Grounding | S2E2 (E012)

Written By Toréa Rodriguez

In yet another cross over episode with Health In Motion, today Toréa and Evie talk about the process of grounding and why this is so important, especially in today’s environment in which most of us live. Discover how easy it is to do. Plus, lets see some photos of your feet in the grass!

In This Episode

How electricity works in the body (04:04)

How grounding feels (06:09)

Electrocution story (07:54)

Grounding affecting sleep (13:06)

Grounding shoes (14:02)

Grounding sheet (16:23)

Improved Heart Rate Variability (16:56)

Improved Immune system markers (19:46)

Simple and free medicine (22:06)

Shinrin yoku/forest bathing (26:39)

Toréa Rodriguez 0:08
Welcome to the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast. I am your host, Toréa Rodriguez. And I'm joined by the lovely co host, Evie Takacs. Both of us our Functional Diagnostic Nutrition practitioners and we love working with women from all over the world, through our virtual programs, helping women not only feel better, but actually achieve that vibrant, no holds barred version of themselves, they've been missing for a long time, and how we actually get there. Well, that is what this show is all about. Now, please keep in mind that this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. And if you like what you hear today, we would love for you to hit that follow button, leave a review in Apple podcast, share with your friends, and keep coming back for more. Let's start today's adventure shall we?

So welcome back, everybody. We are doing something special called a crossover episode. So I don't know if you all know this. But Evie's got another podcast going on. And she has had for, what are you on, like two years now? With Health In Motion?

Evie Takacs 1:25
A little over a year? Actually, we first episode came out December of 2020. So yeah, just a little over a year.

Toréa Rodriguez 1:31
Yeah. Excellent. So Evie has been doing that podcast for a while now. And she graciously agreed to team up with me and take on yet another podcast. So if you're not getting enough of her go seek out Health In Motion. But we decided we're going to try a sneaky little thing called some crossover episodes. And we just published an episode earlier this week, talking all about EMFs. So if you haven't heard that yet, we encourage you to go back there and check it out. And I'll include a direct link to that episode in the show notes of this one. But now we want to do a follow on and talk about. Okay, so now that we've talked about being around a bunch of electrical devices all the time, what do we do about it? So today, we want to talk about grounding. Because grounding is one of those things that we can do that helps dissipate a lot of that excess electrical frequency that we're taking on. And as we both know, it's something that can be done outside. And it's free. So it's totally on our list of top things to do.

Evie Takacs 2:34
Yes

Toréa Rodriguez 2:34
Yeah, totally. So grounding, I guess, the way that I thought of grounding, is to think about it from the electrical system standpoint in your house, like most plugs have a grounding wire on them. So if you've done any electrical work at all, you'll know that it needs to be properly grounded. And the reason why is we want to dissipate excess electricity that might be coming through the electrical wires into the ground. We don't want it to go into the human electrocute a human, we want it to go into the ground. And this is something that people have done indoors, right in buildings. But then there's also the natural process of doing it outdoors. There's a couple of different ways of doing this, both indoors and outdoors. But the most common one for most people is just getting outside and getting barefoot.

Evie Takacs 2:34
Yep.

Toréa Rodriguez 2:35
Like it's that simple. Right?

Evie Takacs 3:27
Making contact with the earth. Yeah, like you said, it's free. And it's available to most of us.

Toréa Rodriguez 3:32
Yeah. And that can be on grass that could be on snow. If you're that bold. It can be on rocks, it could be in a stream, if you need a refreshing dip with your feet in the stream. Like, it doesn't necessarily have to be on dirt or anything uncomfortable. And it doesn't have to be for a long period of time. But I thought we'd delve into a little bit of the mechanics of it and what's actually happening here on this episode, and then maybe you and I can talk about some of the benefits of it.

Evie Takacs 4:02
Yeah, definitely. Let's do it.

