Laura Koniver, MD's Blog, page 4

Easy Ways To Add The Health Benefits Of Grounding To Your Favorite Hobby

 

 

Clear air is awesome and nurturing.

Nutrient dense foods and raw juicing is powerful and cleansing.

Meditation is relaxing and centering.

Pure filtered water is hydrating and supportive.

Nutritional supplements can be balancing and healing.

But inevitably, with every holistic healing modality I worked with prior to grounding, there would be some patients who benefit greatly and some who get absolutely no results whatsoever.

Some people heal with a certain diet. Some heal with a particular physical therapy exercise. Some heal with a prescription medication, some with a life saving surgery, some with a chiropractic adjustment, some with acupuncture.

But ultimately, nothing is universal. There is no one diet that helps everyone. There is no one adjustment or one surgery or one supplement that will support everyone. There isn’t even one food that is best for everyone.

Nothing is universal except for one thing: grounding.

I’ve been a physician for over 25 years now and during all that time, I’ve only come across one healing modality that supports the entire body — head to toe, every organ system — in such a powerful way.  Everything else provides indirect health benefits, but grounding directly to the earth means your body is directly healing.

The earth makes the atmosphere for those beautiful deep breaths of fresh air you can take each day.

The earth flows the water that can deeply hydrate your body each day.

The earth grows the food that you juice and the herbs that you take and the nutritional building blocks your body depends on daily.

Those are all powerful and wonderful indirect ways to support your well being, but the most powerful way of all to enhance your health is to touch the earth directly!

 

 

Because our bodies are electrical — our heart beat, our brain impulses, our breathing mechanism, our digestion — ALL of it relies on electrical signals to work properly.  Food can not be digested, blood can not be circulated, air can not be breathed without first an electrical impulse conducted through the electrical circuitry of our bodies.

So it doesn’t matter what food we eat unless our GI tract is first innervated and activated properly!  It doesn’t matter about air quality if we can’t first innervate and activate our breathing mechanism! Even that pure beautiful air or crystal clear water can not be taken into the body if first an electrical impulse does not conductively activate the body to breathe in or swallow down.

Our whole body is electrical and relies on good conductivity to work.

As a physician I have seen patients in the ICU hooked up to breathing tubes and feeding tubes and if the body is dying, it doesn’t matter if the air is so clean it is flowing directly into the patient from an oxygen tank through a nasal cannula into the airways… and the fluids are absolutely pure and sterile with the best electrolytes being put through an IV directly into the patient’s veins… and the nutrition is the most nutrient dense prescription grade food supplement in the world being put directly into the patients intestinal tract via an NG tube… if the body’s electrical capacity is not function correctly, none of these parameters matter.

 

 

We have to electrically activate the body, which is what defibrillator paddles are trying to do in resuscitating the heart of the body that is dying, and what a ventilator is taking over for when it tries to breathe for a body that is not breathing on it’s own.  Above all, we have to establish and maintain the healthy conductivity of our body. Our body has to maintain a healthy electrical circuitry in order to remain conscious and have all of our body organs function effectively.

So to protect our body for a lifetime, we need to nurture the healthy conductivity of our body first and foremost, before turning our eye to the air and water and food quality that enhance our well being.

Touching the earth immediately impacts and supports the conductivity of the entire body — supporting the healthy function of our heart, our circulatory system, our brain, our muscle strength, our basal metabolic rate, our immune function, our thyroid function, our adrenal function, our skin conductance — our entire body from head to toe

 

 

Why is this important to even talk about?

Fifty, one hundred, two hundred years ago we were more likely to spend time barefoot, or be working directly in the earth, walking on the earth, and going back further, sleeping directly on the ground.

But now, we have rubber shoes, cars to travel in, insulated flooring in our home, asphalt coating our roadways, high rises filled with smart meters to live in.

And life is so stressful, more fast paced and competitive and technologically advanced than ever before. We are surrounded by more financial stress, technological smog (EMFs) and artificial foods than previously imaginable.

Stress, higher cortisol, joint pain, dementia, cancer, age related changes — these are all a fall out from a life long inflammatory condition of a lifetime of living disconnected to the earth.  So we better find a way to be absolutely certain we intentionally seek this connection, routinely.

 

 

 

Ready to incorporate grounding into your daily life?

I’ve got you.

It’s as simple as finding a routine way to get grounded — the easiest thing to do is to find a way to ground while you do things that you would already do — the things that you love and enjoy doing.  So today, I run through all of the most popular hobbies folks like to do and share with you ways you can do those activities grounded.

Here are easy ways to incorporate grounding into your favorite parts of your day, so that you are protecting and boosting your conductive health in a way that optimizes your long term well being.

 

25 Ways To Get Grounded While Doing Your Favorite Things:

 

1.  Meditation:

 

Like meditation?  You can easily be grounded for every second that you meditate and not only will this add boosting conductive health to your daily routine, it will actually make meditation easier.

That’s because both grounding and meditation reduce markers of brain stress, boost calm and centered alpha brain waves, and put the brain into a healing state, but doing them together is synergistic — you get more benefits doing them together than you do with either alone. I talk more about overlapping grounding and meditation in this TikTok here.

 

 

You can simply ground outside with a fingertip or foot touching the earth while you meditate, or if you prefer meditating indoors, you can sit on my organic grounding mat: Organic Grounding Mat

In fact, if you want to see me laying on my indoor organic grounding mat and have me walk you through a 3 breath, super easy mantra mediation that you can do any time, any where, watch this TikTok here. 

 

2. Yoga, Physical Therapy or Stretching:

 

If you do yoga daily, or have physical therapy stretches, or do a few relaxing nighttime poses (like legs up the wall) to get ready for bed, you’ll get even better benefits if you do those grounded.  Not only will you be able to sink into these poses and stretches more deeply with your muscles, ligaments, tendons and joints grounded, but you will also be less sore afterwards.

You can move these activities outside to do them grouneded, like shown in the picture above — she has just one fingertip over the edge of her yoga mat touching a blade of grass, which means her entire body is grounded from head to toe!

 

 

Or if you prefer to do your yoga practice indoors, I have an organic grounding yoga mat waiting for you right here.  

 

3. Playing With Your Dog:

 

Umm is there any better hobby than spending time with your pet?  I personally do not think so, and the medical literature has my back on this one — hop over here to read my article on why pets boost your lifespan.  

So that said, next time you are tossing a ball or going on a walk or just snuggling with your fur baby, know that like all living things (plants, animals, and other humans included!) you can ground right through your pet, especially by petting or kissing an area with less dense fur, like their snout, ears or belly.

Watch me ground through my favorite soul-dog, long since passed away but always in my heart, in this TikTok here.

And in this TikTok here.

You can also put a grounding shoe sticker on your shoes so you are grounded when you go on that walk, see #4 below!

 

4. Running or Jogging :

 

If you are a runner or jogger, and you are excited for a spring and summer full of fresh air runs, I’d highly recommend putting a shoe sticker on your favorite pair of running or walking shoes and add the health benefits of grounding to your body the entire time.  Being grounded will actually make that run easier too, as grounding boosts oxygenation in the blood, supports healthy cardiac function, and as we talked about in #2 above, protects your muscles and joints from wear and tear as well.

 I show you how to apply these grounding shoe stickers in this TikTok here. 

 

 

The sticker is fully conductive and runs the grounding energy from the earth beneath you up and around your shoe and into the sole of your shoe where your feet are. By touching the sticker, you bypass the rubber sole entirely and are basically standing barefoot on the ground, but with the benefit of your feet protected by shoes or your foot alignment supported by your orthotic inserts, no bare feet required.  Find them here: Grounding Shoe Stickers

 

5. Hiking:

 

Hiking, especially in the spring as the world is waking up around you, has to be one of the most lovely hobbies there is.  If you are worried about ticks and that is keeping you inside, watch this TikTok that I made for you on preventing a tick bite here.

Meanwhile, if you are going to be spending this time exploring the earth outside, you absolutely should be adding the health benefits of grounding to the entire excursion.   For most of us — myself included — I don’t want to hike barefoot.  I prefer to keep my shoes on and ground directly through my hands while using a solid wood, artisan hand crafted walking stick.

 

 

A great way to be able to wear protective walking or hiking shoes — even orthotics — and still be grounded, as well as for those who are avid outdoor explores that like to carry a hiking stick.   Find yours right here: Grounding Hiking Stick

 

6. Working Out:

 

We’ve mentioned how helpful grounding is in supporting the musculoskeletal system several times now, so it’s probably obvious now that if you are working out in any capacity, I truly feel you should be grounded.  If you have a gym or weights set up in your basement or garage, which is where I have mine, then you are in luck — standing barefoot on a cement slab found in many basements or on a concrete garage floor means you are fully grounded from head to toe!

If not, then I highly recommend that every time you stop to drink some water, you head outside and ground to the earth while you hydrate.  It’s an easy reminder and even getting just a few minutes of grounding while you drink that water will be enough to release muscle tension, reduce inflammation and boost your cardiac recovery.  At least take 5 minutes on the way into the gym and 5 minutes on your way out of the gym to get grounded — drink a bottle of water and touch a metal signpost, hold onto a leaf on a tree, or sit on the curb and rest your hand on the sidewalk on your way in and out of your workout facility and know that you just added a solid 10 minutes of grounding into your day.  

Watch this TikTok to understand why even a few seconds of grounding makes a difference.  I’ve seen major medical improvements in my patients — with cumulative health benefits — even when they were not able to ground for a full 30 minutes each day.  So never skip a chance to get grounded even if it’s just for a few minutes.

 

7. Reading:

 

I am so proud of you if reading is one of your hobbies, I feel that this is one of the most overlooked activities that can add years of longevity to your brain, your critical thinking skills and boost your neuronal plasticity for a lifetime, even protecting against cognitive decline.  In today’s passive consumption of media, actively reading is something I admire deeply and take the time to do myself, no matter how busy I am.

The best is if you can take a book outside.  In fact, I encourage you to have a separate physical book that you keep in your car or in your home as your “outside book” — reading one chapter outside every day (or as often as you can) and by the time you are done your book, you just added many of hours of healing grounding to your life.

 

 

You can lay on any blanket outside and just let one toe or fingertip touch the earth to be grounded, or you can sit at a park bench and slip your shoe off to be grounded while you read.

If you prefer reading indoors, snuggled up on your sofa, throw this lovely, soft, super lightweight organic throw across your lap and ground inside.  You should probably have one of these on your sofa at all times regardless, so whether you are reading, or watching TV, or taking a rest… you can be grounded on your favorite sofa or chair every single day!

 

8. Napping:

 

Is napping your favorite pastime?  Good because ideally I don’t want you to have any sleep deficit at all…. catching a 20 minute nap is a great way to whittle that down and reset your day in a positive way.  Just be sure to nap in the early or midday hours (not late afternoon or evening) and keep it to under an hour so you don’t negatively affect your sleep that night.  And for additional benefit, take that nap grounded.

Combining sleep with grounding is similar to combining mediation with grounding — there are synergistic benefits that are beyond what you would get with either alone.  Grounding helps your body shift more quickly into restorative phases of sleep, ensuring that nap is more effective, and that you rise feeling more energized.  So the next time you are catching up on your beauty sleep with a little nap, consider doing it grounded.  In fact, grounding is so healing for the body it is quite literally anti-aging — I wrote a medical review article on the anti-aging properties of grounding you may want to read right here:

Grounding, An Anti-Aging Breakthrough

 

the earth’s electrical “heartbeat”

To take a quick cat nap grounded, do it outside under the shade of a tree — you can be on a blanket, with just one fingertip over the edge touching the earth you will be fully grounded from head to toe.

Or indoors you can snuggle up with a grounding hot water bottle — I find applying comforting warmth to my chest or abdomen allows me to slip into sleep a little more quickly, similar to snuggling up with a pet or relaxing into a nap just as a baby does when held on it’s mama’s chest.  Which makes sense, because the earth’s grounding electrical output is considered the earth’s heartbeat — and is essential to our sense of well being.

In fact, it’s so crucial for us to be bathed in the earth’s heartbeat that astronauts who go into space actually have to have Schumann frequency generators simulating the earth’s heartbeat on board, so that they do not suffer from sleep disturbances or mental health issues when separated from it.  So try sleeping grounded and feel held in comfort and safety and see how deeply healing grounded sleep can be.

