Grounding To Support Your Heart Health

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If the heartbeat of the earth resonates powerfully with your brain (as we talked about last week)

…imagine what the heartbeat of the earth does for your own heart!

 

 

Your cardiovascular system is entirely electrically based, driven by the electrical impulse of the heartbeat which in turn drives the circulation through your body.This relationship has been extensively studied for the effects of grounding.

The first study I want to tell you about was a double-blinded, placebo-controlled study of 40 patients.

They had electrodes connected to their feet, and half of them were grounded for one hour (the other half were sham-grounded for one hour) and the blood flow through their facial skin capillaries was imaged in real time.

 

 

 

 

Even though the grounding patches were on their feet, all the grounded patients had significantly increased capillary blood flow in their facial skin.  And the patients who were ungrounded had no change in their facial blood flow.

This is a real, nearly instantaneous physiologic change in the circulatory system all the way up from the foot to the face. This has ramifications for the beauty industry and the anti-aging industry, since enhanced blood flow through the skin in your face (and all over your body for that matter) helps stimulate fresh skin tissue and reverse signs of aging from the damage of toxins, additives, preservatives, makeups, environmental exposures, etc… that you are routinely exposed to day in and day out.

 

 

 

 

If you want to see the enhanced blood flow for yourself, I highly recommend that you watch the film “Heal For Free.”

Heal For Free is an incredible film, and shows first hand how a patient’s blood flow in the back of the eye changes dramatically after grounding through the bottom of the foot.

This is a really beautiful way to capture what’s happening in the capillaries because the blood flow in the back of the retina looks very similar under the imaging study as it does in your skin, and all through every organ in your body.

This patient had macular degenerative disease in the back of his eye, a disease that is usually irreversible, yet there was a significantly enhanced blood flow even to the damaged macula of his eye.

The retinal specialist was in shock, never having seen an increase in blood flow through the retina once the blood flow had decreased… yet he was able to see significant improvement to the macula and was rendered almost speechless.

 

 

 

 

Grounding increases circulation, enhancing blood flow to organs throughout your entire body.

We touched on the increased blood flow through the skin and through the retina due to grounding, so now let’s talk about a study showing increased blood flow through the muscles.

In a double-blinded, placebo-controlled study, researchers studied 28 participants who performed strenuous yoga exercises for an hour straight, and half were grounded and half were not. They cycled through a series of 10 strenuous yoga exercises over and over again, while their blood viscosity was measured.

The study wanted to determine if there was improved blood flow to the muscles during use, and it turns out there is, which helps explain why muscles have less damage and are less sore after strain as we discussed two weeks ago in this blog post.

 

 

 

 

The viscosity (the thickness) of the blood was decreased, so the blood actually ran more smoothly through their muscles.

And not only did it run more smoothly through their muscles while their muscles were actively engaged and strenuously working hard, the blood flow was enhanced both systolically and diastolically. That means when the heart was squeezing, the blood flow was enhanced and also when it was at rest between beats, the blood flow was still enhanced.

Decreasing blood viscosity right when you’re exercising, right when you need it, right when your muscles are contracting, speeds healing and repair and buffers any strain that’s being imposed on your muscles as you’re actively using them.

So not only does grounding open the capillaries and allow for more blood flow, it decreases blood viscosity to allow it to flow more smoothly and thus decrease the chance of blood clots.

 

 

And even more importantly, grounding has a direct effect on your actual heart itself.

Heart rate variability (HRV) is an indicator of heart health.

HRV measures the variability between your heart beats and an increased HRV is a fantastic indicator that your heart is healthy and is functioning well, it’s receptive, responsive, tuned into your autonomic nervous system, tangibly taking in information about the environment and the stressors that you’re under and responding directly to them.

There’s an innate connection and inter-responsiveness between your heart rate and your environment. This beautiful measurement in the rhythm and variation of your heart beat gives it a chance to respond to how much oxygen you need at any given moment, how much blood flow you need in your muscles or organs at any given moment.

When the HRV decreases (as it does during times of stress, after trauma, after a heart attack, after a heart transplant, in premature infants, in PTSD patients and much more) the heart reverts to a robotic beat with less variation. It’s no longer in a relaxed, flexible state where you can change and respond and adapt to your environment.

Instead, a low HRV means your heart is in robotic survival mode and that actually has been shown to decrease lifespan. It’s an indication of an increased mortality rate and heart failure risk, so physicians look at the HRV (particularly after a heart attack, heart transplant and premature birth) because it predicts the risk of death.

They also look at the HRV to predict a positive outcome as well, for example, there is a better prognosis in cancer patients with an increased HRV. So a higher HRV enhances long term survivability, enhances recovery from major diseases, predicts a longer lifespan and decreases stress and wear and tear on the heart.

 

 

 

The best news of all?  Grounding directly increases your HRV.

In the yoga grounding study mentioned above, participants who were grounded for 40 minutes during strenuous yoga exercises universally had their HRV increased, but the moment they stopped grounding, their HRV went back to baseline. This was statistically significant with every single patient, so when they were grounded, their HRV was enhanced, and when they were ungrounded, it wasn’t.

Researchers followed that study with an even more recent study on the HRV in some of the most vulnerable human beings of all — premature infants in NICU incubators. And here too, grounding boosted markers of survival for these neonatal infants.

 

 

 

 

The last pieces of the puzzle to talk about is the blood itself.  The red blood cells that are in your blood have a connection and a responsiveness to being grounded and it’s just awesome.

It’s amazing to see how one system can be impacted by grounding, not just in one way but in multiple ways… the heart works better, the blood vessels deliver blood more easily, the viscosity of the blood goes down so it flows more freely, and now studies tell us that the red blood cells themselves are less likely to clot, and here’s why:

The zeta potential represents the electrical potential on the outer membrane of your red blood cells. The more negative the zeta potential is, the more likely your blood cells are to flow smoothly. When the zeta potential increases, your blood cells are more likely to clot, clump together and aggregate, increasing the risk for stroke, heart attack and other clotting diseases.

So researchers measured the zeta potential of 10 patients, before and after grounding them for two hours. Ungrounded, the zeta potential of red blood cells increased, making it much more likely to clump and move slowly but after two hours of grounding the zeta potential decreased, allowing the red blood cells to flow freely and decrease the risk of clotting.

That’s really the goal of aspirin therapy, which more than one-third of all adults (and four out of five patients with heart disease) routinely take to reduce the risk of clots.

Grounding does that naturally… and it does it for free… and without the gastrointestinal irritation!It’s just natural for your blood to flow more smoothly, for your red blood cells not to aggregate and stick together and not to clot as much, for your HRV to be enhanced, and for the flow through your entire vasculature system to be open and free.

 

 

 

 

So today, enjoy going outside and touching the earth to support not only your heart health but your blood flow throughout your entire body…

…and then meet me back here next week where I will tell you all about the awesome boost grounding gives to your metabolism!

xoxox, Laura