Toréa Rodriguez 4:04
Yeah, so we've mentioned this in the Health In Motion podcast, but I'll just kind of give a recap here in case you missed it. But a lot of the way that our body works in our cells and through our neurons is through the passing of electrons, right. So as we are changing from one molecule to another, we're literally sharing an electron or donating an electron over to create a new molecule and a new compound. So that's how our cells work. And our neurons work bypassing electrons up and down a neuron cell or a neural cell. And so you know, our bodies are really comprised of electrical transactions in the form of electrons a lot and so the food that we eat: electron donors. Like that's really what those are, right? So the different kinds of nourishment sure there's other things like carbon and you know, zinc and all of these other have elements that are part of it. But at the same time, really, it boils down to the electricity that our body is holding. And when we were talking about EMFs, we were talking about the fact that we all live in a very, like, digitally enhanced world. And a lot of us have devices. And we live in homes where things are powered by electricity. And there's a lot of these different frequencies that our body is being surrounded with. But we have no means to dissipate it. Because we're walking around with shoes with rubber or plastic soles that aren't going to transmit electricity to go through them. Unless you have a very special pair of electrical conducting shoes like I do, you're typically not going to be doing that, right. So it's kind of go somewhere, and it's going to stay in the body. And sometimes we don't want that excess, we want to be able to get rid of that excess. And one of the ways that we've traditionally done this through evolution, and throughout history is being in contact with nature. Like a lot of people have not had that experience of being in contact with nature and how that can make you feel. So I guess we'll just start off with Evie when you do a grounding practice of any kind, how does it make you feel? And what do you notice the differences are? What is the shift between how you felt before you did it? And how you feel either after or during?

Evie Takacs 6:19
Well, I usually always feel calmer. And I think that's, I think for there's like a chemical reaction. And you you know, would, you've talked a little bit about that on the Health In Motion episode of why that could happen. But I also think it's because again, I'm taking time to step away, to not be around so many things that are buzzing, that I might not even know or buzzing or that I'm not aware of their buzz, but I know that internally, they're buzzing, right, the phone is buzzing, the laptop is buzzing. So it's almost quieting that noise, which makes me feel quiet on the inside. And it makes me feel calm on the inside too. And then there's just the aspect of mental health perspective, I'm stepping away from these devices, which is nice too, because you know, that's overstimulation. And doing that day in and day out, that can get really overwhelming. So there's the two parts of that for me. And when I ground I do pretty, it's like you said, I just will take off my shoes, and I'll stand in my front yard. Our neighborhood has a lot of like, really nice yards and like everyone takes care of their yard really well. And I love that ours isn't perfect in that way. Because I'm like this is just better. This is more space for me to actually ground. And so I like having soil in my yard. And I don't mind if things are coming up. And the more green space that I have in my yard for me to stand in and step in is perfect. A couple of weekends ago, I was somewhere where it snowed. So I went and I laid out in the snow. And I had never really been able to do that long, you know, for more than like 10 seconds before freaking out. But I was able to do it. And it was I was like this is another way of grounding that I typically don't do and so it's just as easy as that it might be with my morning beverage, I just stand outside and I just let the negative ions do their thing.

Toréa Rodriguez 7:53
Yeah, you know, it's, it's interesting because our our body conducts electricity more so than we're really aware. Like, we're it's always passing electricity. And if we are in contact with the ground, it's going to pass through the body. And probably out the bottom of the feet is where you've got contact with the ground. And this is a tragic story. So just for anybody listening, you know, full warning right now. But when I was younger, I remember we were at a lake and we were with a friend and he had a sailboat and he was getting it ready to dock the sailboat, like launched the sailboat into the lake. And he was on the deck with bare feet. And he put the mast up so the mast was made out of aluminum and they put it up. And then he had somebody else backing the the truck in the boat ramp or the boat trailer down the boat ramp right to back it down. What he didn't notice is he didn't notice the powerline. And he was holding on to the mast and the boat mast hit the power line. And he got electrocuted. And that was such like, I will always remember that probably because it was a very traumatic event is like a six year old kid, right. But I always remember it because he had major burns only in his hands. And his feet were the electricity passed through his body. Everything else was just fine. But the amount of voltage that passed through his hands and then discharged straight through his feet to get to the ground are what caused the damage. And so that always reminds me of like, wow, we're always conducting electricity. And this grounding effect is so profound because it does allow us to get rid of some of that excess electricity that's in the body. I was doing a little bit of research about this. And what I ended up figuring out is that that really what's happening right is it's it's helping us dissipate reduced oxygen species or, you know, free radicals in the body is really what's happening when we're doing the grounding. And I think I'm only guessing here on how this works, right. But I think what's happening is the reduction of those ROS species reduced oxidative species, the ROSs, is, when we're doing that we're actually dissipating the electrons back out into the Earth's field.

