Do you have a nagging headache that just won’t go away? Inflammation for seemingly no reason? Brain fog and stress overload? When you visit a doctor, do they tell you nothing is wrong, prescribe medicine and send you on your way?
Dr. Don Wright, a Santa Rosa-based certified chiropractic sports physician, would first ask you one simple question: Have you ever tried grounding?
Grounding is the practice of connecting an electrical circuit to the earth, allowing a pathway for electrons to flow if the circuit shorts. The earth is an electric sponge. Grounding is an essential safety measure electricians use to prevent damage.
“Our bodies are electric,” Wright said. “As an applied kinesiologist, as I treat people, I’m checking that electrical continuity. That’s how I derive my plan to fix them.”
He began to use grounding as medicine in 2001. He saw a patient who traveled from Chico in debilitating pain. After crawling into his office, Wright discovered the man was severely imbalanced, with an asymmetrical pelvis, a short leg and spots of pain all across his body.
If the patient breathed through his right nostril, he was strong. If he breathed through his left nostril, he was weak. If he counted numbers — a left brain activity — he was weak. If he hummed a song — right brain activity — he was strong. Dr. Wright believed he had an ionic imbalance.
His prescription? Grounding. The patient crawled outside to a PG&E grounding rod and held onto it for about three minutes. (Kids, don’t try that at home.)
The patient was able to stand up immediately after, Wright said. “Every symptom he’d initially presented was gone. And then he was upset because he said, ‘You’re telling me that if I just held onto a metal post in Chico I would have gotten rid of all this and not had to drive all the way down here?’”
Grounding does not need to be done with a rod. Standing on a wet lawn or swimming in a natural body of water can allow for electron transfer, which relieves ionic pressure. But what is this actually doing?
“Inflammation is nothing more than positively charged ions,” Wright said. “When you ground yourself, you’re hanging onto a negative charge. That negative charge neutralizes the excessive positive charge in your body.”
Last year, Wright went through a stressful experience. His wife suffered a stroke, which she recovered from, but he sat with her in the hospital for hours. As he waited, he listened to a family grieving over the impending death of their loved one. These emotions carried with him, and left him with a knee ache hours after.
He was completely debilitated the next day. He underwent various tests, and while the doctors could see the inflammation, they couldn’t find a cause, nor a solution. So there he was, stuck in bed, an ice pack on his knee, when YouTube recommended a documentary on grounding. “I watched it and realized, could it be that simple?” Wright said.
He limped over to Sonoma State University with a thermos of water, poured it on his feet and took a nap under a redwood tree. He woke up 90 minutes later and walked back to his car. Only after a couple of steps did he realize that 90% of his pain had vanished. The next day, it was completely gone. But how did his stressful experience translate into physical pain?
“Our emotions carry electromagnetic charge,” Wright said. “The feelings in our brain affect our electromagnetic field, and when we get supercharged, there are physiological effects.”
The electric fields produced by our emotions are well-documented. Studies have found that different emotional states produce different waves. They can be induced by controlled electric stimuli. This shows that emotions and electricity are directly linked.
In this modern era, we are exposed to more stress and electromagnetic frequencies than ever before and rarely have the time to connect ourselves back to the earth.
“Part of the problem exists because of fashion,” Wright said. “We have these rubberized soles that insulate our bodies from the earth.”
It can be hard to find the time to ground ourselves. School, work and locational challenges can contribute to stressful energy and prevent us from dissipating it. However, if you allow it, grounding can change your life. To ground yourself, all you need is time and a conductive medium connected to the earth. It’s important that the soil is wet. Dewy grass, a stream or even a puddle will be enough to connect you.
There’s no such thing as grounding for too long; just five minutes a day provides an outlet for your electrical system. In the meantime, it’s a great opportunity to practice mindfulness. Your body and your brain will thank you.