More ways to ground in bed in #9, below!

 

9. Being Intimate:

 

Is having playtime with your partner one of your favorite hobbies?  Mine too.  If you’ve never combined grounding with intimacy before, you are in for a treat. Thanks to boosted blood flow, boosted mental focus, more deeply relaxed muscles and boosted nerve function, kissing and connected while grounded adds a deeper level of intimacy to your partnership.  Watch this TikTok here on how grounding boosts sexual health.  

 

 

Meanwhile, if you have kissed outside or shared a hug while grounding to the earth, you already know how it heightens your connection, and you might want to take this grounding support into the bedroom.  You can ground the full surface of your bed with an organic grounding topper made from organic cotton and stainless steel fibers (no  nasty plastic “leatherette” or synthetic polyester, which I do not recommend for long term skin contact.).  Find that right here: Organic Grounding Bed Topper

 

10. Fishing:

 

If you like spending time outside on a lake, stream, river or ocean, you are right next to one of the easiest, most sure-fire ways to get grounded of all time: through water.  And it only takes one fingertip touching the water to ground you — you don’ have to be submerged in it and you don’t have to be standing on the bottom of the body of water — the very top surface of water is just as grounded as the core of the earth itself…

…so if you are on a dock and can dangle your feet in the water while you are casting a line, or if you are out on a boat and can trail one hand into the water while waiting on a bite, you will be easily grounded from head to toe.  More on grounding through water in #18 below!

 

11. Road Trip:

 

So I get asked all the time if there is a way to get grounded while in a car.  There are grounding chains and straps that drag along the ground from a car, but sadly those products that claim to ground you in a car are a scam. They can ground you in the sense that your body can discharge static electricity to the frame of the car, but in no way is this actually the earth’s energy connecting to you. For one thing, the rubber tires are keeping the entire car ungrounded, similar to wearing a plastic soled shoe keeping our body up off the ground, ungrounded. Second, the grounding chains/straps that drag along the back of the car touching the road are not grounding the car because even the road is not grounded — the plastic additives in the asphalt blocks it. They add this to prolong the life of the road but it coats the road and makes it ungrounded.

Sidewalks and cement and concrete are grounded, but the vast majority of the roadways are not. So unless you were always driving on dirt roads or sidewalks, you just are not going to be grounded even with something dragging along behind your car. Lastly I have tested these chains and even if you are driving on a grounded surface like grass there is not enough pressure from the conductive strip or chain to ensure contact adequate for grounding. I spent a lot of time on this because I was hoping that something similar could work on a wheelchair to ground metal wheelchair frames but I found that unless I literally stepped on the chain or strap to push it into the earth, it was not enough contact pressure to adequately ground it. So sadly even if a car is driving on grass I really don’t think that the car is grounded even with a conductive strap or chain touching the grass.

The best option?  Stopping frequently at rest areas to have a picnic lunch, touch a metal signpost, or hold a leaf on a tree to get grounded as you break up your drive.  Or, keep a grounded hiking stick (see #5, above) in your car and go on a little walk to get grounded through your walking stick — I recommend at least a 5 minute grounded walk for every 60 minutes of driving, to reduce stress and boost circulation while you travel!

 

12. Bird Watching:

 

Birding is a phenomenal hobby… did you know that bird diversity is as important to life satisfaction as an income is?  One study found that not only is happiness correlated with local bird diversity, but a 10% boost in bird diversity actually increases happiness to a similar magnitude as a 10% boost in income does!  Watch this TikTok where I tell you about that medical study.

And while you are out and about identifying birds, it’s so easy to get grounded.  Rest a fingertip on a leaf of a tree, bush, flower, blade of grass, even on a weed and your entire body will be grounded from head to toe.  Ahhh….

 

13. Listening To Music:

 

If music is your thing, download a playlist, put your phone on airplane mode and enjoy your favorite tunes outside. Laying down on a picnic blanket, resting on a park bench with feet on the earth or cement below, or taking a stroll with a grounding hiking stick or grounding shoe sticker on your shoes will all allow you to combine your love of music with grounding.

Don’t forget that many more outdoor surfaces are grounded than you think — this includes brick, pavers, rock and more.  In fact, watch me walk through a city and show you all the ways I can be outside grounded even in the most urban environment with just the touch of a fingertip — I show you how in this TikTok.  Then when I go inside, I just wash my hands (which gives me a few extra minutes of grounding, which we will talk about in #18, below!)  Win-win.

 

14. Dancing:

 

Love to dance?  Me too!  Next time you are in the mood to dance, kick off your shoes and do it outside on the earth.  You’ll be combining the healing benefits of movement and expression with the conductive support of grounding your entire body.  Even just one or two songs will be enough for you to feel the health benefits from being grounded while you dance.

As a challenge — the next time there is a spring shower (and no lightening!) go outside and dance in the rain.  When is the last time you danced outside as raindrops fell all over you?  For most of us, that was probably childhood.  But not only is this such a freeing feeling, but the moisture from water actually ensures you are grounded even more instantly!  Go ahead and stomp through some puddles, skip through the rain, and twirl in the rain.  You will feel so very alive!

 

15. Stargazing:

 

If I have gone an entire day without grounding, one of my favorite back-up ways to ensure I get at least a minute or two of grounding in a day is to go outside on my way up to bed and look at the moon and stars.  It’s so easy to stargaze grounded, because all it takes is to stand on a sidewalk, or stay bundled up and hold onto a leaf on a tree (even a pine needle in the winter will ground you!) as I look up and remember how magnificent it all is, and how all of my “big” problems are really small.

Spinning on a rock that is spiraling through space and remembering the vastness of it all puts everything back into perspective, while grounding allows my muscles to relax, my mind to shift out of stress mode and into rest mode, and preps my body for a good night of sleep ahead.  Watch this TikTok to learn more about grounding in the moonlight and give it a try before you go to bed tonight. 

 

16. Wine Tasting:

 

Enjoy visiting a vineyard?  Like all plants growing out of the earth, each and every inch of that grapevine will ground you, as well most patios and walkways in outdoor seating areas of restaurants and vineyards.  So next time you are enjoying a wine flight or a brew on tap… or a hard cider or even just a cup of tea or coffee, consider slipping off your shoes while you sit and sip, or touch a vine while you stroll through the rows of grapes, and relax deeply into the sights, smells and flavors of your favorite drink while you are grounded.

As we will talk about in #24 below, our entire digestive tract gets support from grounding, so combining grounding with eating and drinking is a fabulous way to support your health while tasting your favorite flavors.

 

17. Cycling:

 

Like we talked about in #11 above, it’s not possible to truly ground a vehicle to the earth while it is moving… and that includes your bike.  However, many cyclists I know use grounding both before and after their exertions to help decreases muscle soreness and muscle tension, protect joints and boost stamina… so consider stretching directly on the earth before or after your ride to support your body’s resiliency.

 

 

Another great way to combine grounding with your favorite exercise?  Apply a grounding ice pack to soothe any injuries and decrease inflammation and swelling after you exercise.  If you enjoy an ice bath to help recover after exertion, you will love combining grounding with ice as well… find your grounding ice pack here.  

 

18. Swimming:

 

Not only is swimming one of the most ideal ways to exercise — built in resistance training with excellent cardio. plus decreased strain on the joints — but every way of swimming you can possible think of will ground you the entire time as well!  Pools, even indoor pools, even rooftop pools, plus all natural bodies of water you can swim in are all grounded.

Watch this TikTok on how pools and hot tubs will ground you!     I get so many skeptics about this one that I even filmed a second TikTok where I took my grounding test meter out to my own hot tub and showed you with the tester that the water is indeed grounded, even in my plastic hot tub!  Watch that here. 

And then I took that ground test meter and went inside to show you how you are grounded through water in other ways too… when washing hands, doing dishes, and even taking a bath.  Watch that TikTok right here. 

 

19. Journalling:

 

If you like to write in journal daily, do it outside.  If you like to set intentions, or are working on a manuscript, or filling out a dream journal — try to do all of your writing outside.  I try my hardest to write my blog posts and my MaryJane Farm Magazine column outside grounded, and it always helps me think more clearly.    In fact, studies show that not only is the natural electrical output of the earth cohesive with the cerebral cortex of our brain, it’s the most cohesive with the part of our brain that provides meaning and context to our lives.  In short, time spent on the earth boost our mental clarity… hear me talk more about these studies in this TikTok here. 

It makes sense that the human brain just may work better when it is grounded… after all, the near seven million years that the human brain has been evolving and increasing in intellectual capacity have all been with the brain being bathed in the electrical field that the earth produces. Have you ever been mulling over a big life decision, feeling overwhelmed or confused, and then spent time in nature and found a solution, a deeper insight, or a sudden idea that provided clarity.  Many studies have shown that by connecting with the earth, we shift the brain from high strung beta waves to calming alpha wave patterns, decrease inflammation, decrease mental stress, improve mood, and even boost cognition, all naturally.  In fact, I wrote a medical review article on these studies that you can read right here:

Grounding And Cognition

The effects of grounding the human brain start right away, with measurable changes in brain wave activity in less than one second.  So the next time you need a little boost in brain function, or the next time you want to sit down to write… try heading outside to get grounded.

 

20. Creative Arts: Sewing, Painting, Drawing, etc…

 

Anything creative or expressive can be taken up to new levels when they are done grounded — that’s why plein air painting is so cool!  Drawing, sketching, photography, embroidery, poetry and more can all be done outside, grounded.

So while medical studies show you — through double blinded placebo based studies — concrete evidence that grounding is a healing state for the human body, I want you to know that it’s not just your physical body that is being supported. It’s your mind frame, your soul energy, your Spirit.  You feel better.  You feel deeply supported.  You feel creative.  You feel inspired.  You feel stronger.  You feel more motivated.  You feel more loving.  You feel more loved.

 

 

Nothing quite allows you to become the pure positive vessel of Well Being the way grounding does.  You become the perfect balance of a physical body that is supported and healthy while being an open vessel holding the most vibrant state of your soul’s energy flowing through your body and resonating out from your core.

When you are in that specific union — of your unique physical body that nobody else has, combined with your unique soul energy that nobody else has, coming together and being totally supported by the healing energy flow of the earth… that is your optimal state of Well Being.

So consider taking your creative hobby outside next time your creativity strikes.  Or consider painting, sewing, cooking, etc… while standing or resting your feet on an organic grounding mat indoors (as discussed in #1, above) and see how it boosts your creative output. Find your organic grounding mat here: Organic Grounding Mat

 

21.  Watching Movies:

 

Is your favorite hobby in the world watching a movie?  What is not to love — the popcorn, the excitement, the soundtrack, the characters, the twists and turns, the romance, the surprises, even debating with your friends and loved ones what you liked and disliked about the film afterwards.

If you are watching that movie at home, consider doing it grounded.  Any time you are sitting for more than an hour, it doesn’t makes sense for that sedentary time to not be a time of healing, a time spent grounded.  Ideally we are moving our bodies often, frequently, and throughout the day.  But when we are not, the advantage to that is we can have prolonged time making contact with a grounded surface.  Of course if you are watching the movie on a device you can take outside — a laptop or tablet or phone — by all means be grounded directly to the earth!

But even indoors, having an organic grounding throw on your sofa (as we talked about in #7 above) turns the time you spend mentally enthralled in a movie a healing time physically for your body as well.  A movie session might as well be a grounding session too!  That becomes super easy when you have a grounding tool on your sofa always waiting for you.  Find your organic throw blanket right here.  

In fact, even if you spend the entire day indoors, you can absolutely still treat your body to grounding.  Watch this TikTok where I show you all the ways I ground in my home throughout the day.  

 

22.  Golf:

 

Any outdoor hobby can be an opportunity to get grounded, like golf!  All it takes is adding a grounding shoe sticker to your golf shoes (like we talked about in #4, above) and the entire golf course becomes your grounding therapy path.  Thanks to the boost in concentration and clarity, the decrease in muscle tension (helpful when a you shank a shot!) and the protection it provides to your joints, you just might find your game improves when you play it grounded.