Evie Takacs 10:21
Okay, yeah, very interesting.

Toréa Rodriguez 10:24
That's how I think it's happening. Yeah. But

Evie Takacs 10:27
The more we're talking about this, the more I'm just like, I haven't really thought about us having so much electrical charge in our system. Until, you know, we started preparing for these episodes, and we talked about it on the other podcast. And it just does make sense that our body at some point is like, this is too much like we need to let this out somehow. And so it, it makes sense in it, it's kind of scary to think of how long I went before I actually did something like that. But on the flip side, if you think about kids, most of them right of me, you'd hope are running around barefoot, or doing something where they're out in the soil, and they're just touching the earth as much as possible. So yeah, it's just really interesting when you think about the body's need, and also ability to do this, in this cycle, we have the electrical charge coming in, it has to get out somehow. And so it's not as natural for adults to be doing what kids are doing, like playing in the yard, or whatever. But I don't know, it's just, it's really interesting to think about our bodies in that way, and how again, they know what they need. And we just have to listen and provide it for them. And it can be as simple as taking your shoes off, when you're already standing in your yard.

Taking your shoes off, or, you know, since we know it travels through hands to like just put your bare hands in the grass, you know, something, some kind of contact is going to be enough. And it's not, I would say this isn't something that oh my gosh, it would be nice to be walking around barefoot outside all the time. Right doesn't take very long for this to occur. You had mentioned in the other podcast episode, it's not like we work on the computer for an hour. And then we need to go ground for an hour. It doesn't work that way, thankfully, because we'd be spending a lot of time on the grass, right?

Yeah.

Toréa Rodriguez 12:04
So. But there's a reason why people say, nature heals. There's a whole bunch of things that happen. When I started looking at PubMed, I found this really great summary article. And I will post it in the show notes. And that summary article took a look at all of the different studies that have occurred in terms of grounding and ROS species, reduced oxygenated species, all of those different things, right, and how much grounding had an effect on certain mechanisms in the body. And I just wrote down a few bullet point lists that we're going to share with you today. But there's a lot of different mechanisms in the body. And one of the first ones that I thought was really cool is that it can help improve sleep. And I thought, oh, that's kind of interesting. Right. So how much is this, like, excess electrical load that we might be taking on? And I'm not saying everybody's in this state all the time. But how could that be impacting your sleep? And this study that they referenced actually came out in the 1920s. And it was a scientist who heard I think a doctor, actually, at the time, who had a lot of patients that said, Look, I just don't sleep well, unless I'm outside camping on the ground. Like, if I'm in contact with the ground, I sleep fine. And that piqued this doctor is interes. He's like, hmm, "I wonder what's going on here?" And so he did some studies with using I think some of the first ever grounding mats, where he made a mat that had copper wire that was built into it that was connected to the grounding wire in the building. And had people sleep on the grounding mats and they reported better sleep. So I thought that was really fascinating. And now we see those devices available fairly inexpensively for the most part available for people in the home like grounding sheets and blankets and things like that.

There's even grounding shoes. One of the most popular brands out there is Earth Runners. Have you seen those before? Think their sandals

I have a pair and love them? They are my favorite sandals.

Evie Takacs 14:10
Yes, sandals. Same idea. Right? Copper is in the bottom of them. Okay.

Toréa Rodriguez 14:15
Yeah, so there's copper threads. So the, the top of the sandals, right? The straps have the copper thread that's used throughout the strap, right, and that is connected to a copper base at the bottom and then that gets put into contact with the bare ground when you're walking. And I just like the sandals.

