Your grandmother was so right! I was always put to bed quite early as a child and could hear the other children playing outside on warm, light summer evenings; have always attributed much of my lifelong insomnia to early bedtimes! I shall try to follow her barefoot example, too (weather permitting).

I must say, never heard of the Zwitterion effect before.

The explanation you offer seems plausible and am wondering if Martin Zucker might have a view.

Perhaps send him and email here info@earthinginstitute.net and see what comes back.

Something has been bothering me about this Earthing thing.

Looking at matters from a systems analysis kinda perspective I began to wonder about how we get depleted of free electrons or how we build up positive charge. The authors suggest it is induced, in a way, by the gradient in the global electrical circuit, and I should think that is correct. However.

Since life is radical chemistry, ie. highly ionised or based deeply upon ion exchanges, it dawned on me very slowly that we could be losing ions in some way. Leading suspects could involve one of several of these: excretia, urine, or exhaled breath condensates (EBCs).

I am not so familiar with chemistry, or biochemistry, to be certain, but since a paper speaks of a rise in the basicity of EBCs during exertion then a rise in hydroxide ionisation (OH-) is intimated, perhaps. Exercise and exertion raise the pH of the exhaled breath and its condensates it would seem. Not fully conclusive yet, but it would make sense I’ve -ve ions were sacrificed as an accompaniment to breathing because of the balance of H+ transport in the blood.

In the absence of free electrons our body and physiology would trend to lower pH, notwithstanding I haven’t the faintest idea of what I am talking about, but the attributes of amino acids and proteins may conform to the Zwitterion effect, where they tend to be cationic (in acid) and anionic (in base). Presumably, a swing in pH, as a result of free electron deficiency, could alter behavioural aspects of, or outcomes stemming from, anything involving a zwitterion?

Bless ‘Biochemistry for Dummies’ (Moore and Langley) cos if I figured it right the book deserves the claim in title !

What do you think?

We – as a species – were never meant to wear shoes. Indeed, I have read some articles championing running barefoot, and I know Eddie Izzard has been practising this over the last couple of years (often via the Thames Path in London).

I myself hear the call of the sea, and while I have no desire to swim in it, whenever I am visiting a coastal area I MUST go stand on the shore, at the sea edge or paddling ankle-deep. I try to get a good 10 minutes at least of this, usually gazing out across the water, taking in the view, the smell, the feeling of being *connected*, the spray on my face, and YES I can feel my battery recharging: this is something I have always said!

I will have to do some reading :o)

I take your point regarding resistance. I’d need to see experiments of that aspect in particular and a detailed analysis of it to credit it.

The studies that have been done so far on this haven’t been great, I think, and they’ve been few. If this is really the best thing going in medicine/health as the promoters think, I hope they remedy this.

Especially if they’re selling products related to that.

When I first experimented with earthing it was in relations to a troublesome strain of the right elbow. i stripped a length of single core copper wire and rigged a length of flex, small croc clip, and aregular three pin plug so i could coil the copper wire around the elbow while sleeping. it helped a lot.

The 1 megaohm resistance in standard ESD wristbands is there to limit the flow of current. its a trckle charge (or more correctlly ‘discharge’) that is desired. I suspect the steady discharge ad rebalancing is healthy and adaptive, whereas a rapid rebalancing wouldn’t be because the current could be high wheareas in an entirely natural setting it would always be low.

It can be a bit tricky to gets ones head around. Its the deficit oif electrons (net positive charge in the body) that encouarges the flow of free electrons into the body, but once the demand is satisfied the rate of flow of free electrons into the body would be slow.

I suspect, but have’t yet established, that we lose -ve ions via ionised carbon dioxide exhaled in th respiratory cycle. it is acknowledged that blue sky days result in more highly ionised oxygen for us to breath and the -vely ionised O2 helps the transport of O2 in the blodd and invogoartes body and mind aiding ‘blue-sky thinking’. It seems queer that respiration could take in healthy and vitalising -ve ions and yet also be the pathway via which the could be a lsoo of -ve ions, yet Martin Zuker and his chums reckon were are depeleted of free electrons (ions). There has to be a way via which the loss and deficit arises, and intuition makes me question respiration.

We do not have to be grounded, btw, a source of free electrons as if from the -ve terminal of any battery is good, but the earths potential has its own cycles, and ‘ground’ will signal those cycles.

Earthing may be anti-nflammatort and vitalising in the absence of the 1 megaohm resitor, but it is probably expedient and sensible to keep the currents low, and so the resistor is the safest bet.

The simple ESD wristband makes a good footstrap. Allied to a coily cord and a bonding plug a wristband used as a footstrap is the most cost effective way of sleeping grounded at night.

If I rigged a battery (AAA 1.5V) to a wristband (conatct to -ve only) and I wore that while cycling or walking I’d be interested to monitor, with a multimeter, how long it would take for the battery to discahrge from the -ve terminal only. I had to think hard and slow, but I figure it would dishrge to 0.75V and no less. Whereas a battery used to drive a lamp could discharge to zero volts.

Evolutionary biologists have trended to pin-point the origins of live to around 3.9 billion years. They are also quite convinced live began in proximity to deep ocean vents. The temperatures in such places could be turbulent, there could be a clash of alkalinity and acidity, with gases bubbling through, and the medium in which all this happened was, and remains a striking electrolyte. Something these people agree on is that the distinction between life, and the non-living involves proton gradients, which arise because electrons have become electrons have become ‘unpaired’.

We can readily see the global water cycle is a requisite for life, but the water cycle also results in the global electrical circuit, and quite undeniable there is 3.9 billion years of provenance of life residing upon the negative terminal of a giant battery.

Life is as bio-electrical as it is complex biochemistry. Life is radical chemistry.

The mistake you are making is confusing the whole and parts.

Electrons move kind of fast but only in good conductors, and they don’t move at all in the most resistant of insulators. But they move kind of slower in semi-conductors.

If you touch ground for 2 seconds you may balance a local and external charge for your fingers, your hand, of aspects of the body, but there remain balances and tiny electrical charges within the workings of cells and physiology that will be unaffected by such short correction to the levels ‘isolation’ only the human has achieved. Sure a short touch of ground may discharge some ‘static’, but it will not be long enough to address levels of latency, capacitance, or semi-conductivity that resides within.

We knew long a go that a current could cause a frogs leg to twitch, and we’ve known the nervous system and brain involves a lot of detectable electrical activity, how can it be so difficult to entertain that life requires frequent grounding, but in the rush to modernity we just didn’t notice?

Along the way to becoming diabetic, or developing cancer, or developing MS no one feels any different. They merely feel different once the symptoms arise.

There are people whose experience of earthing won’t have them feel much different, but they will be addressing the oxidative stress, inflammation, and physiological duress that associate with the pathway to developing the kind of chronic disease we rarely notice developing.

My heart goes out to ‘Sharon’, and her family. The interval between receiving a diagnosis of MS and her passing was no more than three years. She was the kindest, warmest, most ordinary and likeable person a person could meet, and in the face of an explanation she may not have understood earthing either.

OK, she’s not making a point about electricity, and in fact she’s making one about respecting kids, but aside from that, the photo is awesome and does show grounding with the Earth. I feel being in touch with the Earth can have wonderful psychological side effects.

Plus probably other physical ones through the molecules in the air, etc.

the orgone energy accumulator