Grounded

This post is just my experience, so take it for what it's worth, but I thought it worthwhile to share.

A couple months ago I came across something I hadn't heard of before: Grounding. Also called earthing. Just me being curious, I read about it (or maybe it was a video). I was very skeptical and didn't think much more on it. Then of course, due to the "magic" of the internet, my facebook feed and news article feeds with google were filled with grounding testimonials and products for sale. I looked into it a little more. Interested in the claims of better sleep and less pain. Grounding reduces inflammation in the body, which is the cause of most health issues.

I won't go into the science of it - I can't explain it, LOL, and it sounds hokey anyway. (look it up) But, the gist is the earth/ground has properties to react with our skin/bodies, but it has be be direct contact. Not with shoes (which now most everyone wears rubber soled shoes), but with bare feet/skin. Well, I can't go try to stand outside on the grass for a half hour a day - it's 30 degrees and there was snow.

I kept reading all the reviews and comments and it was one after the other of how it works and has helped with sleep and pain. Not reviews on websites, where those can be faked, but real people with real Facebook profiles commenting. Hundreds of them, even a couple thousand of them. It was piquing my interest. I watched some more videos and went to earthing.com to look at the products. This was just before Christmas and the "mat" was for $49. I figured let's order it and give it a try. If it's a total hoax, I am only out $50.

While I usually sleep pretty well, I do experience many aches and pains, especially while sleeping. I tend to sleep on my right side, facing the edge of the bed.

I have (for years) always pretty much experienced my right leg aching halfway through the night/early morning hours. Likely from laying on that side for too long of period and my other leg laying on top of the leg, creating pressure. I then turn over to relieve it, but it will take a long time to stop aching. Around November my right shoulder started hurting me. It was hurting every day, anytime I'd use my arm in certain motions, like stirring a pot of soup. Not to mention my back and neck always hurting some, off an on (from the car accident years ago). My other issue, the past several months (or longer with my right foot) is my feet hurting when I first get up in the morning, the first several steps. Then they feel ok the rest of the day. (I'm assuming plantar fasciitis. It's been my right foot for a year or two, but the past several months also my left foot started doing it, as well. The other issue I have had for at least a year or more, is when I am sitting in my recliner in the evenings, every time I go to get up out of it, my back is a bit stuck in the bent position and it's painful to get straightened back up. Every time.

The grounding mat came Monday Jan 8th. I plugged it in to try on my bed, under my cotton fitted sheet (apparently it will work ok through thin cotton). It also needs to be to skin, not through clothes. I sleep with bare legs and feet, so no problem there. There is nothing you can really feel while touching it. I put it down where my feet and lower legs would contact it, during the night. I would say, just before I fell asleep, that first night, I felt just a bit like a very light vibration going through my body, but I certainly could have imagined it. Later I read that this is common feeling when you first use it, as your body is adjusting to it.

Then during this first night of trying it was when I got the call at 3:50am that my mom had passed, so this mat and it's effects were the last thing on my mind for a few days.

The first thing I noticed the next evening, though,when getting up from the recliner, was that there was no pain! It must just be a fluke. Or maybe there are some times I get up and no pain and just don't remember (no, there was always stiffness and pain).  Sometime during the 2nd or the 3rd night I must have kicked off where the cord snaps into the top of the mat, so it wasn't plugged in for a night or two, and I didn't realize it.

I then took it up to my desk, to try under bare feet, while sitting at my desk. I'm not sure this was too helpful, as I apparently don't sit very still! I also tend to sit with my feet back towards the rolling base of my chair, kind of on my toes. Plus I am up and down out of my chair a lot. And my feet got cold. I tried this for several days, but wasn't feeling anything noticeable in regards to my aches and pains. Plus, I wasn't working the rest of that week, due to taking time off for my mom's death, so I wasn't at my desk for long periods.  I then read a Facebook comment saying to give it a couple of weeks. I then decided to try on my bed again and turned it sideways under my bottom sheet, so that where the cord snaps into the mat was hanging over the side of the mattress and no chance of kicking it off. 

That next morning (or maybe it was the morning after) I realized that I slept all through the night with no pain in my right leg, as I get every night. Then the next night I had no leg pain. I have not had leg pain during the night since (and have been sleeping more on my right side, since I don't wake up in pain and need to turn over or stretch my leg out). A couple days later I realized my right shoulder wasn't hurting much anymore either. Maybe just a very slight ache, some days.

The weekend before last, I got up and my right foot was hardly any pain, though my left foot was still about the same. A couple/few more nights and my right foot is still pretty much pain free and my left foot pain has subsided quite a bit. 

Another surprising pain gone is I can now sleep on my stomach again, with no neck nerve pinching. I have always been a stomach sleeper, that is until my car accident. I can rarely sleep on my stomach for the past 14 years, because turning my head to either side that far always pinches a nerve. I can now sleep on my stomach if I want to. Amazing.

The last difference I have noticed, just in the past couple of weeks is I now have vivid dreams that I am remembering every morning when I wake up. I hardly ever remember my dreams. After I started experiencing this, I also came across a few other users comments that said the same thing.

I am now 100% convinced this works. To be able to sleep with no aches and pains is amazing. I definitely want dh to try it out to see if it helps him. He has so much trouble sleeping and so much pain going on. There are different products, but I'm thinking I might try the bigger sized sheet mat, that can go across the width of the mattress.