Is Vitamin G a B load? Undermining the ‘grounding’ process

After a long day, there is no doubt that walking in nature or sitting in a park can restore.

But according to the proponents of “grounding”, it’s not the environment that makes you feel better, but the moment away from the Earth instead.

Also known as “earthing”, the grounding is a growing practice that suggests placing your feet on the ground to balance your electrical charge, helping to heal inflammation, emotional problems and more. many.

But is there any science to back this up?

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Norman Swan recently called the procedure a “complete bloodbath” and the health claims “absurd” on ABC Radio National’s What’s That Rash?

Downsizing is a term used by scientists – not in the sense of balancing health.

According to Karen Livesey, a physicist at the University of Newcastle, “grounding” has long been used as a physics term, where it refers to the process of removing the build-up of a large amount of positive or negative charge.

But lack of foundation will not make a person sick.

“The fact that we’ve been building rates for thousands of years throughout human history seems to indicate that they’re not going to be harmful to us,” Dr Livesey said.

Grounding requires a conductor

Most people will experience static electricity, which occurs when negative or positive charges increase on your skin.

This is a pretty regular phenomenon, and it happens because of the collision of two objects sliding against each other, one object gains electrons and the other loses them. This creates one thing that is both slightly good and slightly bad.

Walking on carpets, playing with balloons or sliding down playground slides can result in these charges, which can sometimes make your hair stand on end.

We have known about static electricity since at least ancient Greece.

Dr Livesey said: “They didn’t have balloons then.

“They had rabbit fur and amber sticks, and they knew they could put them together and create this steady magic electricity to please three-year-olds.”

But these exorbitant rates don’t last forever.

These extra electrons try to get away from each other by spreading as much as possible, ending up in your hair, which makes it stop.

And sometimes it will come out of you when you touch the conductor, which can be anything from a piece of metal to an unconscious friend. This is what physicists mean when they talk about creating a foundation.

But it is not only metal or other materials that can act as a conductor. The world itself does this.

“The Earth has an overall negative electric charge … and because the Earth’s atmosphere is generally supposed to be neutral, that means there are positive electric charges in the atmosphere,” Dr Livesey said.

“When we touch the Earth, there will be a transfer of electrons so that we have the same electric potential.”

What about the layout?

For the supporters of the foundation, it is the Earth’s ability to remove extra electrons – which they call “vitamin G” – which is said to produce the positive results of this method.

While getting outside and spending time in nature has been linked to mental health benefits, the idea that chronic illness can be caused by an electrical imbalance between us and the Earth “doesn’t make sense.” “, Dr Swan said.

Foundation practitioners believe that you can reap the benefits internally by using many different products, including what is known as a floor mat.

These are plastic mats that plug into the electrical outlet, but they only plug into the third, bottom hole.

In the house, that hole at the bottom of the electrical outlet does not supply electricity, but instead connects to Earth to protect against electrical problems.

But Dr Livesey says the habit of getting off the floor – using a mat or whatever – is unlikely to have any health benefits at all.

“From a physics point of view, there is no process that I can think of where the balance or lack of electrons on our bodies can affect our lives,” he said.

“There are 10 octillion [a 1 with 28 zeros after it] electrons in our body. Being short by a few electrons – compared to the charge of the Earth – is not very easy to change the way our body uses electricity to work. “

Electricity bills are naturally present as well

Nature has been working with positive and negative charges long before humans invented a way to make it powerful in our modern lives.

The interaction between bees and flowers is another example.

Flowers, which are part of the Earth, are slightly negative, while flying bees produce a positive charge.

Bees can sense the electric field of a flower, and it is this static electricity that causes the bees to end up covered in pollen.

When the bee visits the next flower, the packed pollen is returned to the plant.

“A flower is a little lightning rod,” said Dr. Livesey.

“[Bees] in fact they have to fly a long time to recover their fee so that they can go and admire the flower again.”

Electrical charges also play an important role in the human body.

“How our cells communicate, have immune responses, how neurons fire in the brain, is by sending electrical impulses,” said Dr Livesey.

Positive elements or “ions” such as potassium and sodium, as well as negative ones such as chloride, exist in different groups inside and outside the cell.

As the cell performs various functions, these ions switch positions, allowing nutrients to flow in and out, helping to move and control the size of the cell.

Although Dr Livesey said that it takes more than stable electricity to unbalance this system, there are certain diseases and toxins that can.

Epilepsy is caused by excessive bursts of electrical activity in the brain, and spider and snake venom can disrupt the movement of electrical charges, which can damage or kill nerves.

Listen to Dr Norman Swan and Tegan Taylor explain why scientific theories about fundamentals are so difficult to explain in What’s That Rash? Yes subscribe to the podcast for others.