But even if not, hey at least when you don’t get that birdie you were gunning for, your health was boosted the entire time you played.  If that’s not a good excuse to take an afternoon off of work and hit the links, I don’t know what is.  Consider it like physical therapy or going to the dentist — a healing session that your body needs.  The best part about grounding while playing golf is that all of it — every bit of the course — is grounded.  The fairway, the sand traps (not that you are ever standing in them, ahem) and the water — it’s all waiting to ground you.  It’d be a shame not to get grounded while spending a few hours trying to beat your personal best!

Find your grounding shoes stickers here. 

 

23.  Tennis or Pickleball:

 

For this one, similar to our discussion on road trips (#17, above) the surface of a tennis or pickleball court is not likely to be grounded.  So for these hobbies, I recommend the same thing as I do for the cyclists — play hard and recover even harder by combining ice therapy and grounding after you are done to reduce muscle soreness and treat any injuries.  Find your grounding ice pack here. 

 

24.  Eating:

 

If you are a foodie, I think that’s so awesome.  After all, we all need to eat to put the nutrients our earth offers us into our body to boost our health… and I see being a foodie and enjoying savoring each bite as the ultimate way to nurture our body, mind and spirit through our senses…. as well as practice gratitude for it.

If we are consuming calories, savoring our food and enjoying every aspect of it — even taking pictures of it and seeking out rare dishes at obscure restaurants — is a way to make every molecule of it deeply count and appreciating it.  So if you can eat it outside grounded, you just added a therapeutic, anti-inflammatory benefit to time spent enjoying your food.

Grounding helps boost vagal tone and digestive function, decreases inflammation in the gut, increases digestion, peristalsis, absorption and even boosts the circulation of those nutrients all throughout your entire body, so eating grounded is the most natural way to bring nutrition into alignment with your body’s health. And as a bonus, grounding actually boosts your body’s basal metabolic rate, which means you burn more calories (even at rest!) and it helps you naturally lose weight.  Watch this TikTok to hear me tell you about my own Grounding & Weight Loss study I conducted on my own patients.

The next time you are choosing a restaurant or looking over a menu, consider if there is an outdoor eating area you could be seated at.  If so, that’s the best choice for sure!  Slipping off a shoe to place a toe onto the dining surface — if it is cement, concrete, pavers, brick, slate or stone — will ground your entire body while you are enjoying your food.

 

 

If not, you might consider having this organic grounding picnic blanket/beach towel on hand to sit on while you have impromptu picnics all summer long!  Keep it in your car and you will always be ready to have a little snack or picnic, lay out, catch up with friends, watch the children play at the playground, or simply take a nap… grounded!  Find yours here: Organic Grounding Picnic Blanket/Beach Towel.   

 

25. Camping:

 

I saved the best for last because if you enjoy the great outdoors and want to get grounded while spending a few days in your own cabin glamping — I’ve made it easy for you.  In fact, I’ll be doing it right along with you, in person!  Join my fall or winter Grounding Retreat and the campsite you see in the picture above is your own personal accommodations!

Look at more pictures of how cute the cabin interiors are right here (you have your own bed, own mini kitchen, own bathroom, own fire pit, own parking space and own picnic area all part of your own private cabin) plus we will be meeting together throughout the retreat in common areas to get grounded through grounding breathwork sessions, meditations, walks in nature, stargazing, fire pits, stretching, creative expression and more — in fact, during our retreat will will actually be doing many of the things on this list and we will be doing them together… grounded!

Sign up to reserve your spot here:

Fall Grounding RetreatWinter Grounding RetreatI can’t wait to heal and renew — grounded — with you.xoxo,Laura Koniver MD

 

 

The post Easy Ways To Add The Health Benefits Of Grounding To Your Favorite Hobby appeared first on Intuition Physician.

Visiting Your Neighborhood Park Is So Healing It Can Even Reduce Healthcare Inequalities

 

 

I’m so excited to write this free article for you today, because I really feel we need some uplifting and encouraging health news right now, and that’s my entire goal in writing my blog — to provide you with encouraging and free holistic health care information that you can actually use and apply in your daily life.

So much of healthcare, especially in the United States, is pay-to-play — the more money you have to spend, the better your health is.  It’s sickening.  That’s just one of the many reasons I’m so passionate about grounding — because it puts one of the most powerful healing modalities possible right in your own hands, freely, and you really just have to be aware of grounding in order to implement it and reap head-to-toe health benefits.  So I see it as a free healing modality that is empowering to all of humanity, regardless of age, race, sex, income, mental or physical health constraints — it’s a constant, freely available source of support that you can 100% count on.

Today’s medical studies add another layer to this — finding that the healing support from the earth is so powerful it actually helps dissolve the inequality to healthcare access we have.  At least partially.  Published in The Lancet, researchers found that the disparity in lifespan between income levels was lowest in areas that had access to green spaces.  Especially for mortality rates that were related to circulatory diseases (heart attack, stroke, etc…) the larger the available green spaces, the less income mattered — mortality rates were much lower across the board regardless of how much money one could spend.  They found “populations that are exposed to the greenest environments also have lowest levels of health inequality related to income deprivation.”

Another study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Public Health, found that the larger greenspace area in a living environment was associated with over all improved health, and that access to green spaces should not be considered a luxury but a health care necessity.  Populations that typically are under served — such as the elderly, children, and those in lower socioeconomic groups — benefitted the most from the presence of green areas.

 

 

So if having access to a natural area boosts health so much that it helps improve health outcomes and remove health care inequalities, how big does the green area have to be?  Not big at all, it turns out.

This study, published in Science Advances in October 2020, suggests that adding even a very small greenspace to an urban setting boosts immune function in a measurable and meaningful way — quickly!  Researchers found that by adding a small green play area to urban playgrounds, they boosted the immunity of the children using the play area in less than a month.

Researchers in Finland added a very small, low cost green area in the corner of existing playgrounds in several different urban daycare centers. They added a little grass patch, some small plants and a planter box with garden crops the kids could tend to.

This is what one of the modifications looked like:

 

University of Helsinki

After just 28 days, not only did the children who played in this urban greenspace have boosted immune markers in their blood (like boosted T cells) they also had an improved microbiota (both on the skin and in their gut biome) similar to children that lived and played in rural areas with large greenspaces and forests. These changes were statistically significant compared both to controls and to their own baseline measurements.

This study is just one example of how you don’t need to live in the country to experience improved health from nature. In fact, in my book The Earth Prescription, I go into great detail about how you can get grounded in urban settings through sidewalks, through touching a metal signpost, through simply touching a leaf on a bush or a tree — even one growing in a downtown city street — that’s all it takes to get grounded from head to toe and experience all of these health benefits.

You can also watch my video right here on how to get grounded even in a city:

Grounding In A City (YouTube)

or here on TikTok:

@laurakonivermd

There is something that can ground you on every city block #grounding #earthing #groundingtechique #holistichealth #laurakonivermd #intuitionphysician #conductivehealth #urbanlandscape #citylife

♬ original sound – Laura Koniver, MD

 

Hopefully this is all the encouragement you might need to find a greenspace near you to visit routinely.  A small park with a bench or a walking path, or possibly a community garden if you are lucky enough to have access to one, is enough to significantly improve your well being.

Honestly it’s so healing just to be around plants of any kind — for example, just seeing a plant through a window or adding a potted plant to a workspace can provide measurable health benefits.  Let’s go over all the ways visiting a green space — even a small urban one — can improve your health:

 

8 Benefits From Visiting A Green Space:

 

 

1. Gives You A Healthier Brain

 

Every minute you spend out in a greenspace is brain protective… so much so, that having gardening as a hobby actually lowers your risk of dementia! A study published in 2006 in the Medical Journal of Australia found that daily gardening decreased dementia risk by in incredible 36%. A follow up study, published in 2019 in The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, found that gardening actually increased levels of brain nerve growth factors.

Another incredibly interesting study, recently published in January 2020 in The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, found that a gardening intervention program significantly boosted levels of the brain neurotransmitters tryptophan and serotonin, which are necessary for healthy sleep patterns and mood stabilization.

 

 

 

 

2. Gives You Boosted Mental Health

 

Multiple studies have found that having access to a greenspace decreases depression rates, anxiety rates, and dramatically reduces stress. One study, called the MIND study (conducted in 2007) found that simply walking through a garden or greenway significantly improved mental health, while walking through areas without greenery (such as a shopping mall) significantly decreased mental health.

If simply walking through a green space impacts mental health so much, you can probably guess that hand’s on gardening (which means the body is grounded!) would boost mental health even more. And you would be right. After an extensive systemic review of 22 studies looking at the health impact of gardening, the results of this meta-anylsis (published in Preventive Medicine Reports in 2016) found that gardening significantly reduced anxiety levels, anger levels and depression rates, decreased tension, stress levels and boosted mood… all while simultaneously improving life satisfaction and boosting over all quality of life. It’s absolutely incredible that simply tending to a garden can offer such a transformative life make-over, but it’s true!

 

 

 

3. Lowers Your Blood Pressure

 

Even indoor plants can positively impact on your well being, so don’t discount the power of a windowsill garden or a simple house plant to support your health. An exciting study published in 2015 in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology, showed that simply adding plants to an indoor computer room not only boosted the worker’s productivity, it also significantly decreased their blood pressure.

Another study, published in 2007 in the American Society for Horticultural Science found that workers with potted plants in close proximity to them while working took less sick leave off from work and enjoyed increase productivity.

 

 

 

4. Helps You Recover Your Health Faster

 

Being physically near plants is so impactful to our mental and physical health that it turns out, even just seeing a plant can significantly impact our recovery from stressful health events. We have such an innate need to be submersed in a world with foliage and plants around us that a study (published in 1984 in Science) found that patients who simply had a view of plants through a window while recovering from surgery had better moods, used less pain medications, had less surgical post-op complications, and even decreased their length of stay in the hospital. Less pain during recovery and getting to go home sooner after surgery just by looking at plants? That’s an awesome health strategy that I wish more hospital and clinics would take into account when designing their architecture.

 

 

 

5. Decreases Your Body’s Inflammation

 

One of my biggest passions as a holistic physician is encouraging people to touch the earth to decrease inflammation in their body, a healing practice known as grounding. A study on grounding, published in the Journal Of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine in 2010, found that subjects who were grounded while exercising had 40% lower levels of creatinine kinase (a marker of muscle inflammation) and less soreness after exertion than non-grounded subjects. They also had lower pain levels, significantly lower blood cortisol levels, and even lower white blood cell counts.

When you are grounded to the earth, as you are during gardening while touching the ground in any way, including touching any plants, soil, dirt, rocks and water that is on the earth, you are supporting your health in so many ways. For more information on the whole body benefits of grounding, see any of these articles I’ve got waiting for you on my Grounding Medical Studies page here or read my book The Earth Prescription right here.

 

 

6. Gives You Better Sleep

 

There is a beautiful relationship between our sleep cycle and mother earth. Most people believe that our circadian (day/night) rhythm is dependent on sunlight to set that pattern for us, but scientists feel that the earth’s energy field has as much, if not more, to do with our sleep/wake pattern than even the sun, and they have known this since a pioneering study conducted back in 1970. Published in Life Sciences in Space Research, researchers discovered just how influential the earth is to our sleep patterns.

Looking at several hundred test subjects that lived for a two month period of time in a bunker that was blocked from sunlight but still had the earth’s electromagnetic field surrounding them, scientist discovered that they kept sleep/wake patterns that were close to a 24 hour rhythm.Meanwhile, test subject that lived in a bunker that was completely shielded from the earth’s energies became completely desynchronized and experienced significantly longer, and much more irregular, sleep/wake rhythms. Researchers then experimented with introducing different electrical and magnetic fields into the shielded bunker, and only one frequency was able to restore normal sleep/wake patterns… the frequency of Mother Earth’s natural energy, the Schumann frequency.

From this the researchers postulated that it is actually the frequency of the earth that regulates our natural biorhythms. Based off of this understanding, it’s easy to understand how directly connecting to the earth through gardening daily can help enhance restorative sleep at night and boost daytime wakefulness.

I created a video to walk you through this, what the medical literature has to say about grounding and circadian rhythm, I hope you enjoy it and don’t let one day of this upcoming winter go by where you are not fixing your sleep deficit and deeply restoring your health.

