Wednesday, August 10, 2011
A successful former cable executive, Ober had spent much of his early life installing poles, wires and cable boxes. He was well-schooled in electrical equipment and understood electromagnetic field interference. For example, to eliminate TV static and improve reception, he would attach a wire to the TV, run it out a window and attach it to a metal pole in the earth—essentially grounding the equipment.Over 20 years ago, while sitting on a park bench in Arizona, Clint Ober was struck by an interesting thought that led to what he believes is a life-changing discovery about our relationship with mother earth.
Sitting on that bench, after almost dying from liver disease, Ober connected the dots, “It occurred to me rather innocently that all these people—me included—were insulated from the ground, the electrical surface charge of the earth beneath our feet,” Ober wrote later.
Wondering if, like the fuzzy TV, there was a parallel to his own health, Ober went to work to investigate his revelation. He went home and created a simple grounding mechanism by attaching a wire to a grounded metal rod outside his living room window.
With the wire and a voltmeter in hand, he proceeded to walk around his home measuring the voltage on his body. “When I walked toward a lamp, the voltage would go up. When I stepped back, the voltage went down. The only appliances that did not create electromagnetic field (EMF) voltage on my body were the refrigerator and my computer tower. They were grounded,” Ober said. The bedroom was the most ‘electrically active’ area of the apartment. Unbeknownst to him, the bed was up against a wall full of hidden electrical wires.
Speculating that electric fields in his bedroom might be causing his chronic sleep problems, Ober made a sleeping pad out of metalized duct tape and then grounded it outside his bedroom window. When he lay down on the pad, the voltmeter showed that his bed was now equivalent to the ground outside. “I was lying there fooling around with the voltmeter,” Ober says, “and the next thing I knew it was morning. I had fallen asleep with the voltmeter on my chest. I had slept soundly for the first time in years, and I had hardly moved at all during the night.”
After a few nights sleeping on the pad, Ober noticed that his severe back pain had vastly improved. He said his back hadn’t felt that good in years. It was then that he thought he may have made a great discovery.
For several months, Ober made more sleeping pads for some of his friends who also reported benefits. He also spent many hours on the internet and visiting medical libraries trying to dig up anything he could find on grounding and health but came up with only a few stories from Native Americans. He could find no evidence that his grounding pads could be harmful or that anyone had investigated whether our bodies depend on grounding energy to maintain health. One prominent sleep researcher he spoke with laughed him out the door.
With his ideas pooh-poohed by mainstream science, Ober went on to conduct his own experiments. He gathered up 60 volunteers--38 women and 22 men who experienced sleep problems and various forms of joint and muscle pain. He split the volunteers into two groups with 30 sleeping on pads that were grounded, and the other 30 on pads with a hidden disconnect. Only Ober knew who was on which type of pad during the one-month study.
Ober was astonished by the result of the grounded sleepers:
- 85 percent fell asleep sooner
- 93 percent slept better
- 100 percent were more rested upon waking
- 82 percent “experienced significant reduction in muscle stiffness”
- 74 percent “experienced elimination or reduction of chronic back and joint pain”
- 78 percent reported “improved general health.”
- Many participants also reported relief from asthmatic and respiratory conditions, rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension (high blood pressure), sleep apnea, and premenstrual syndrome (PMS). There were also reports of fewer hot flashes.
In 2010, Ober published a book about his grassroots research and discoveries. He also founded the Earthing Institute, a group that is conducting more research based on Ober’s work and practicing “Earthing,” which is physically connecting to the earth and/or using a grounding device.
Interestingly, mainstream science and Ober’s studies may have found common ground. Medical scientists have reached the conclusion that many diseases—from heart disease to diabetes to arthritis—are ultimately signs of chronic inflammation, in which the body’s natural defenses have been turned against itself.
The problem seems to be an overabundance of positively-charged “free radicals.” The solution: provide electrons to neutralize the free radicals and lessen their damage.
Earthing practitioners say those electrons are freely available by taking off your shoes and standing on mother earth. “The land and seas of planet Earth are alive with an endless supply of electrons,” Ober writes. “By making direct contact with the surface of the planet—the skin of our bodies touching the skin of the earth—our conductive bodies naturally equalize with the earth. Figuratively speaking, we refill the electron level in our tank that has become low. Just like standard electronic equipment that needs a stable ground to function well, so, too, the body needs stable grounding to also function well.”
What do you think about the possibility of achieving wellness through grounding? Share your thoughts on the CNCA Facebook page.
To learn more abour electromagnetic frequencies and how they impact our health, see Do EMFs from Cell Phones Cause Cancer?
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