Get Grounded: Earthing for Allergy Relief

Ah, Springtime in the Willamette Valley. Flowers and trees are budding, the sun is shining, the skies are blue, beauty abounds in ample measure. So, why do we still feel kinda crappy? Stuffy head, runny nose, itchy eyes, sore throat, achy joints, the whole gamut of inflammatory symptoms. This is one of the perks of living a place that the indigenous peoples allegedly referred to as the “Valley of Death”, the geology and ecosystem here lends to some of the worst allergies on the planet. 

Herbs and supplements can be helpful in maintaining a healthy immune system, which this time of year can be a bit overactive in the case of allergies. Locally-sourced bee pollen taken regularly will introduce your body to the irritants it might otherwise overreact to causing the aforementioned symptoms. We sell some in the apothecary here at the shop, and therapy professionals get a discount for shopping with us! Try adding it to smoothies or salads.

Mentha piperita - peppermint

Urtica dioica - stinging nettle

As the temperatures rise, cooling anti-inflammatory herbs are also potent allies to help tonify. Fresh, in-season herbs are all around us. Nettles, mints (peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm), violets and more have awoken from their winter slumber and are ready to help ease us into the new season as teas, infused into vinegars, and as tasty additions to salads or pesto. (Be sure to blanch your nettles first to remove those stingers!)

This allergy season, I’m trying something new to help lessen my inflammatory responses. I must admit, I'm pretty biased toward plant medicine and bodywork when it comes toward fixing my ails.

However, after watching the documentary “The Grounded” by National Geographic wildlife photographer Steve Kroschel, I decided to try Earthing. Below is a short video explaining how Earthing works and its benefits.

Curious about the patent Dr. Christie Weston mentions in the video, I did some research and this is what I found:

“A personal grounding device is used to ground a human being and provides a human being a device to directly and naturally equalize one's body to the same energy level, or potential, as the Earth. This equalization results in synchronizing the person's internal biological clocks, hormonal cycles, and physiological rhythms and in supplying the body with healing and free, positively charged electrons (called free radicals). These are abundantly present on the surface of the Earth. Electrically speaking free radicals have a positive charge. The grounding directly equalizes the body of the person to the same energy level, or potential (zero), as the Earth.”

(source: https://www.google.com/patents/US2013003312)

Hmm, pretty intriguing stuff.

Wanting to incorporate Earthing into my daily routine, I did some more research and found a plethora of products designed to keep one in contact with the earth’s energy as much as possible. Of course, walking around barefoot is free, however that is just not something I can easily incorporate into my lifestyle. Wearing leather soled shoes (like moccasins) is reasonable in dryer weather, but in the rainy pacific northwest springtime that practice is not sustainable for me.  After searching around a bit, I found this solution: www.earthrunners.com

“The Earthing Shoes DIY (Do It Yourself) Kit comes with everything you need to turn your existing minimalist shoes into grounded footwear. With this easy to install kit and a hammer, anyone can transform their existing thin soled shoes (½” thick or less) into conductive footwear--to utilize the health promoting benefits of connecting with the Earth!”

Wearing conductive shoes is a good first step, but I realize that unfortunately in my urban lifestyle most of the time my feet are not in contact with bare earth and instead come in contact with concrete and asphalt, which are insulators. My acupuncturist recommended that I purchase some sort of grounding mechanism to use during sleep. After discovering that the electrical system in my house is not grounded, I decided to invest in a ground rod to stick in the earth outside my bedroom window, and a body band kit from www.earthing.com to place on my ankle at bedtime. That way, I’ll be connecting to earth’s energy as I sleep. We'll see how it goes!

Have any of our readers tried Earthing before? Did you find it had noticeable effects? Leave a comment below!

Thanks for reading,

~Violet