Grounding & Circadian Rhythm:

 

 

Grounding & Circadian Rhythm (click to watch on YouTube) 

 

 

 

 

7. Increases Your Longevity

 

A study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine in 2016 found that people who stayed indoors and avoided sun exposure actually had a shorter life span than those who spent time outside. Participants who avoided the sun had higher rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and pulmonary disease than those who had daily sun exposure. And the results were dose-specific… meaning that the benefits of increased life expectancy went up directly in correlation to the amount of sun exposure. Longer time in the sun = longer life span. That simple! Gardening is a fantastic way to routinely be inspired to go outside and get that sunshine and fresh air, two of natures best holistic health treatments.

Another reason that spending time in a greenspace might improve lifespan is the increase in activity level.  A fabulous study (published in 2019 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine) found that replacing just 30 minutes of sitting each day with light physical activity — like walking through a greenspace — was enough to significantly decrease mortality rates. And again, here’s the clincher: the health benefit of replacing sedentary time with light physical activity was actually even stronger if you were older than 75 years old. So light activity decreased mortality rates in adults older than 75 years old even more than it decreased mortality rates in younger age groups. In other words, the older you are, the more that activity of any kind increases your lifespan.

And then as we talked about at the very start of this article, there were the studies that found a lower risk of death, regardless of income level and health care inequality, when you have access to a green space.  Especially for cardiovascular causes of death, having a green space near you significantly levels the playing field, so to speak.  Find a green space near you and spend time in it.  Please.  Look at the trees, plants, bushes (better yet, touch them and get grounded!) and see if you can find any birds or squirrels to watch, or simply look up and watch a cloud or two go by.  Something as simple and peaceful as that can literally improve your health, not doctor’s visit required.

 

 

8.  Boosts Your Immune System

 

As I talk about at the beginning of this blog post, this amazing medical study found that after only one month of playing on a small playground that had an area converted to a greenspace, the children’s immune systems got a significant boost. Markers of immunity in the blood, like TGF-β1 levels, regulatory T cells and the plasma IL-10:IL-17A ratio, all increased after just 28 days of playing in these small urban greenspaces.

All it took to get these improvements to their immunity was a small patch of grass to play on, one that included a small planter with garden crops and some berry bushes.

No matter how big or small your space is, whether you have a windowsill garden, a potted houseplant or two, a few herbs grown on your porch, access to a community vegetable garden or pick-your-own orchard or berry farm, or are even blessed enough to have your own land, spending time around plants is one of the most rewarding, most pleasurable activities that I can recommend.

 

 

It’s never too late to lengthen your lifespan and boost your health by finding a little piece of nature near to where you live — even a very small playground counts — and spending some time routinely there.  From reaping huge mental health benefits, longevity benefits, grounding benefits, immune benefits and more, you would be hard pressed to find another activity that supports your health from so many different angles and in so many ways.

xoxox, Laura Koniver MD

 

P.S. Want another easy way to boost your health through an increased exposure to nature, even while living in a city? Hop over here to read why just listening to bird and increasing your exposure to birds boosts your mental health and happiness.  Even from a city highrise, you can get birds to visit your window bird feeder, as I show you in this article:

Hearing Birds Sing Might Be Just As Important To You As Your Next Paycheck, Here’s Why

 

The post Visiting Your Neighborhood Park Is So Healing It Can Even Reduce Healthcare Inequalities appeared first on Intuition Physician.

17 Indoor Activities You Should Absolute Take Outside This Spring… Pick One To Do Today!

 

 

During the month of March, our days will become longer than our nights… woot!  Spring weather usually means folks are more likely to get outside, get active, go on walks, resume hiking and biking and jogging, plant springtime gardens, catch up on yard work, taking food outside to eat on picnics… you name it.

Getting outside in that fresh air is so very good for you. And you know what is even better for you than that?  If you can be grounded while doing all of your favorite springtime activities.  And you can be, even without going barefoot.

Grounding has to be the absolutely easiest way to add therapeutic healing to your daily routine.  And not only can you literally go outside and ge grounded for free any time, but you can also multitask while you do it, so you are simply adding healing to your day, not another thing to your To-Do list.  Activities like physical therapy, yoga, meditation, exercise, eating, reading, and even just spending time with loved ones, all can be exponentially boosted by doing them outside, grounded.  And even activities that you do daily that are not directly for your health but still must be done, like returning phone calls, working on your lap top, weeding through emails, filling out your weekly planner, scheduling work tasks, even your next zoom meeting can be done outside grounded so that even non-healing activities can actually become healing, therapeutic ones.

So today I wanted to review some ideas of indoor activities that you you are probably already doing that you can take outside — read through them and pick just one or two of these activities every single day over this coming week to take outside, grounded, and I am absolutely certain you will notice the health benefits by this  weekend.

Let’s get started!

17 Indoor Activities You Should Take Outside Today:

 

1. Eat Your Next Meal Outside:

 

We all need to eat to put the nutrients our earth offers us into our body to boost our health… but if you can take your next meal outside and eat it grounded, you just added a therapeutic, anti-inflammatory benefit to time spent enjoying your food.

Grounding helps boost vagal tone and digestive function, decreases inflammation in the gut, increases digestion, peristalsis, absorption and even boosts the circulation of those nutrients all throughout your entire body, so eating grounded is the most natural way to bring nutrition into alignment with your body’s health. Any diet plan can be taken outside to eat in a natural way, grounded.

Here is a free article I wrote for you on the benefit of eating grounded outside:

Grounding While You Eat, A Game Changer For Your Digestion (+ Freebies)

 

 

2. Drink Your Next Glass of Water Outside:

 

If your massage therapist or nutritionist or physician or personal trainer suggests hydrating more, take every single glass of water you drink outside to drink it grounded.

Grounding boosts circulation and will get that beautiful fresh clean water into your body and into your organ systems more quickly, allowing you to rehydrate your beautiful body immediately. As a bonus, hydrating while being grounded outside actually boosts your conductivity too, so it’s win-win!

Here is a video I made for you on how to use the conductive power of water to get grounded:

Grounding Through Water, Indoors and Outside (Laura Koniver, M.D. The Intuition Physician)

 

 

3. Take Your Journal Or Planner Outside:

 

If your therapist wants you to do journal writing daily, do it outside. If you like to write in a diary, do it outside. If you like to set intentions, or are working on a manuscript, or filling out a dream journal — do all of your writing outside.

In fact, anything creative or expressive can be taken up to new levels of releasing and healing when they are done grounded — that’s why plein air painting is so cool!  Drawing, sketching, photography, journaling, writing, even boring tasks like filling out your daily, weekly or monthly planner or grocery list can all be done outside, grounded.

Here is are some blog posts I wrote for you that goes into detail on why grounding allows your soul creativity to soar and any soul wounds to release:

The Hidden Benefits Of Grounding: Why It Helps More Than Just Your BodyHow Grounding Releases Trauma From Your Body To Protect Your Long Term Health

 

 

4. Do Physical Therapy Or Yoga Outside:

 

If your physical therapist has a set of stretches for you to do daily at home, do them outside. Moving your muscles and bones and ligaments and joints while grounded to the earth outside will increase restorative blood flow, bring a boosted oxygen levels to your tissues, and reduce soreness after exertion.

You don’t have to be barefoot — if any stretches require you to place hands or back or knees on the ground, you’ll be grounded through any bare skin — or you can simply hold onto a tree with your hands if your stretch requires standing and you’ll be grounded from head to toe right through your hands.

And if it’s yoga you enjoy, you can take my Organic Grounding Yoga Mat directly outside to ground to the earth, or you can clip a ground cord to it indoors and get grounded year round — even in the winter — while stretching your body, increasing your flexibility, decreasing muscle soreness, and feeling exponentially calmer and more centered than when you do yoga (or physical therapy stretches) ungrounded.  Find my all natural, chemical and plastic free grounding yoga mat here:

Organic Grounding Yoga Mat

 

You can read more about why grounding is so supportive of your muscles and joints in this blog post I wrote for you:

Feel Immediate Relief With Grounding: Relax Your Muscles, Strengthen Your Bones

 

 

5. Take Your Meditation Outside

 

This meditation is so simple, and it’s perfect to do while you are grounding because it relaxes you into the healing state of connecting to the earth. Especially during times when you feel uncentered, anxious, stressed or in a health struggle with your body… drop the resistance and find your grounded center in just a few breaths.  I know in it I am barefoot, but if you kept shoes on and just allowed your calf or knee to touch the earth in any way (or placed a fingertip on the ground beside you) you would be every bit as grounded as if you were barefoot.

Follow along with me here to reset your body, mind and spirit through this grounded meditation. It’s super simple, it’s just placing a hand on your heart, a hand on your abdomen, dropping your awareness down into your body by closing your eyes, and repeating: “I am at home in my body.”

Three breaths is enough to make a difference in your heart rate, muscle tension, blood pressure, mood and more.

If you want to do this meditation inside, grounded on the organic grounding mat I show you in the video, you can find that here: Organic Grounding Mat

 

6.  Mull Over A Big Decision Outside:

 

It makes sense that the human brain just may work better when it is grounded… after all, the near seven million years that the human brain has been evolving and increasing in intellectual capacity have all been with the brain being bathed in the electrical field that the earth produces.

Have you ever been mulling over a big life decision, feeling overwhelmed or confused, and then spent time in nature and found a solution, a deeper insight, or a sudden idea that provided clarity. By connecting with the earth, we shift the brain from high strung beta waves to calming alpha wave patterns, decrease inflammation, decrease mental stress, improve mood, and even boost cognition, all naturally.

And the effects of grounding the human brain start right away, with measurable changes in brain wave activity in less than one second.  So the next time you need a little boost in brain function, try heading outside to get grounded.

Why You Think More Clearly When You Spend Time Outside

And for more help making a tough decision, you might find the free printable decision making worksheet I created for you here really helpful — print it out and take it outside to fill it out while you are grounded!  You are very likely to come up with some solutions that will work best for you:

A Free Printable Tool To Give You Inner Clarity When Making Difficult Decisions

 

 

7. Exercise Outside:

 

If your 2025 goal is to get more movement and exercise into your life, you can bring almost every exercise outside and get double the benefits.

Not only is excerise great for protecting your lifespan, but doing your next yoga session, or HIIRT round, or next run, outside grounded will add all of the health benefits of grounding to your exercise routine. You can even swim outside grounded and feel amazingly rebooted from head to toe, inside and out, as most in ground pools (as well as the cement surrounding the pool) is grounded.

Here are some articles on why exercising grounded helps you get more bang for your buck:

Grounding & Reduced Muscle Soreness Medical StudyGrounding Immediately Supports Your Heart & Boosts Circulation

 

 

8. Meet Up With Your Friends Outside:

 

If your friend wants to spend time with you, take the initiative and suggest hanging out together outside. Having friends you can connect with is one of the best things you can do to boost happiness and protect your longevity, and connecting with them outside is the best combination of all.

Moving your time spent together outside allows you to get grounded while connecting on a deeper level with your loved ones, and really almost anything you can think of to do inside can be done outside.

From playing a card game, to having a cup of coffee, to sharing a potluck meal, to talking while watching clouds roll by or stars twinkle overhead, to going on a walk together, to sharing a picnic meal… anything you want to do with your friend is better grounded outside.

Medical studies like these show that your mood is boosted by time spent outdoors, so grounding outside while spending time with friends is sure to help that time be even more fun:

The Effect of Grounding the Human Body on MoodA New Study Explains Why Grounding Boosts Your MoodBoost Your Connection To Others And It Will Boost Your Health, Here’s HowGetting Outside Today… A New Idea I Tested Out For You (With A Friend) And We Loved It

 

 

9. Go On An Outdoor Date:

 

If your partner wants a date with you, make sure some component of that date is outside, grounded.  Hold hands and feel the boosted sense of grounded connection, or even get grounded through a kiss!  Thanks to boosted blood flow, boosted mental focus, and boosted nerve function, kissing and connected while grounded adds a deeper level of intimacy to your partnership.  And being outside, especially in the daytime, can even boost libido!

Here is a recent article I’ve written for you about the power of grounding to enhance your relationship and why you definitely want to move any dates you can outside — from a romantic picnic to a walk holding hands to listening to a free concert in the park to going wine tasting at a vineyard… grounding + relationships = boosted connection:

Grounding Improves Your Relationship & Boosts Your Sex Life

 

 

10. Play Outside With Your Kids Today:

 

Carving out time to play with your child in activities that interest them is absolutely crucial to bonding with kids. Play time is important healing time, and you can dramatically boost the healing value of play by taking that activity outside to do it grounded.

