Image by Ben Kerckx 

Keeping your environment as healthy as possible will not only help sustain the Earth, it will also help sustain the health of all liv­ing things that depend on the health benefits the Earth provides.  

Grounding.

Grounding and interacting with nature every day is the best way to revitalize your body. Get outside as often as you can, hiking on dirt trails, swimming in ponds, rivers, lakes, or the salty sea, reading a book as you lean against a tree. Plant a garden and get your hands dirty.

Take a nap on a sandy beach or a grassy knoll. Head to the park for a jog in special grounding shoes. Go off the beaten path and find a rock where you sit and contemplate nature. Bring your yoga practice outside. Join a Tai Chi class on a grassy lawn. Meditate as you sit on the ground.

Walk in the woods with your dog, petting your pooch to get grounded as you go. Breathe fresh air. Disconnect from technology and reconnect with the surface of the Earth and revitalize body and soul. It’s the easiest way to revitalize yourself wherever in the world you are. And best of all, you’ll heal for free.

Fortify your body.

In addition to grounding every day, it is important to fortify your body. Eat an anti-inflammatory diet like the Pan Asian Mod­ified Mediterranean Diet (PAMM), which combines the best foods from the traditional Japanese and Mediterranean cultures, both known for their health and longevity. With the PAMM diet, you can eat moderate amounts of saturated fats from eggs, avocado, and animal protein. Plus, you want to limit (or better yet eliminate) sugar, white flours, and other simple carbohydrates that can lead to inflammation. Instead fill your diet with vegeta­bles, legumes, fresh fruits, lean proteins, cold-water fish such as wild-caught salmon, and olive oil, the secret sauce of a healthful diet.

People who live in the Mediterranean basin, like in Portugal, Spain, and Italy, and who consume extra virgin olive oil on a daily basis lead the world in longevity. The science is simple. Olive oil is rich in polyphenols that support healthy cholesterol dynamics and reduce proinflammatory gene expression. Eating the PAMM way is anti-inflammatory because it limits your body’s insulin response, minimizes harmful free radicals, and gives you lots of fiber to quickly move toxins and food through your digestive tract.

Stay hydrated.

Your body depends on water to survive. Every cell, tissue, and organ in your body needs water to work prop­erly. For example, your body uses water to maintain its tempera­ture, remove waste, and lubricate your joints. Water is needed for overall good health and you should drink a good amount of water every day. Most people have been told they should drink six to eight eight-ounce glasses of water each day. While plain water is best for staying hydrated, other drinks and foods can help, too. Fruit and vegetable juices, milk, and herbal teas add to the amount of water you get each day.

Interestingly, water may be used to ground in the same way the physical Earth is used for grounding. Simply wading in a clear lake or swimming in the ocean is a good way to ground yourself. As always, be sure to stay safe when swimming, especially in murky or deep waters. The ocean is full of dissolved salts and minerals and represents a superb conductive medium for grounding. Similarly, lakes and rivers, while generally containing fewer minerals and salts than the ocean, are still good conductors. If you are near mineral hot springs, take the opportunity to soak in the high mineral and salt content found in them; these are great places to get grounded.

If you have a salt water pool and the water is in contact with a metal drain pipe going into the ground, you’ll be able to ground while swimming. Normal tap water in a pool can also be conduc­tive, but again, it needs to be in contact with a metal fixture going into the ground. If you don’t live near water or it’s too cold to enjoy a swim in a pool, take a bath or a shower, or even hold onto a metal faucet while the water is running. Tap water contains min­erals and salts and is conductive, but it must be running through metal pipes that go into the ground in order to ground you.

Detox.

Hands down, environmental toxicity is one of the big­gest health challenges we face today. Herbicides, BPA, and other chemicals that nature never intended are permeating our food and water supply, our lawns, our personal care products, and our homes. Not to mention the EMFs we discussed earlier. But don’t let this bring you down.

Toxins are natural and foreign substances found in the envi­ronment and are normal byproducts of cell metabolism. Our bod­ies are designed to process and eliminate toxins through healthy organ function and detoxification mechanisms. However, since the Industrial Revolution and the introduction of chemical fer­tilizers and pesticides, the level of toxins present in our air, water, and soil has skyrocketed to unprecedented levels.

Heavy metals such as mercury, pesticides such as DDT, and xenoestrogens such as phthalates found in plastics have infiltrated our environments and, ultimately, our bodies. This massive increase in environmen­tal toxins has put tremendous strain on our cells’ detoxification mechanisms, and consequently, we store the toxins rather than excrete them. Wireless radiation and electromagnetic fields gen­erated from electrical devices are other sources of toxins. These invisible toxins are quite harmful and impossible to completely eliminate, so reducing exposure is important.

In addition to grounding, you can prevent toxins from build­ing up and disrupting physiology through lifestyle modification, exercise, healthy organic foods, and herbal supplements.

The simplest way to start is to do what comes naturally. Breathe. Your lungs are considered one of the largest detox organs. With every inhalation, oxygen enters our lungs, and with every exha­lation carbon dioxide is expelled. Our bodies, on a cellular level, are doing the exact same thing—bringing in nutrients like oxygen and expelling wastes like carbon dioxide.

Taking a few moments out of your day to consciously breathe, especially while sitting on the Earth and grounding, can alleviate stress and help in the detoxification process. Find a quiet space, sit with a straight spine, and breathe in and breathe out slowly through your nostrils. Feel the air entering and exiting your nose, and when thoughts begin to enter, remember to focus on the breath again. Regularly practicing conscious breathing will likely improve all aspects of your health.

With detox, take a double-down approach. Do your best to avoid toxins, and help your body get rid of the ones you are exposed to. Your hard-working body eliminates toxins in four ways: through your GI tract, lungs, urine, and sweat. The less toxic your body is, the easier it is for your detox organs to do their jobs.

