure as well.  Grounding was found to significantly reduce blood pressure, with an average decrease in systolic pressure of 14%41.

 

4.  Grounding shifts brain waves instantly

Anxiety can make the body on extreme alert mode, not just with a heightened autonomic nervous system response and tightened muscles on alert, but also with a brain that is hyper alert.  Thankfully, connecting our electrically based central nervous system to the electrical output of the earth via grounding makes an immediate impact on how the human brain functions.

Because the brain is and electronic organ that sits in an electrolytic solution of cerebrospinal fluid that has been evolving for over 7 million years in cohesion with the earth’s electrical field, it is very easy to understand why the calming, natural, gentle electromagnetic output from the earth helps to boost healthy brain function near instantaneously42. Getting into the relaxed but alert alpha brain wave pattern, which is seen in calm, alert meditative states, is one of the hallmarks of grounding. Grounding provides an immediate shift in brainwaves — within milliseconds — measurable on an Electroencephalogram (EEG)43. This calming shift that grounding provides significantly influences brain function, documented in neuroimaging studies44.

This may translate from not just a more calm, less anxious brain, but into behavioral patters that move an anxious person away from anxiety provoke behaviors.  While more research is needed in this area, a recent animal study found that grounding reduced stress-induced anxiety behaviors45.

 

5.  Grounding improves mood

This improved, healthy brain function translates into improvements in mood,   And that’s exactly what researchers found, statistically significant improvements in mood after just 40 minutes of grounding in a double blinded study46.

We know that inflammation in the body worsens mood and even plays a role in clinical depression47, 48. Grounding is a crucial way the body keeps inflammation down49. So one mechanism of action in grounding’s ability to boost mood is that grounding results in statistically significant decreases in blood markers of inflammation, compared to non-grounded subjects50. 

Grounding decreases multiple different markers of whole body inflammation, such as dropping c-reactive protein levels by almost 60%51, and it also specifically decreases the exact same inflammatory cytokines that have a direct impact on dopamine levels. Researchers found that cytokines such as such as IP-10, MIP-1α, and sP-Selectin, all decreased in grounded subjects, and that the average drop induced by grounding a patient was a 10 — 20% drop in inflammatory cytokine concentration52. And because research shows that inflammatory cytokines have a direct reflection in our mood and motivation levels53, 54 we can see a potential direct explanation for why grounding boosts mood. By decreasing inflammatory cytokines, it’s reasonable to suggest that grounding gives a natural dopamine boost to the brain.

 

6.  Grounding helps boost mental clarity

Beyond simply impacting mood, anxiety can cause rumination and intrusive thoughts which impair the ability to think clearly and act in an effective way.  Grounding is a great way to boost cognitive clarity, on top of improving mood.  

The electrical output of the earth — the Schumann Resonance — acts as a globally available synchronization system to our brains55. Using EEG imaging and Schumann Resonance frequencies to evaluate this interaction between our human brains and the earth’s electrical field, research has shown that electrical activity from the earth makes a measurable synchronization in the cerebral cortex that allows for real-time coupling between the Schumann resonance and cerebral activity56.

Even more exciting, the area of the highest cohesion between the earth’s Schumann Resonance and the human brains is in the parahippocampal gyrus, the area of the brain that provides meaningful interpretation of visual input.  Research into the parahippocampal gyrus of the brain utilizing fMRI has found that brain damage to that area of the cortex results in patients being able to generically identify images and items that are viewed, but not be able to meaningfully interpret these images57 and is a sensitive early indicator of Alzheimer’s Disease58. The parahypocamppal gyrus is responsible for the meaningful interpretation of our surroundings, our environment, and for support in making life decisions in a contextually appropriate way59. This gives a very real explanation for why time spent in nature, on the earth, grounded, can enhance clarity and meaning through this earth-to-brain coherence60.