From arts and crafts, to sports and activities, to simply having a snack and talking, or reading a bedtime book under the wonder of the nighttime sky. You’ll worry less about any messes you guys make, and you’ll be getting a health boost the entire time. And of course, this includes your fur babies as well, so spend time outdoors with your pets too!

Even something as simple as playing a game of tic-tac-toe with chalk on the sidewalk will ground you and your children through your hands while you are doing it!

Here are some articles I’ve written for you on the power of grounding to enhance your children’s health:

Electrical Grounding Improves Vagal Tone in Preterm InfantsThe Healing Role Of Play, Right Now It’s More Important Than EverTo Stay Young, Stay Curious (& Dozens Of Other Ways To Protect Your Brain)

I also have written and published three children books for you so far… you can find these on my website here (or of course on Amazon and anywhere books are sold):

Together We Sleep (Co-sleeping Picture Book)Jake Finds Adventure (Healing Picture Book)From The Ground Up (Grounding Picture Book)

Lastly for more parenting support I have a totally free Parenting eBook for you right here. It has 17 chapters and 159 pages of ideas, concepts, games, suggestions, medical information, intuitive problem solving and uplifting parenting advice that help address health and life in a positive and re-affirming manner for children, including how I inspired my own children to reach for health, even during illness... filling them with the confidence that health is their natural state of being:

Enjoy the precious time you have while your kids are still little enough to want to play with you… soak it in!

 

 

11. Take Your Laptop Outside:

 

I challenge you to think of at least one activity you do for work that can actually be done outside.

First of all, anything you get done on your phone for work, from research, reading, posting on social media platforms, marketing, weeding through emails, returning phone calls, returning texts and even your next zoom meeting can all be done outside.

If any part of your work is done on a laptop, all of that can be moved outside as well. In addition, any reading or writing that you do, plus planning or scheduling that you do, can all be done outside.

I make it a point to attend any online  medical conferences outside, so that I’m learning the latest medical advancements while allowing my body time to get grounded. If your boss has catch up work for you to do and you’ll be up late tonight on your laptop, take it outside and at least make this time your body gets to be grounded.

Here are some additional articles on the power of grounding to reduce work stress:

Grounding To Prevent Stress And Oxidative Damage While At WorkGrounding At Work Decreases FatigueIs Going Outside Part Of Your Daily Health Routine? 8 Reasons Why It’s EssentialWhen You Are Doing Something Meaningful, Your Brain Works BetterA Free Printable Tool To Give You Inner Clarity When Making Difficult DecisionsIs Your Job Driving You Crazy? You Are Not Alone. Here’s Help.

 

 

12. Go On A Grounded Walk:

 

Going on a long walk outside is a fabulous way to get grounded, if you have a safe greenspace that it’s okay to be barefoot in.  But for most of us — including myself — I prefer to keep my shoes on and ground through my hands on long walks — instead I simply ground directly through my hands while using this gorgeous, solid wood, artisan hand crafted walking stick.

Touch copper button on top of handle or any part of the copper wrap at the top of the handle with even one fingertip and your body is instantly grounded from head to toe — every single part of you!  Hand made by a Master Carpenter right here in the USA, using all natural materials, solid wood, even recycled copper — no two are the same and each are a work of art!

A great way to be able to wear protective walking or hiking shoes — even orthotics — and still be grounded, as well as those who are avid outdoor explores that like to carry a hiking stick. It’s also a great solution for those that want to be grounded on long car rides — pull over and walk or sit with the grounding stick every hour or two on your journey to release stress and boost circulation.  Simply use stick to touch the earth near you and get grounded from head to toe right through your hands.

Order your grounded custom hand made walking stick right here to set yourself up for a summer full of easy grounding:

Grounding Hiking Stick

 

13.  Or Walk Grounded Through A Grounding Cane

 

Those who have mobility issues and can’t go barefoot are often those of us are the ones that need to be grounded most of all.  If you like the support of a cane and want to be grounded at the same time, you can keep your comfy shoes or orthotics on, even stay seated in a wheelchair and simply by holding onto the cane, your body is instantly grounded from head to toe — every single part of you!

Hand made by an artisan in Ireland, this grounding cane is perfect for anyone who likes to use a cane to walk, to stand, and even  for those in a wheelchair or scooter (which keeps them up off the earth, ungrounded.)  Simply stay seated and use the grounding cane to touch the ground when you are stable on an earth’s surface outside — effortlessly putting your body into a healing state through your hands instead of your feet.

Cane is extremely lightweight and easy to carry.  Find yours right here:

Grounding Cane

 

 

14.  Go On A Grounded Run:

 

If you still want to ground through your feet but you prefer shoes to being barefoot, why not convert your favorite pair of sneakers, running shoes, hiking shoes, or even sports cleats into grounding shoes?  A grounding sticker is the way to go.  I can’t think of much more eco-friendly option than to simply ground shoes you already own. Grounding shoe stickers even work on flip flops and sandals!!!  Easy as putting on a sticker, because that is literally what it is, but made with a special adhesive to stay securely on your shoe (or flip flop) permanently.

The sticker is fully conductive and runs the grounding energy from the earth beneath you up and around your shoe and into the sole of your shoe where your feet are. By touching the sticker, you bypass the rubber sole entirely and are basically standing barefoot on the ground, but with the benefit of your feet protected by shoes or your foot alignment supported by your orthotic inserts, no bare feet required.

I can’t even feel these stickers on my shoes.  Find them here:

Grounding Shoe Stickers

 

15. Blow Bubbles Outside:

 

Even more crucial than eating, we all need to breathe the beautiful air that the earth provides. Many of us also find added benefit from intentional breathing practices like meditation. Taking intentional, deep breaths is a wonderful way to decrease stress and increase resiliency to the demands of your day.

Even if you don’t have the time to do the full mediation with me above (in tip #2) just take one or two deep breaths outside.  Even if you don’t meditate, you can still reap the benefits of a few deep breaths taken while grounding outside.

Being grounded supports lung function and boosts oxygenation, so combining grounding with intentional breath work is another one of those win-win relationships that grounding brings to just about everything we do. (Bonus points if you blow bubbles as part of your breath work!)

For more on how breathing supports your health, hop over to read this article I wrote for you with several great ideas on developing an intentional breathing practice that you can do outside, grounded:

You Have The Healing Power Of Breath Inside You Right Now… Here’s 5 Ways To Use It

 

 

16. Start A Spring Garden:

 

Many folks who embrace grounding are passionate gardeners, and understandably so… because being grounded while working a garden bed outside boosts your health instantly and you can literally feel it.  Gardening is the easiest way I know to ground through your hands and keep your shoes or goulashes safely on your feet, protected and clean!

And even beyond the healing boost of being grounded, it’s actually healing just to be around plants of any kind, even while ungrounded… for example, just seeing a plant through a window or adding a potted plant to a workspace gives documented health benefits!

Read through this article I wrote for you, listing the top 9 perks of gardening and see if it doesn’t inspire even those of us who are non-gardeners to dive into this wonderful activity. From a windowsill garden to a flower bed to a large plot of farmland, gardening is more than a way to grow flowers and food… it’s a lifestyle that can help ensure longevity and health:

Gardening Health Benefits

 

17. Go Bird Watching:

 

More evidence that Mother Nature can boost your happiness like nothing else can… a new study suggests that bird diversity is as important to life satisfaction as an income is. This study found that not only is happiness correlated with local bird diversity, but a 10% boost in bird diversity actually increases happiness to a similar magnitude as a 10% boost in income does!

We’ve known for a while that animals improve our mood, health, and even boost longevity (I’ve blogged about how pets can do all of this and more for you right here) and that plants do much the same (see idea #16, above…) decreasing depression rates, anxiety rates, and dramatically reducing stress.

But even knowing all of that, I still think if you ask most people if they would rather see a couple extra birds today or earn a slightly higher paycheck, most would assume that money would provide more satisfaction.

But this actually isn’t true — click the link below to hop over to a free article I wrote for you telling you the details of this study and how to increase the amount of birds you see and hear:

Hearing Birds Sing Is As Important As Your Next Paycheck

 

You get the picture!Add your own ideas to this list — include all your hobbies too!

 

Play an instrument? Take it outside.Like to play chess? Do it outside.Have a pet? Play with them outside.Like embroidery? Take it outside.Doing something boring like meal planning for the week? Do it outside.Love to read? Do it outside.Perfecting a handstand? Do it outside.Love listening to music? Listen to it outside.

 

Run through your entire day from start to finish and decide what can be taken outside. Even if it is simply to start and end each day drinking a big glass of water outside — oh my goodness that’s PERFECT.

Almost anything you can think of to do — from fun and games, to connecting with friends and family, to eating and hydrating, to exercising and physical therapy, to yoga and meditation, to journaling and creating, to getting work done…

…you can do it all while in the healing state of grounding. Let’s do this!

xoxox,Laura Koniver, MD

 

 

PS — Keep more ideas right at your fingertips:

 

For more awesome year round grounding tips, you’ll want to grab the ultimate guide to grounding outside, no matter where you live or what the temperature is.

I’ve filled this book with my very best ideas to get you inspired to head outside in the hottest and coldest seasons, no matter if you live in a city or have any green spaces around you or not… you can get grounded naturally to the earth and I’ll be right there with you, showing you how:

The Earth Prescription

 

I have signed copies waiting for you right here… or find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, New Harbinger, and anywhere books are sold!

The post 17 Indoor Activities You Should Absolute Take Outside This Spring… Pick One To Do Today! appeared first on Intuition Physician.

Improve Your Mental Health With Your Very Next Meal (+ 5 More Things You Can Do Today To Feel Relief)

 

 

As someone who has struggled with anxiety her entire life, I am very interested to read up on medical studies exploring ways that our diet impacts our mental health (I’ve blogged for you in the past right here about foods that increase anxiety, and yep, gluten was on that list!) because this also provides natural, holistic ways to help reduce anxiety and depression — by simply reducing or eliminating gluten.

That’s just one example of how our mental health can be shaped by the foods we choose to eat.  Last week I told you how a keto diet has been found to be incredibly powerfully healing for folks who struggle with eating disorders — including anorexia, bulimia and food addictions.  Hop over here to read it.

So today I want to take that one step further and give you a variety of different ways you can shift your next meal to make a big difference in your mental health —  a difference that has been medical studied and found to actually work.  Here we go:

5 Ways To Boost Your Mental Health Through What You Eat:

 

 

1.  Try a Keto diet.

 

As discussed last week, keeping your carbs under 20 grams a day might do more to boost your mental health then all of the most intensive, in patient therapies have been able to do combined.

Interested in giving a Keto diet a try?  Focus on:

a high quality, high fat diet (coconut oil, olive oil, organic butter, avocado are all wonderful fats)high quality proteins (like grass fed beef, wild fish, eggs, nuts, seeds)and colorful vegetables.

Intimidated by going keto?

Consider cutting your gluten and sugar intake in half for one month and see if you feel more clear headed, energetic, less depressed and less anxious.  It’s been my experience that patients who are experiencing a brain fog or feelings of depression can feel dramatically better in just a few short weeks of reducing carbs and gluten.

You might also feel more confident if you snag some keto friendly cookbooks — Eat Happy, written by Anna Vocino, is the one in my kitchen right now!

 

 

2.  Take A Multivitamin.

 

Can something as simple as being sure you consume vitamins actually make a difference in our brain?  Yes.

A study published Sept 14, 2022 in Alzheimers & Dementia, is the largest randomized clinical trial on multivitamin use in healthy brain aging.  It’s a three year long trial following annual cognitive assessments on over 2,250 patients that were randomly assigned either a daily multivitamin, a 500 mg daily flavanol supplement (from cocoa extract) or a placebo supplement.

What researchers found was that not only did taking a daily vitamin help preserve cognitive function, but it actually helped significantly improve it.  Meaning it didn’t just help prevent cognitive function from declining with age, but it actually helped improve cognitive function long term.  Cognitive tests included word list, story recall, verbal fluency, number span, digit ordering and more.  The results show that the daily multivitamin improved memory, executive function and global cognition over time.  The researchers conducting this study estimated that the multivitamins potentially slowed brain aging by about 60%.

