“At the most basic physics level, a fifth-grader should be able to debunk this,” says Dr. Steven Novella, a neurologist at the Yale School of Medicine and editor of the website Science-Based Medicine.
Like many adopters of earthing—sometimes dubbed “earthers”—who hope the practice will relieve chronic pain, Meyer hoped her husband would find some relief from rheumatoid arthritis when she tried grounding a bed.
She laid out a grid of the tin tape on the mattress pad, popped out her bedroom window screen to run the wire through it, hammered the copper rod into the ground outside and attached the stripped wire to the clamp.
“It’s a little crazy. I was curious what my neighbors might think if they see us out there pounding a hole into the ground,” says Meyer, 35, a stay-at-home mom in Cottage Grove, Minn. “I just kept telling myself, if it works, great, and if it doesn’t, we tried.”
Grounding the bed didn’t dissipate her husband’s pain, she says, but they both generally slept better despite some poking and prodding from the metallic tape. Eventually, she ordered two earthing mats from Amazon to replace the homespun system.
Many earthers concede the placebo effect could be at play in health improvements they experience. Stress reduction as a result of spending more time away from screens, or meditating, as some earthers do outside or on earthing mats, can have benefits, doctors say.
And connection to nature likely accounts for some benefits people say they experience after earthing outdoors, says Dr. Brent Bauer, who directs Mayo Clinic’s Complementary and Integrative Medicine Program.
Despite a lack of solid scientific evidence, even skeptics largely concede: What is the risk in trying?
(Not zero. Websites that sell grounding products that plug into wall outlets warn users to disconnect their devices during lightning and thunderstorms to protect against electrical surges.)
“I was just like, these are trees. What are they going to do?” Bhatti, the New York City-based model, wondered before she tried earthing the first time. For outdoor earthing, she sits under trees barefoot.
She started taking the train upstate for monthly nature getaways during the pandemic. On one trip, she kicked off her shoes, sat on the ground, and immediately felt calmer.
“I just thought, OK, if this is hippie-dippie, if this is weird, it’s free and I’m not hurting anyone,” she says.
Not everybody earths unscathed.
Thomas Ichim, 47, chief executive of a psychiatry biotechnology company in San Diego, Calif., walks 10,000 barefoot steps almost every day as part of his earthing routine. He has built up some calluses—but they weren’t enough to protect him one day last month. About halfway through, just as he started to feel the earthing “energy,” he says, he stepped on a bee. “I said a couple of bad words to myself.”
Despite the sting, Ichim is still walking barefoot most mornings. He says it help him feel more energized, more creative and put him in a better mood.
“The placebo effect, if it does something good for you, then who cares?”
