Last week I wrote an article for you outlining how stress and trauma increases your risk for heart disease, but that this increased risk was reversible. This week, let me give you one of the best tools I know for supporting heart health — that is through grounding.
Our hearts emit the strongest electromagnetic field of our entire body… thousands of times stronger than the electromagnetic field of our brains! The human heart’s electromagnetic field is measured at about 100,000 times stronger electrically (and 5,000 times stronger magnetically) than the human brain.
This electomagnetic frequency that pulses out from your heart center is 100% in sync with and resonant with the Earth’s Heartbeat, the Schumann Frequency, and this is no coincidence, this is our natural design. In the video below, I give you a very quick review of the medical literature that suggests exactly how connecting to the earth — and getting our heartbeat resonant with the earth’s heartbeat — supports our cardiovascular function.
From increasing our heart rate variability (the key to the health and resiliency of your heart function) to increasing the circulatory perfusion of our capillaries (the key to getting oxygen and nutrients to all the organs in your body) to decreasing our risk of blood clots (which reduces our risk of heart attack and stroke,) the earth is essential to keeping your cardiovascular system functioning well.
Just click on the video below (newsletter subscribers that don’t see the video embedded below can click here to watch this video on YouTube) and in less than 3 minutes I will walk you through the science behind this healing support:
Below, I walk you through the studies I mention in this video and give you links so that you can read them yourself. The four major ways grounding supports your cardiovascular system are:
1. Boosted Circulation
The first study I want to tell you about was a double-blinded, placebo-controlled study of 40 patients. All study participants had grounding electrodes connected to their feet, and while half of them were properly grounded for one hour, the other half were sham-grounded for one hour, with a cord that was not actually grounded. The blood flow through the study participants’ facial skin capillaries was imaged continuously, in real time, for the entire hour.
Within minutes, 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 grounded 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 — which you can watch right here on YouTube. In this film, you can see first hand how a patient’s blood flow in the back of their eye changes dramatically after grounding through the bottom of the foot, just like the patients in the study above.
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. v The patient in this film had macular degenerative disease in the back of his eye, which is a disease that is usually irreversible, yet with grounding 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 while the patient was grounded, rendering the physician almost speechless. This response — of increased blood flow through capillaries while grounding — confirms the result of the original study in skin tissue and verifies that the same benefits of increased blood flow are found throughout the body, not just in the skin.
2. Decreased Blood Viscosity
In this double-blinded, placebo-controlled study, researchers studied 28 participants who performed strenuous yoga exercises for an hour straight — half were grounded through a grounded yoga mat and half were sham-grounded through non-grounded yoga mats. Participants did not know which yoga mats were grounded and which were not. During the study, they cycled through a series of 10 strenuous yoga exercises over and over again, while their blood viscosity was measured.
Researchers found that the viscosity (the thickness) of the blood was decreased, so the blood actually ran more smoothly through their body and to their muscles while in use. 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. (For more on how grounding supports muscle function, read this blog post. )
3. Improved Heart Rate Variability
Heart rate variability (HRV) is one of the most important indicators 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, being receptive, responsive, tuned into your autonomic nervous system… 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 to and adapt to your environment.
Instead, a low HRV means your heart is in robotic survival mode and this 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.
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, including HRV for these neonatal infants, confirming the results found in the original study.
4. Less Red Blood Cell Clumping
The red blood cells that are in your blood have a connection and a responsiveness to being grounded that is awesome. It’s amazing to see how one system can be impacted by grounding, improved 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. 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, both before and after grounding them for two hours. Ungrounded, the zeta potential of red blood cells was higher, making red blood cells more likely to clump together. After two hours of grounding the zeta potential significantly 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 this naturally… allowing blood to flow more smoothly, red blood cells to have a decreased zeta potential, heart rate variability to be enhanced, and the flow through the entire vasculature system to be boosted.
Want to read more grounding medical studies?
I’ve got an entire resource page for you right here that lists all the latest medical research on grounding as well as tons of free articles and videos I’ve created for you to help you understand what the studies are showing as well as actionable tips to incorporate grounding into your own life:
Want to bring grounding into your daily life?
It’s way easier than you think, even if you live in a city, have no yard, live where there are tons of outdoor pests, where the weather is super cold, or even where it is super hot.
I highly recommend you start by simply reading a book I wrote for you on the immense health benefits of grounding and hundreds of ideas to get grounded outside no matter what the season or where you live:
Order Signed Books Here
Order On Amazon Here
Order On Barnes & Noble Here
Order On Indiebound Here
Want to ground indoors?
You absolutely can, but be sure to choose eco-friendly, ethically hand crafted, made-in-the-USA grounding tools that are non-toxic and biodegradable.
I highly recommend against using synthetic, non-breathable, vinyl “leatherette” grounding tools that are mass factory produced overseas and definitely not comfortable for your skin. Plus, these plastic products will sit in a landfill for over 500 years… not a great way to thank our planet when we are reaching out to it to support our health.
I won’t carry those on my website, instead I recommend eco-friendly, environmentally conscious materials like hemp and organic cotton, and superior quality conductive elements like stainless steel. This creates the longest lasting, most eco-friendly and non-toxic grounding tools on the planet, which are shipped with non-toxic, biodegradable packaging. Healthy for you, healthy for the earth!
You can find these organic, eco-ethically crafted grounding tools right here:
To your natural, resilient, rebounding and adaptable health, and to the earth we all live on. It’s a very beautiful healing relationship, and falling in love with our planet will not only change how you care for the world around you, but it will also directly boost your own health in the process.
xoxox, Laura