So if you have difficulty sticking to a keto diet (or if you are already doing a keto diet and want the next step to add additional brain benefits) focusing on essential nutrients that help support mental health is the next step.  To help you find the highest quality supplements depending on your unique mental health goals, I’ve created different totally free protocols for you, and you can find them right here:

Mood boost protocolAnxiety relief protocolBrain protective/healthy cognition protocol

 

3.  Eat Yogurt.

 

You already know that your digestion and your thoughts and feelings are directly linked.

You know that sudden feeling when you are scared and you become instantly nauseous?  As a mom I got that feeling all the time when my kids were younger and I lost sight of them for a moment in a public place.  It’s a horrendous feeling… it doesn’t matter how hungry you were or how long since your last meal… in life-or-death situations, hunger immediately evaporates and the rest of your senses are heightened (heart pounding and ears and eyes on maximum alert) and you scan the crowd looking for your precious child.

Or… have you ever had nervous diarrhea before a big test, a blind date, a job interview?

Or… what about a dry mouth as you stand up to give an important speech to your peers, act in a play, sing your solo at a choir concert?  Your dry mouth isn’t a true reflection of your hydration status… matter of fact you just drank two cups of water before stepping out on that stage… it’s your body’s immediate response to emotional stimulus.

While we all *know* on some level that our digestive state and our bowels are connected to our mind and mind frame, you may not know that your gut actually plays a big role in your mental health.  Clinical studies suggest that the gut microbes in depressed individuals are decreased in both amount and in variety.  And that if the natural flora of the gut is diminished in depression, then restoring the natural vitality and variety of healthy organisms in the digestive tract might be a very powerful way to improve outcome in depression (and other mood disorders, such as anxiety.)

And indeed it is.  Many studies now have shown improved mood after taking probiotics:  one study showed decreased depression when participants received probiotic supplements for 30 days, and another study reported clinically significant improvement in mood when participants ate probiotic-containing yogurt for just 3 weeks.  And this might apply to other neurological conditions as well.  A large meta-analysis examining the intestinal flora of patients with Parkinsons Disease, researchers found that there was widespread decrease in the microbiome of those patients.  A follow up study, published in Nature Communications in 2022 found that the gut microbiome had such a powerful impact on Parkinson’s diseases that they suggest Parkinson’s might actually START in the gut and then SPREAD to the brain.  They found that up to 2/3rds of the metabolic pathways in the gut of Parkinsons patients are dysregulated, and urgently recommend future research in improving the gut biome to help treat Parkinson’s, and possibly even detecting Parkinson’s before it becomes symptomatic disease with a gut biome analysis.

Hate eating yogurt?  You can add probiotics to your supplements for the same benefits.   I share all of my very favorite probiotics right here — choose any one you like and feel the difference:

My Favorite Probiotics

 

 

4.  Eat Colorful Fruits & Veggies.

 

Because brain inflammation is specifically linked to depression and mental health mood disorders, it makes sense that eating anti-inflammatory flavonoids (the natural pigments found in fruits and veggies)  would protect your mental health, and it does.  So much so that one study found that new mothers who ate flavonoid rich foods had less post-partum anxiety than mothers who did not.  Another study found that young adults who drank  flavonoid rich orange juice every morning had a significantly improved gut microbiome as well as boosted brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), suggesting something as simple as drinking flavonoids may potentially help treat depression.

Here are foods rich in flavonols that help reduce brain inflammation and boost your mood:

applesasparagusbroccolicabbagekalelettuceonionsspinachchivesdilloreganoblueberrycherrycranberryblack teared wine

 

5. Decrease Your Food Triggers.

 

If you find that you are eating sugar and gluten because of emotional triggers, this is likely making your emotions worse as the brain inflammation aggravates and depresses mood, heightens anxiety, and decreases motivation.

So to end this list of ways you can modify what you eat in order to improve your mental health, I want to share some tips I’ve come up with for helping you overcome emotional eating triggers.

Look over this list to see if you can identify which emotional eating pattern describes you best and get some tips on working with your eating patterns in a healthier way:

 

 

You eat for SECURITY:

For some folks, food represents safety and security.  So when they are not eating, deep fears of safety and panic may arise.  There may be worries about food scarcity and needing to know when and what your next meal will be.  If you notice you overeat, it may be an attempt to feel secure and reassured that all is well. You may crave comfort foods such as casseroles and home cooking and baked goods, or foods that remind you of childhood.

The solution: reach for high fiber foods.  To provide comfort and a deep contentment to security-type eaters is to include lots and lots and lots of fiber, so that you feel full, satiated, safe and grounded for longer.

 

 

You eat to feel PLEASURE:

For some folks, food isn’t just about the nutrition, food is about the entire experience… the smell, the feel, the texture, the flavor, the delight in chewing it. Food is pleasurable and even sensual.  If this is your style of eating, you may find you are eating because you want the feel of food in your mouth, not because you are hungry.  You may also find a love/hate relationship with food… often pleasure-seeking eaters have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) or lactose intolerance or celiac disease and need to find a balance between the foods they love and the foods their body hates.

The solution: focus on pleasurable drinks you enjoy & consider chewing gum.  One great idea for pleasure eaters is to enjoy drinking (coffees, teas, water, fresh squeezed juices…) or chewing gum throughout the day to experience that sensual pleasure of having sensations in the mouth without necessarily reaching for food.

 

 

You eat to fee POWERFUL:

For some folks, eating food is an issue of control or power.  These control-based eaters are the ones most likely to try to strictly monitor what they eat and submit to horrible restrictive diets that they absolutely hate!  Healthy eating is not about what you restrict but rather what you eat.  So for people who see food as power, diets are particularly offensive because restricting food intake feels like a loss of power or a loss of control… two things these types of eaters hate!

The solution: develop a grazing habit (eating smaller quantities more often).  Focusing on high quality foods and eating them more often, instead of restricting quantity, tends to be kinder than dieting and allows your body to feel healthier.

 

 

You eat to feel LOVED:

Some folks enjoy food that releases endorphins and provides a rush, similar to falling in love.  Any of my blog readers who know how often I blog about eating chocolate will recognize… yep, I’m this type of eater. Romantic foods like oysters, red wine, chocolate… it’s not so much that these eaters care about food, they care about the way the food makes them feel.  Dieting feels atrocious for love-seeking eaters and restricting food is equivalent to being dumped by a lover.

The solution: eat with others & make your place setting beautiful.  One great idea for love-seeking eaters is to focus on enjoying the people you are eating with more than the food — if possible, avoid eating alone (which typically leads to over-eating) and instead really focus on making eye contact with the people you are enjoying a meal with, the conversation.  This will allow you to enjoy what foods you do eat — for example, appreciating a lovely glass of wine and a small piece of dark chocolate instead of three plates full of food you do not actually love or even enjoy.  Also, focus just as much on creating a lovely place to eat as you do what foods you are eating. Add a fresh flower to your kitchen table, bring your lunch outside to eat in sunshine the middle of a work day, or browse thrift stores for beautiful, vintage glasses and plates to mix and match, or hand sew some beautiful cloth napkins to use as a treat.

 

 

You eat to feel HAPPIER:

Some people just love to enjoy a wide variety of foods and this is one of their wonderful strengths with eating.  My son is a joy-based eater and even at a very young age he was amazing at trying foods most children wouldn’t even think of… exotic foods, spicy foods, unusual vegetables that kids traditionally hate.  He was open to trying it all and got so excited as he watched me prepare an interesting meal from scratch.  Because joyful eaters are so open to food, dieting or any type of food restriction at all feels like a huge loss and may even bring deep sorrow.

The solution: increase food variety & make meals from scratch.  My favorite recommendation for joy-based eaters is to focus on trying new and unusual foods to satisfy their cravings, instead of over-eating a large quantity of boring foods.  Keep a stash of different spices, hot sauces and healthy seasonings to make each bite taste exciting and invigorating instead of needing larger portions to bring joy.  Joy eaters also tend to actually enjoy preparing food, so if you are a joy eater build time into your day to focus on trying new recipes, browsing new cookbooks, and preparing healthy meals from scratch.  Joy-based eaters can feel guilty that food brings them joy — but I say this is a strength! Food brings joy! So choose your food selection based on how much joy it brings you and do not waste your time (or calories) on food that does not bring joy.

 

 

You forget to eat, then BINGE:

Does this sounds familiar: forgetting to eat, not making the time to eat, feeling dizzy because you skipped lunch, reaching for a quick snack and then getting right back to work, forgetting to hydrate?  Some folks find it easy to ignore their bodies needs or lose track of time.  While sporadic eaters are usually not so bothered by going on a diet, the danger here is that they often don’t take the time to eat healthily so that when they do eat, they are ravenous and don’t make smart food choices, or they don’t even get the needed nutritional building blocks at all.

The solution: schedule meals & drink water often.  The best thing these eaters can do is to schedule in their eating so that they eat at regular intervals, stay hydrated, and make great food choices… instead of not eating all day long and then binging in a drive through on the way home.  Setting an alarm on your phone to remind you to eat every 3 hours throughout the day sometimes can totally transform a binge eater into a routine eater.  Another great tip is to carry water with you at all times, so that even if they you not taking the time to properly eat, you stay well hydrated.  This goes for everyone, but to sporadic eaters most of all.

 

What Else?  5 Bonus Ideas:

 

What else can you do to help boost mental health today?  Something you can literally do right now, in the next few minutes, to make a noticeable shift in your mental well being?

I’ve got you.  Pick one of these 5 things to do right now, in addition to the food suggests above.

 

 

Bonus #6: Exercise.

 

Researchers looking at how movement helps to boost brain function found that there are literally immediate benefits to your memory function after exercising just once.  ONCE!   Published September 2020 in Scientific Reports, this study finds that one session of exercising (cycling on a stationary bike was the exercise used in this study) significantly improved motor sequence memory — immediately!

This is super encouraging, because it was not looking at just the long term benefits from exercise but suggests that even if all you can do is one single episode of  exercise, you will get immediate brain benefits, that very day.

And although just one session of exercising provides benefit, ideally it would be even better to sprinkle movement throughout your entire day. It could be as simple as standing up and walking around a bit every hour or two, getting in some gentle stretching routines in throughout the day, walking up and down your stairs if you have them, and/or doing a before-bed yoga routine to reap massive benefits.

So see if you can come up with a way to move your body:

upon waking in the morningas a mid morning breakas a mid day breakas a mid afternoon breakand end with a before-bed stretch.

Today try to use movement as a way to boost your brain function before a difficult mental task. Some examples might include:

walking up and down a flight of stairs quickly before giving a presentation at workdoing a few jumping jacks in the office before writing an important emailplaying a game of frisbee with friends just before settling down to study for college examsencouraging your kids to jump on a trampoline before heading out on the school bus each morning.

 

Bonus #7:  Take 3 Deep Breaths.

 

Deep breathing actually helps provide increased nutrition to your brain and boosted removal of toxic metabolic waste because of the increased movement in cerebrospinal fluid that deep breathing creates…  so taking a couple intentional deep breaths actually means you have conscious control over your brain’s environment!  That is so cool.

Can you take a deep breath while grounded outside and/or on an organic indoor grounding tool? Combining grounding with a few deep breaths to immediately support the nutrition and oxygen going to your brain as well as decrease inflammation, which as we talked about in #4 above, boosts mental health as well.  Win-win.

Watch this video where I go into more detail on the link between breathing and brain health:

Boost Nutrition To Your Brain In One Breath (Dr. Laura Koniver, MD… The Intuition Physician)

 

 

And if you prefer TikTok, I would love to have you follow me on TikTok here!

Boost nutrition to your brain:

 

Bonus #8: Reduce Job Stress.

 

Job stress may cause as many as one out of every seven new cases of depression, anxiety and other common mental disorders, suggests a study published in Lancet Psychiatry.  Researchers looked at over 6,800 participants, ranking job strain at age 45 with risk of mental illness at age 50. The results were astounding.

Having a job that is highly demanding increased mental diagnosis rates by 70%.Having a job that causes high strain (moves at a fast pace, or is highly risky, for example) increased mental diagnosis rates by 220%.Having a job in which the employee had very little control over decisions increased mental illness rates by 89%.All in all, researchers estimate that simply having higher job stress increased the overall likelihood of subsequent mental illness significantly, accounting for 1 out of every 7 new cases of mental illness in midlife.