Evie Takacs 14:34
Yeah.

Toréa Rodriguez 14:35
To be quite honest. I like the sandals. But I have noticed that I feel better when I wear those sandals versus when I wear flip flops. I don't get the same effect. Yeah, it's fascinating.

Evie Takacs 14:46
Interesting. I know that's I think that's going to be on my list of things to check out this summer as I bust out my sandals.

Toréa Rodriguez 14:52
Fantastic. Yeah, next time you need a sandal refresh. Check them out. I really love them.

Evie Takacs 14:57
Yes.

Toréa Rodriguez 14:58
I don't know if any other footwear manufacturer that's doing do you?

Evie Takacs 15:02
I don't, no. And every ad that I see for them is typically going to be Earth Runners, but maybe there's some other ones out there. But I didn't quite understand how they worked until recently, when I was like, "Well, how do these things ground? Like you're still not touching the ground?" And then I was like, "Oh, the copper." Okay, that offsets it. So yeah, that makes sense.

Toréa Rodriguez 15:21
It's, yeah, it's the only time that I noticed that the copper is there is when I'm walking on rock or cement. Sometimes it'll click like a tap shoe.

Evie Takacs 15:31
Okay, so Okay.

Toréa Rodriguez 15:32
Yeah. But other than that, I don't notice it at all. But yeah, so shoes, the mats, I think people can also get like bands that they can wear on their arms. I'm not sure how that works. Because the way that I understand grounding devices to work is they're always being plugged into an outlet to connect to that ground wire that I was talking about. So it is definitely something that you're kind of tied to an outlet. So yeah, you only get so much mileage out of some of those things. But yeah, I've experimented with a grounding sheet for my sleep. And personally, I didn't notice much difference. But then again, I do a lot of things inside my house to protect from over exposure to EMFs. And, like, I don't use devices before bed and that kind of thing. So yeah.

Evie Takacs 16:23
yeah, I've never heard of the grounding sheets. So that's interesting. I'll have to check those out.

Toréa Rodriguez 16:27
Yeah, I'll put the source that I got my grounding sheet from. It was one of the things that I tried when I was troubleshooting my sleep and migraines is a ground in sheet and my doctor had recommended. He's like, "look, it's a $65 investment. You can try it and see how it works. And if it makes a difference. Great. We figured it out. And if it doesn't, it's no big deal. We keep looking." So yeah, yeah, that was one of the rocks I looked under. Yes. Let's see some other things. Improved heart rate variability, is one of those things. And both you and I know how much heart rate variability is such an important metric on our health and the status of our nervous system in general, right. And most of us are pretty much charging around in fight or flight perpetually, without really, you know, giving ourselves time to get into that parasympathetic state. And that will show in reduced Heart Rate Variability numbers. And so the use of grounding showed to increase heart rate variability which, in this measurement, that's what we want. We want higher heart rate variability numbers.

Yeah.

Reduced perception of pain. The study said reduce pain. I don't know if it's like the study wasn't designed to really understand pain, pain is hard to measure. First of all, it's very subjective, because we don't have a way to measure pain without somebody telling us what their perception of pain is. Which is why I said perception of pain. But a lot of people feel reduced pain, and that's something that I've noticed is that if I'm outdoors, I don't feel pain nearly as intensely as I do when I'm indoors. Have you noticed that effect?

Evie Takacs 18:06
Yeah, I have I yeah, I just I feel better in general, I mean, even talking about the HRV if we back up to that, sure, I know that there has been days that I've spent most of the day outside, and then I wake up the next day, and I check my HRV on my Oura and it is a higher score. And I'm like, There's nothing else in terms of nutrition. I didn't sleep any longer. I was maybe even more active being outside. But how can this be and so it makes sense to me that people are feeling this way and just like you said, In the beginning, nature is healing and so I think this encompasses it but yeah, pain for sure. And I mean, I played sports growing up I played soccer and so being outside a lot with for games and getting beat up on and hurt and, you know, clashing up against other girls and that was definitely something I did. And so now it's like, I know that I'm older but I remember playing indoor to outdoor and I did notice a difference that I felt like indoor games were a lot more brutal than outdoor games. And I'm like, hey, maybe it was the grounding that I had no idea what was going on or maybe it was just being outside or who knows. But yeah, you know, it's just really interesting to think about of these things that kind of come full circle later in life that you didn't realize made sense back then or you didn't know what the point of it was. And so that's been kind of cool to learn now as an adult but yeah, I definitely I'm agreeing with a lot of these things like this research and for me, I'm like yep, that I agree with that. That's for me, too.