 

7.  Grounding decreases signs of brain stress

Beyond improving mood and boosting mental clarity, grounding has also been found to directly decrease over all brain stress and boost cognitive function. Researchers found that walking barefoot outside significantly boosted alpha waves, significantly decreased beta waves, and that this translated cognitively into a significant increase in cognitive speed and concentration along with a significant decrease in over all brain stress. The control group that did the same walking activity but wore sneakers had no significant change in any of the mental performance tasks.  The researchers concluded that grounding through barefoot walking improved cognitive ability, particularly in information processing and complex reasoning, while simultaneously reducing mental stress and brain fatigue61.

And because inflammation is now being linked with cognitive disorders such as mild cognitive impairment and dementia (including Alzheimers,)62, 63, 64 the long term effects of grounding to protect cognition may come from it’s ability to decrease inflammation and potentially decrease neuroinflammation over time65.

 

8.  Grounding improves digestion

Digestion is largely driven by the vagus nerve, which guides the function of the entire gastrointestinal tract, from salivary glands to esophageal swallowing to digestive enzyme secretion and gut peristalsis, so when anxiety causes a decrease in vagal tone and a shift away from parasympathetic activity, it can result in many digestive symptoms, from nausea, heartburn, indigestion, even irritable bowel symptoms. 

The vagus nerve even plays a role in metabolism66, appetite regulation67, and is such a dynamic part of our entire digestive system that it is able to change in response to both intrinsic factors (like stress) as well as extrinsic factors (such as grounding)68.

Grounding eases the body back into a healthy rest and digest state, reactivating healthy digestion as it releases fight and flight mode with the vagal tone boost it provides69.

In fact, the vagus nerve isn’t just tied in with digestion and intestinal function, it also may play a role in mood and appetite70 suggesting yet another mechanism of action that grounding boosts mood as well as support digestion, and that is through direct vagal tone stimulation.

 

9.  Grounding improves sleep

Anxiety is a hyper-stimulated state of the body where there are perceived stressors that often interfere with sleep.  Insomnia is a very common symptom reported in anxiety disorders71 and conversely, improving sleep can actually help treat anxiety and decrease severity72, 73.

Although the sun is commonly thought to impact circadian rhythm and sleep patterns, the earth’s electromagnetic field has as much, if not more, to do with our sleep/wake pattern than exposure to the sun does.  Experiments as far back as the 1970s have shown that contact with the earth’s electrical output is crucial for maintaining health sleep patterns. test subjects who are shielded from sun exposure but still in grounded to the earth’s electrical field were able to kept patterns that were close to a 24 hour rhythm, while those in the bunker that was completely shielded from the earth’s energies became internally desynchronized and experienced significantly longer, more irregular rhythms74. When subjects were were cut of from the earth had the earth’s electrical output re-introduced, normal sleep/wake patterns were restored75.

More recent research back this up.  On study found that sleeping grounding completely normalized cortisol patterns, improved sleep, and established a healthier 24 hour circadian rhythm76.  Another study found that patients with Alzheimers Disease had significantly improved sleep quality, improved by an average of 62% on Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) after 12 weeks of sleeping grounded77.  The end result is an improvement in the natural circadian rhythm of the human body through routine grounding practices78 possibly even slowing the aging process down as inflammation in the body is kept at bay79.

 

Conclusion

From decreasing insomnia to calming the autonomic nervous system to reducing cortisol to relaxing tense muscles to helping move the brain into more healing brainwave patterns, there are many reasons that grounding is a great adjunctive treatment plan for a variety of anxiety disorders.  Add to that the fact that the earth outside is available no matter where you live, is accessible day and night, and is completely free to implement, I strongly feel grounding should be added on to every anxiety treatment plan. Treating anxiety not only provides relief of uncomfortable symptoms that affect daily living and cause a tremendous impairment in functionality along with a huge amount of disability and worldwide disease burden, but treating anxiety helps long term to decrease the rate of aging and even reverse telomere shortening, in addition to many other potential longevity boosting benefits80. Let’s be sure to advocate the healing practice of grounding to anyone experiencing anxiety as a way to help improve both subjective and objective health and protect longevity. 

 

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Laura Koniver MD

 


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