Forget the usually-thought-of triggers such as divorce, bereavement and serious medical issues… job strain alone can put you at significant risk for mental disorders.

What constitutes a stressful job?  A job that requires high intensity, a job that moves at a fast pace, a job that has high risk, a job that gives you very little control over your duties, and/or a job that doesn’t allow you to make your own decisions were all factors that contributed to job strain.

If you are thinking… yes my job is stressful but I really love it, it’s not enough.  Job satisfaction is not protective of the strain that job stress can put on mental health.

Although ideally we would all have meaningful soul satisfying jobs… even when they are super fulfilling soul careers, they can actually still be toxic, stressful, high paced, and put us at high risk for mental illness.  And let’s face it, many times jobs simply are not in the slightest bit soul fulfilling at all and yet still are so stressful that they raise mental illness diagnosis, all for a job you don’t even enjoy.

But there are ways to help protect yourself and your mental state.  Hop over here to read up on ways to decrease work-related stress to safeguard your mental health today:

9 Ways To Protect Your Mental Health From Work Related Stress

 

Bonus #9: Go Outside.

 

If you feel run down, tired, discouraged, sad, anxious, or any other mood that you just want to shake, getting grounded outside for a few minutes is probably the quickest way I know how to do it.  Exercise can help, a really good night of sleep can help, even medications (when appropriate) can help, but if need support right this very minute, grounding can shift your mood by supporting brain function — literally in just  seconds — as this study published in 2011, this study published in 2015, and my favorite, this important study, published in 2018, show by looking at EEG measurements of the brain.

I think of grounding as hitting a reset button.  And you can reset any time of the day or night in just a few minutes.

Grounding is good thing to know about (and share with others) because all day, every day, around the clock, we are bombarded with horrific world events, distressing local news, stressful and overwhelming government changes and so much more, that reasonably leave us feeling discouraged or even defeated.  It’s normal to feel stressed out, unsure, depressed and anxious over these current events, but it’s also possible to find relief and hope through the power of grounding.

By connecting with the earth, we can release tension from our muscles, shift the brain from high strung beta waves to calming alpha wave patterns, decrease the stress signals in our body by supporting vagal nerve function (which helps loosen that knot you feel in the pit of your stomach pretty quickly) and boost your mood, all naturally.

And the best part is that the earth is free and always available to you. If you are feeling utterly overwhelmed, all you have to do is walk out your front door, step out of your office, or pull over your car at the nearest rest stop and touch the earth.

Hop over here for a few ideas to get you started today:

7 Quick Ways The Earth Can Reset Your Mood Whenever You Need It

 

Bonus #10:  Take A Nap.

 

Published in The Journal Of Neuroscience on June 26, 2013, reasearchers found that if you have anxiety, sleep deprivation actually impacts you even more than it impacts other people. Sleep loss has been shown to decrease our ability to judge social interactions and social threats accurately (making you more likely to be hypersensitive and more emotionally reactive) as well as impair emotional control (making you more likely to have outbursts or impulsive behavior.)

This study furthered our understanding of the impact sleep has on anxiety by demonstrating amplified activity in the amygdala and anterior insula of the brain, which exacerbates anxiety. And those that had the worst anxiety had the most overstimulation of those areas of the brain in response to poor sleep. Meaning that people who have anxiety issues in the first place will suffer greater harm from sleep deprivation than folks without baseline anxiety issues, although in all cases the brain becomes overly sensitized and prone to hyper-reaction.

So if you are feeling anxious, let’s take a nap for 20 minutes right now… or at least commit to prioritizing your sleep tonight.  Here are 12 tips to help you do just that:

12 Things To Do Throughout The Day Today, To Improve Your Sleep Tonight

 

 

You absolutely can feel your mood boost and your brain work better and better and better… all by taking a few completely natural and simple steps — like reducing gluten, adding nutritional supplements, going on a walk, taking 3 deep breaths, and touching the earth.

Share these tips with others that you love and keep each other on track.

xoxo,Laura Koniver MD

The post Improve Your Mental Health With Your Very Next Meal (+ 5 More Things You Can Do Today To Feel Relief) appeared first on Intuition Physician.

Ketogenic Diet Found Incredibly Helpful For All Types Of Eating Disorders

 

 

Eating disorders were totally glossed over in medical school, and that’s because they are notoriously hard to treat, so there were not a lot of solutions presented to us.  In fact, still to date there are no effective biological treatments for Anorexia Nervosa.

But a new study offers hope, and not only that, but it is a simple, holistic, all natural way to address eating disorders without expensive medications, therapies or treatment programs.  Just a dietary modification that has the ability to successfully treat Anorexia Nervosa so well that it puts patients into multi-year long remissions without relapse.

That’s because it treats the neurology behind the condition, instead of forcing unrealistic behavioral changes or attempting to medicate the symptoms away.  Flow up research has found this exact same dietary intervention can also cussessfully treat binge eating disorders and food addiction disorders as well.

What is this magical diet that helps all spectrums of eating disorders?  It’s simply a keto diet.

 

 

In a pilot study (published in 2023 in the Journal of Metabolic Health) reaserchers found that a keto diet successfully treated 100% of patients, with a  weight gain of 45+ lbs each, reducing their anxiety around eating, decreased body-related fears,  and put every single one of them into long term remission.

That is likely because the origin of Anorexia Nervosa (AN) behavior is the brain’s overwhelming desire to be in “starvation ketosis” — with patents attempting to satisfy this neurogenic impulse for ketosis through extreme food restriction.  Eating becomes a type of powerful phobia, and that’s because it goes against the brain’s strong signaling to be in ketosis.  Patients with AN have anxiety and fear surrounding eating because it break the ketogenic state of the brain, and becomes a primal fear that is incredibly difficult to overcome with mental health support and therapy.

In fact, I would say it’s unfair to expect a patient to try to change how their brain works and force feed themselves when eating itself triggers a panic state.  Instead, AN can be treated simply by teaching the patient to maintain ketosis through a ketogenic diet, where the brain is able to have the ketosis state it is signaling for while allowing the patient to eat normally.  This shift to a keto diet allowed all of the patients to release their fear surrounding eating and to find immense relief surrounding food consumption, body image, and brain satiety.  All patients experienced a deeply improved sense of well being and were able to go into full remission when introduced to the keto diet.

 

 

A full review of all of the medical literature on AN and keto diet, including animal and human studies, was published in 2024 in Frontiers In Nutrition, where the authors conclude that the keto diet truly helps heal the condition at the source, in the brain.  They state that the “…specific neurobiological underpinnings for AN can be modified with a therapeutic ketogenic diet.”

So if a keto diet helps severely underweight patients feel the relief of releasing food struggles, what happens at the opposite end of the spectrum of eating disorders?  What happens to patients with binge eating patterns or food addition?

A pilot study (published in the Journal of Eating Disorders in 2022) found incredible success treating  food addiction and binge eating with a keto diet — all patients in this study had significant reductions in binge eating, significantly decreased cravings, and all were able to successfully decrease undesirable eating behaviors while simultaneously losing between 10 – 24% of their body weight and keeping it off successfully for the entire study period (9 – 17 months.)

 

 

Again, this is likely because a keto diet addresses the brain’s actual biological root cause by modifying neurochemical signaling.   All in all the patients on a ketogenic diet found that they were less controlling and anxious about food, less fixated on food, and that translated into less binge eating and addictive behaviors and successful weight loss that stayed off.

Considering what a positive impact keto diets have on neurotransmitters and brain function, might a keto diet actually provide improved mental health with other refractory conditions such as depression, bipolar, and schizoaffective disorder?

Yes.

Research published in Frontiers In Psychiatry in Jul 2022 found that not only does a ketogenic diet (low carbohydrates and an emphasis on proteins and veggies) help with refractory epilepsy and other organic brain disease, but it also benefits psychiatric conditions.

Patients with severe mental illness resistant to other treatments — who were not improving despite intensive psychiatric care, were placed on a ketogenic diet with a 20 grams of carbs a day limit.  The patients studied had diagnosis of major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and/or schizoaffective disorder not responding to conventional psychiatric therapy.

The patients were followed for a period of up to 8 months on this diet and the results showed an impressive, statistically significant improvement in not only mental health parameters but also in metabolic health, with improved weight, blood pressure, blood glucose and blood lipid profiles.  The ketogenic diet was well tolerated and provided sustainable and significant improvements in both depression and psychosis symptoms — very impressive in patients who could not improve despite having the best treatments in medicine.

 

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If a ketogenic diet, or even simply reducing the amount of carbs one consumes, can boost the mental health outcomes for very severe, refractory mental illness, I’m very encouraged to think what it might do for less extreme cases of depression, or for anxiety or OCD or agoraphobia or body dysmorphia or any number of other mental health concerns.

Obviously I sincerely hope this study will be followed by bigger studies that include other mental health issues, and of course I will keep you posted when those results are published.

In fact, next week I’m blogging about how your very next meal can make a huge difference in your mental health — foods to choose and foods to avoid if you have anxiety, depression or other mental health issues… so if you are not already on my newsletter list, you can join it to stay updated on this and other free uplifting, holistic health information right here:

 

 

Meanwhile, if you tend to get anxious, or depressed, struggle with an eating disorder, or have any other mental health concern, you might want to give a ketogenic diet a try.

Diet truly does affect our mental wellness, and going on a keto diet is a fabulous things you can do, and the best part is that is works along with any conventional therapy you are already on.  And that’s one thing I really love about the possibility of consuming a ketogenic diet to help boost your treatment results for depression, anxiety, eating disorders or other mental wellness concerns — you can do this right along with any medications or therapies you might already be taking.

That’s the power of focusing on holistic health and combining it, or tailoring it, to what is already working for you from the best of conventional medicine as well.

xoxox,Laura Koniver MD

 

The post Ketogenic Diet Found Incredibly Helpful For All Types Of Eating Disorders appeared first on Intuition Physician.

How Grounding Can Boost Your Intimacy & Improve Sex

 

 

Did you know that grounding together might just be the best Valentines date you could plan?  Getting grounded routinely is probably helping your relationship in more ways than you know!  And with Valentines Day coming up this week, I thought this might be the perfect time to talk about why my favorite holistic healing therapy of all time — grounding — can boost your sexual health, possibly even boosting sex drive and fertility!

I was listening to a recent presentation of several urologists and sexual medicine specialists and they brought up this idea of using sexual health as a vital sign — a marker of whole body health.  I really liked that idea, because our reproductive health is interconnected with many of our major organ systems, for example:

you need healthy hormone balance to have a functioning sex driveyou need healthy circulation to have proper genital function during sexyou need healthy nerve sensation to have sexual arousal and responsiveness

Because of this, sexual function can be a window into our cardiovascular system, our hormonal balance, and our peripheral nervous system.  While there are lots of ways to address sexual dysfunction, from evaluating our heart health to ruling out diabetes to going over medication side effects, one of the best ways to address total body health is by grounding.

Grounding supports all three: hormone balance, circulation, and nerve function, as well as improving the function of many other organ systems.  It’s so beneficial that you might even want to invest in a way to ground your bed at night — to reap all the benefits of grounding when you desire the sexual benefits most.  An organic grounding bed roll or mattress topper might just be the most romantic impactful Valentines gift of all!  Find those here.

If you are struggling with infertility, if you are struggling with getting in the mood, if you are struggling with pain during intimacy, if you are struggling with genital responsiveness, blood flow, or hormone balance, here are seven great reasons you might want to consider grounding to help address these issue all at once:

7 Ways Grounding Makes Sex Better:

 

 

1. Improved Circulation & Increased Blood Flow:

 

I think it’s obvious that healthy circulation is absolutely crucial to sexual arousal, and not just for men but for women as well.  Boosted blood flow to the genitals, nipples, lips… this allows our body to create moisture and lubrication, it allows the sex organs to become engorged, and even heightens sensitivity of everything from our fingertips to our lips to our nipples to our groin.