Toréa Rodriguez 19:32
Yep. Yeah, there's it's so fun to kind of see something that you I guess kind of intuitively knew to be true. And then you see the research that backs it up. It's it's always a victory day for me for that.

Evie Takacs 19:45
Yes.

Toréa Rodriguez 19:46
Immune System markers were improved. So boosting of the immune system. We do know this a lot about nature. This is why a lot of the like, if you can imagine the high end healing clinic in Switzerland where you go to the spa for like a month and they pamper you and you're out in nature a lot, like, there's a lot of evidence to support that the more that we're around nature, the more our immune system can come back online and start to function normally and not be suppressed and reduce cortisol, which is probably the reduction in stress that you feel when you go outside and put your feet in the grass. That's the reduction of cortisol. And we all can be on jacked up levels of cortisol, if we're stressed out, and we're in a meeting and people are arguing or pointing fingers or whatever, you know, that can really elevate your cortisol a really quick way to reset from that kind of incident, is just go outside, put your feet in the grass, it sounds so simple. It's almost unbelievable, because it's so simple.

Evie Takacs 20:46
I know.`I know, I think that's why sometimes people write it off. Because, like, well, that's there's no way like, there's no way that that's gonna cure this. But there's no way that that has that many benefits. And it's like, Well, why not? Right, especially when you look into it, because when I first heard about grounding, and earthing and this was really before I'd gotten into a lot of the more functional medicine, holistic type of living, and I was like, well, that's extremely woowoo. And I'm definitely not going to get into that. And then the more I learned about it, and the science behind it, I said, Well, wait a second, there's actually something to this. And then I started playing around with it more. So again, I would be sitting outside drinking my coffee in the morning on the deck. So instead of sitting on the deck, I'd go stand in the grass. Yeah. And then I just felt like the day went better. And I just felt like I mean, pun intended, I was grounded for the day, I felt really good. And I felt really calm and focused. And I felt like it was a great start to my day. And so then I was like, well, there's like there is something to this, then it's not just this woowoo thing. And I think that's been really cool to see it change. And then now I see my husband doing it right. He'll put his feet in the grass sit on the deck, but put his feet in the deck on the grass. So have a little bit of contact,

Toréa Rodriguez 21:59
whatever works.

Evie Takacs 22:00
Right, right, exactly. So it's just really cool to see other people pick up on it and notice positive changes from it, too.

Toréa Rodriguez 22:06
Yeah, I think there's something to be said about, you know, if it's that simple and that free, how come everybody's not doing it. I think a lot of that is our perceived value out of something. There's a lot of psychological research that's out there that states that the more skin in the game somebody has, the more value they feel out of something. And the free stuff tends to not be perceived as a higher value, it may just be as valuable. Yeah, it's just not perceived as a high value. And so you know, part of that is that bias that we have towards Well, gosh, if it's an expensive, you know, Lamborghini, that is an awesome car. But if it's a Hyundai, eh it's a car, right? They're both great cars that get you where they where you need to go maybe one faster than the other but Right. You know, it's the same thing. It's a vehicle, right? So I think some of that is is there. But I think, you know, it's fun for you and I to highlight what are all these things that we can do for ourself that 100% free, right. But a lot of people are not talking about this, especially in health and wellness. And even in the functional medicine space, like this is something that can help somebody heal, yet. Instead, the typical approach is here's 20 supplements, call me in three months. That's the typical approach. And it's, it breaks my heart because I really think that the folks who have it dialed in, they're the ones talking about this kind of stuff. They're talking about early sunrise in the morning, you know, managing our nervous systems, all of those things. So yeah, little rant there for me. Sorry about that.