One of the best ways to detox is to simply reduce the amount of chemicals you eat and absorb. Choose whole foods, organic is best, whenever you can. Buy cosmetic products that contain fewer chemicals and more natural, organic ingredients. Stay away from pesticides, and don’t use harsh chemical cleaners around your house.

If it’s processed, avoid it—processed foods use chemical preser­vatives. Eat natural, whole foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, unprocessed nuts, seeds, and yogurt. If it’s mass-farmed or GMO, avoid it—the odds are high that herbicides and pesticides were liberally used while it was growing. Stick to small, local farms as much as possible. Buy from farmer’s markets, where you can ask growers how they treat their crops; you’ll have a much better shot of dodging chemicals.

Avoid added sugars, which can cause inflammation through­out your tissues and organs. Inflamed cells are stressed cells—they won’t work nearly as well as healthy cells. Grounding when sup­ported by a nutritional diet does wonders for your health.

Approach your detox as more of a way of life, starting with your daily diet and your exposure to EMFs. Eat lots and lots of fiber-rich foods, especially organic vegetables and fruits. A fiber-rich diet not only speeds up digestion and helps you flush tox­ins from your body, it can help you lose, or maintain, a healthy weight, too—a win-win for health.

Another one of the best ways to detox is through regular exer­cise. Exercising every day will help increase circulation and nutri­ent flow and decrease the toxic load. If you are not keen on going to the gym to exercise, schedule at least a thirty-minute grounding walk each and every day.

Another way to increase circulation is through use of a sauna or, better yet, soak in thermal springs if you can. As mentioned previously, the skin is one of our primary organs of elimination, so using a sauna regularly is a wonderful way to sweat out toxins we accumulate on a daily basis. Start off with a low temperature and duration of exposure, and work your way up to increase sweating. Remember to drink plenty of water with electrolytes before and after the sauna to mobilize toxins and pre­vent dehydration.

Sit in the sun for a few minutes.

Vital for maintaining healthy bones, vitamin D is crucial for calcium absorption, which is why low levels can lead to increased risk of osteoporosis and weak bones. The most natural and efficient way for your body to make vitamin D is via sunshine-on-skin, though taking supplements can help, too.

Prevention packs a powerful punch. Start early to best keep bone loss at bay. The best way to impact your bone health is by getting enough vitamin D. Another smart move? Weight-bearing exercises like walking, jogging, or jumping rope are also bone strengthening and something you can do while grounding!

Take small steps.

Choose achievable goals and set realistic expectations. Be mindful of what’s good for you and the planet. Be always mindful of the carbon footprint you leave behind and take steps to reduce, recycle, and reuse materials when pos­sible.

Just as we avoid artificial barriers when we are grounding, including plastics, rubbers, and other synthetics that insulate us from the natural energy emanating from the Earth, we try to avoid or limit our use of materials that contain Bisphenol A (BPA)—a chemical used to harden plastic. It is found in countless consumer products, including plastic cups, plates, bottles, storage contain­ers, toys, and packaging, to name a few. You simply can’t avoid it completely, but there are steps you can take to protect yourself from the most common causes of BPA exposure.

• Avoid plastics whenever possible.
  
  Just get rid of as much of it as you can—cups, plates, utensils, storage containers, etc. Use glass, stainless steel, ceramic, or porcelain containers to store food. Avoid drinking water bottled in disposable or reusable plastic. Plastics are as terrible for the environment as drinking from them is for you. Reusable glass or unlined food-grade stainless steel water bottles are readily available online and at big-box stores.

• Don’t heat plastics.
  
  This has been shown to degrade the plastic, allowing even more BPA to leech into food. Reheat food the old-fashioned way—on a baking sheet in the oven. You shouldn’t use microwave ovens; in fact, throw them out with your cordless phones because they both can emit harmful radiation. If you do have any plastics, hand wash them instead of putting them in the dishwasher.

• Avoid or limit canned food.
  
  Fresh fruits and veggies should always be your top choice, and frozen is the next best option. For other prepackaged foods, search for those that are sold in glass jars or cardboard brick-shaped cartons. Also, avoid sodas and other canned beverages. They have absolutely no nutritional benefit, and most soda cans have a BPA lining to prevent the beverage from taking on a metallic taste.

Copyright ©2023. All Rights Reserved.
Adapted with permission of the publisher,
Hampton  Roads Publishing Company.

Article Source:

Get Grounded, Get Well: Connect to the Earth to Improve Your Health, Well-Being, and Energy
by Stephen Sinatra, Sharon Whiteley, Step Sinatra

Discover the secret to better health and a better life through grounding. Let nature and Dr. Sinatra be your guide to a happier, healthier life. Recent scientific findings and clinical studies link grounding with relief for a variety of health issues: Heart disease, Sleep disorders, Inflammatory conditions, Depression & anxiety, Attention disorders.
 
Grounding, the simple act of connecting to the always abundant, nourishing energy of the earth’s surface, has been scientifically and medically proven through numerous studies to have significant positive effects on our physiology. 

Click here for more info and/or to order this paperback book. Also available as an Audiobook and a Kindle edition.

About the Author

Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D., F.A.C.C., is a board-certified cardiologist and certified psychotherapist with forty years of clinical experience treating, preventing and reversing heart disease. He is also certified in anti-aging medicine and nutrition.

In his practice, Dr. Sinatra’s focus has been integrating conventional medical treatments for heart disease with complementary nutritional, anti-aging, and psychological therapies to counteract the inflammation and plaque processes that cause heart attacks and strokes. He is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, and a former chief of cardiology and medical education at Manchester (Connecticut) Memorial Hospital.

More Books by the author.