Evie Takacs 23:52
No, I think it's important because we, I mean, I fell into the whole thing of I thought that I needed 20 supplements to heal myself and I needed all of this, this big, intense protocol. And when I started working with you as my practitioner, I was almost like, well, like, well, where's the hard stuff? Like why, like, where's all the other stuff like this? Is it like, you want me to look at the sun in the morning? Like, no, like, where are the supplements for this? Because I was so used to that. And so being able to realize that again, it's the simple things. I try and think back to what were our ancestors doing? Right? Were they using devices that were plugged in all the time? No. Were they staying inside all day? Never seen the sun? No, they were outside their skin was touching the earth. They were walking, they were moving? They were exposed to this fresh air they were you know in community with other people. So if we can get back to that, then we're really getting back to how we're meant to live, which ultimately leads to us feeling our best as well.

Toréa Rodriguez 24:54
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you got it. Amen sister like that is absolute it. And the thing about it is that it's, it's not easy. That's the trick, right? If there's any kind of like, Alright, so what's the what's the curveball? It's that it's simple. But the stuff isn't easy. It's, it requires consistency. It requires dedication. It requires tenacity. Like, I get so much pleasure and joy out of seeing some of your Instagram stories. You did your walk this weekend in the snow, like it's not supposed to be snowing, and it's snowing. And you went out anyway. Right? That to me, shows me that you've mastered that habit. And that's what this stuff is all about. Like, here's all the great stuff that we can do. But now the hard part is being able to develop those habits, right. And it's just part of the culture, which is, you know, kind of the next point that I wanted to make about this is that there's an entire Japanese culture, and they call it Shinrin yoku Shinrin yoku is the word for forest bathing. And so the Japanese know that there's this powerful healing, that takes place by intentionally mindfully going out and being observant of the forest and participating in the forest. They call it forest bathing. And, you know, this is where we've learned a lot about how it impacts our immune system. And how it reduces cortisol is through the studies that were developed around this. And if we build a culture around it, which is what you and I are trying to do is build a culture around these things, then we'll be able to bring and incorporate these things back into people's, I guess, awareness field, so that they can be an option for them.

Evie Takacs 26:40
Yeah, absolutely. And I like to think that we're doing that and that we're building a nice community, getting our morning walks together, wearing our blue blockers together, and now we're gonna be grounding together. Yep. So I love to think of, you know, people listening that are doing this stuff. And you know, even though we're not all together in the same area, or anything like that, I do feel like there's this group of us that, you know, we're all just out here trying to optimize our wellness, which is essentially what your know, your main goal is for people. So I like to think we're doing that.

Toréa Rodriguez 27:11
Yeah, absolutely. So if you got inspired by this episode, please tag us in your photos, of your feet on the grass or on the ground, like, let's get a whole bunch of foot pictures going on Instagram, maybe we can get a trending hashtag or something about it. But let's, let's see what we can do. But we'd love to see it. And we'd love to see your feedback. And if you want to know more about how we got here today, right by talking about EMFs and radio frequencies and all those other things. That's over on the Health In Motion podcast. So I'll link to that. And you can check that one out, too. Anything. Any final thoughts?

Evie Takacs 27:47
No, I can't wait to hear how everyone decides to ground especially now that it's getting warmer in most places. So I'm excited to see this.

Toréa Rodriguez 27:53
Yeah. Awesome.

Hey, thanks for joining us for this episode of the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast. If you're ready to dig deeper into your health, stop playing the Whack-a-Symptom game, start testing to get better guidance, you can find more about Toréa at torearodriguez.com and you can find Evie at holisticallyrestored.com. Want a peek into what it's like to work with us? Come join us at our Optimized Wellness Community. You can find the invitation link in the show notes below. And if you have a question for the show, you can submit your question under the podcast section of torearodriguez.com. Finally, if you found something helpful in this episode, don't forget to leave a review, hit that follow button or share it with a friend. They're gonna love that you thought of them. Until next time, see you outside!

Toréa Rodriguez http://www.torearodriguez.com
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