So the most obvious way that grounding helps with sex is that it improves circulation all over your body, from head to toe, within minutes.  I’m going to go into more depth on how grounding supports our cardiac health next week, as it’s Valentine’s Day next Tuesday and I am going to focus on heart health in next week’s blog post… but if you want to understand just how incredible grounding is for your circulation, therefore for you sexual stimulation, you can read this article right now:

Grounding To Support Your Cardiovascular Health

 

 

2.  Relaxed Muscles:

 

Grounding immediately decreases muscle tension, all over your body.  That’s why touching the earth can help deter a tension headache from occurring, or help release pain from fibromyalgia, or decrease restless leg syndrome and teeth clenching and other muscle tension issues.

When you want to get romantic, relaxing your muscles and dropping deeply into a calm, receptive state can really help you be present to connect with your partner, as well as make intimacy more comfortable.  To learn more about how grounding decreases muscle tension, I created a video for you here:

Grounding To Relax Your Muscles

 

 

3.  Balanced Sex Hormones:

 

Grounding has been shown repeatedly in the medical literature to lower cortisol.  By lowering cortisol, you have more building blocks for other hormones to be made, since cortisol uses the same building blocks as sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen.

So if your sex hormones are low or out of whack, one thing you definitely want to do is lower your cortisol production, which not only decreases your felt perception of stress (good when you are trying to get in the mood!) but also allows more building blocks for your body to naturally boost your own testosterone and estrogen and other sex hormone levels.  For more on how grounding balances hormones naturally, hop over here:

Grounding To Balance Your Hormones

 

 

 

4.  Boosted Mood, Decreased Stress:

 

Grounding has been shown to boost mood naturally, which is fabulous if you suffer from anxiety or depression, which are both absolute libdo killers.  For a deeper dive into exactly why grounding boosts mood and what the medical studies have revealed about grounding to reduce anxiety and depression, hop over and read this article I wrote for you here:

How Grounding Dramatically Boosts Mood

And if you just want some quick tips on how to use grounding to lift your mood right now, I have an article waiting for you here on that:

7 Quick Ways The Earth Can Reset Your Mood

 

 

5.  Improved Neurologic Function:

 

On top of the boost in mood grounding provides, there are multiple other ways that grounding supports our central and peripheral nervous system.  Anything that uses conductivity and electrical impulse to function, such as our brain and our sensory nerve fibers, are going to be positively impacted when we are grounded.  In fact, studies show that within milliseconds of being grounded our brain wave patterns improve.  Published in March of 2023 in the Open Journal Of Neurology & Neuroscience, I wrote an overview on what the medical studies have found on the impact of grounding so far, which you can read right here:

Neurological Pathways Supported By Grounding

 

 

6.  Decreased Pain & Inflammation:

 

Grounding has been medically studied and found to relieve pain as well as decrease whole body inflammation.  This is key if pelvic pain or other pain conditions are what kill your libido or prevent you from relaxing into intimacy.

I have a video going into much more detail on why grounding can be a game changer for you if you have pain… and not only grounding, but I go over 5 different ideas to help release chronic pain… things your doctor probably didn’t tell you about or explain to you.

This video is a must watch for anyone who suffers from chronic pain conditions:

Releasing Chronic Pain To Find Relief

 

 

7.  Counterbalance Toxic EMF Effects:

 

The natural EMFs from the earth (the Shuman Resonance and the Carnegie Curve) heal our body and are exactly opposite of the effects of manmade EMFs that harm our body.  Manmade EMFs have been found repeatedly in medical studies to decrease fertility by decreasing both sperm motility and sperm quality (and quantity too.)

If you want to read more about how natural EMFs help balance out the effects of manmade EMFs on the human body, which may help improve fertility, you might enjoy this free article I wrote for you:

How to Naturally Defuse The Effects Of EMFs on The Body

 

 

Improved blood flow, relaxed muscles, decreased stress, boosted sex hormones, improved mood, less pain — these all can equal a massively improved sexual experience for you and your partner.  Want a good overview on why grounding for longer periods of time means accumulating benefits?  Here is a free article I wrote for you on the immediate and long term benefits of grounding:

These Medical Studies Show How Grounding Benefits Build Over Time

 

Want to give it a try?

 

If you want to feel what I’m talking about, you can experiment with going outside and leaning against a tree to kiss your sweetie, or sitting on the ground (or with just feet touching the ground) and enjoy a long slow sweet kiss.  You will definitely feel a difference, just in that one kiss, compared to a kiss you do in a car or indoors.

Feel your lips, feel the sensation and the blood flow through them as you lean into your lover.  It’s a heightened experience.

 

 

 

So how do you get grounded when you are ready to go further than a kiss, but want more privacy?

 

Oh it’s so easy.  You can use an indoor grounding tool to ground your bed — that’s the easiest solution and sleeping grounded all night long will not only help your sex life but will boost your body’s health in a multitude of ways.

 

 

I have invested a great deal of time and research creating the highest quality, most reliable, eco-ethically hand crafted (right here in the USA) grounding tools that use all natural materials — safer for you, safer for the environment.

Tools that can be used while you are sexually intimate in bed, grounding products you can lay directly on with your partner… items like grounding mattress toppers, grounding bed rolls, and organic grounding mats, as well as grounding pillowcases made from raw silk that you can use on top of any of these grounding products.

Upgrade your bedtime grounding experience by clicking here.

 

 

Want another holistic way to help boost your libido?

 

How about morning light on your face.

New research (presented at the 29th European College of Neuropsychopharmacology Congress on September 19, 2016) shows that the same light therapy recommendation to treat Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) can significantly improve sexual satisfaction in people with low desire after only 2 weeks of treatment!

While this study was on men, because light therapy is incredibly effective for females too, I truly believe that this would work for women with low sex drive and should be first line therapy for anyone with sexual dysfunction or low sex drive.

The study:

Researchers studied 38 patients with a diagnosis of primary hypoactive sexual desire or sexual arousal disorder.  Patients were randomly assigned to receive either active light treatment or placebo light treatment.Active treatment was a daily 30 minute exposure to a light box with UV filter upon waking each morning.  Placebo light treatment was the same exposure but with a neutral density filter to reduce the light exposure to .01% strength of the active therapy.Patients were assessed clinically at baseline and after 2 weeks of daily morning light exposure, as well as through self assessments and blood samples to test hormone response to light therapy.

The results:

After only two weeks of light therapy, patients with the active light treatment had hugely significant improvements in sexual satisfaction compared to placebo.After just two weeks, sexual satisfaction for active light therapy patients increased more than 3X over baseline (from a rating of 2 out of 10 to 6.7 out of 10!). Placebo light therapy users had no statistically significant improvement at all (from baseline of 2 out of 10 to 2.7 out of 10)In addition, the testosterone levels of the patients receiving active light therapy rose by over 50% in just two weeks (from an average testosterone level of 2.1 ng/mL to an average of 3.6 ng/mL!). In contrast, there was no change at all to testosterone levels in the placebo group.Testosterone levels naturally decrease in the Northern Hemisphere from November through April, when they begin to rise again throughout the summer.  Pregnancy rates reflect that, with the highest conception in the summer months (peaking in June.). In fact, as I recently blogged about here, getting some extra Vitamin D from sun exposure actually boosts fertility — doubling the rate of implantation of an embryo and boosting the pregnancy rate from 20% up to 31%.

 

This news is back to back with recent medical studies showing that light therapy is an incredibly effective solution for treating all forms of depression, as I blog about here!  I feel convinced that light therapy should be first line of treatment or added to the existing treatment of all forms of depressive disorders and sexual dysfunction. Light therapy can be used safely in conjunction with medical treatments (including Rx medications) so if you are on an anti-depressant or a drug to treat sexual dysfunction, augment your treatment with light therapy and it’s possible you can work with your physician to decrease the dose!

If you want to give light therapy a try, I have combed through thousands of light therapy boxes to bring you the absolutely most effective, least expensive, most portable light therapy box that truly works…

… and it’s waiting for you right here!

 

So try to make a habit of going out every morning immediately after waking up and grabbing a few minutes of daylight, grounded.  And if that is not possible, consider adding a light box to your morning routine and a grounding tool into your nighttime routine.

Forward this article to your lover and plan to include being outside together, or grounding in bed together, this Valentines Day and let’s have your best one yet…

xoxo, Laura Koniver MD

 

 

The post How Grounding Can Boost Your Intimacy & Improve Sex appeared first on Intuition Physician.

Healthy Relationships Can Improve Your Health, Here’s How.

 

 

We are heading into February, so I thought it would be the perfect time to review for you what the medical literature has to say about the health benefits that come from relationships with others.  Whether we are connecting with partners, friends, or even our pets, it’s clear that healthy relationships improve health outcomes.

How much better do you feel after a warm hug from a friend, the comforting squeeze of a partner’s hand, or the joy of laughing around a dinner table with your children. Sharing space with a loved one for even one minute is enough to completely turn a bad day into a good one. Medical studies have shown that increasing your connection to others not only improves your health, it actually increases your lifespan. 

I feel this has something to do with the fact that we merge our natural energy fields together when we are close to one another. We each produce our own healthy, natural EMF fields. 

Both the brain and the heart emit measurable energy fields, and it’s a beautiful thing. Which one do you think is largest and extends furthest from our bodies, the brain or the heart? It’s the heart field.  Our heart center expands outwards in a powerful, measurable energy field, right from the center of our being. In fact, our heart’s energy field is actually bigger than our brain’s measurable energy field, and maybe even best of all, they overlap.

 

 

You can literally feel this in your body. Have you ever sat, focusing on something that made you so happy that you literally felt your heart grow larger and larger and larger still?

That’s why I painted the original artwork “Attuning” shown above (you can find prints of this artwork and lots of other original healing paintings I have painted on my website in the Healing Artwork section here.)

When our heart energy fields are overlapping, we can become attuned to others, and we can literally feel when we are resonant (or discordant) with others.  Have you ever felt that your chest was going to explode, your heart energy got so big?  Have you ever felt your heart vibration reach past your chest, past your body, reach into the space around, to the people around you, to the world around you?  It feels so good, and it feels so good because it is the healthy state of being connected to another person’s heart field.  I felt this most effortlessly as a new mom, holding my babies. I can bring back that feeling any time I wish by remembering what it was like to hold them in my arms. To love on them. To take care of them. To adore them.  Recall your own times when your have felt your heart swell and reach for that feeling as often as you can.

 

 

Connecting and attuning with each other, overlapping our heart energy fields with those that we love.  So when you fall in love, you are specifically overlapping your heart energy with your lovers heart energy. Your bodies naturally attune together. You grow in love as you grow in sync.  Energy matches, breath matches, you literally become one energy field, together. As you attune together, you feel connected. They become your favorite person, an extended part of yourself.

And it’s not just human beings who can attune with each other — do you have a beloved pet?

I absolutely did, a once-in-a-lifetime pup, and unfortunately she passed away well two years ago and I still miss her –painfully so — every single day.  And there is a reason why: our heart fields were attuned to one another for 17 years.  As I wrote about in this blog post here: The Health Benefits Of Having A Pet, pets actually boost health and longevity, much like connecting to your favorite human.

From boosted cardiac health and improved survival rates after heart attack to improved outcomes in cancer treatment, your life is absolutely enhanced by your fur baby and that special connection you share.  In fact, studies have found that animals can decrease stress in our bodies after literally only 5 minutes (and not only that, but they decrease stress more effectively than other activities, such as coloring or taking a break to relax!). For example one study, published in the Academy of Emergency Medicine in 2020 found that spending 5 minutes with a dog was able to significantly lower participants cortisol levels. From walking your dog to playing with your cat to letting your guinea pig or bird out of his or her cage for a little play time, pets provide us precious time bonding with a heart energy field that absolutely loves you unconditionally.

 

 

Connecting to others is so important that it can even help provide anesthesia to pain. Physical touch from a loved one calms brain activity during distress, which helps explain why it reduces the brain’s perception of pain, as one study (published in 2006 in Psychological Science) found. In this study, brain activity was measured via a functional MRI while partners held hands with their spouse — hand holding significantly reduced levels of brain activity during painful stimuli.  Another study (published in 2018 in the Proceedings Of The National Academy of Sciences) confirmed that simply holding hands provided statistically significant analgesia during pain.  

Physical touch even has the power to calm your heart rate and respiratory rate, as well as lower blood pressure.  A study published in 2017 in Scientific Reports found patients in pain who held their partners hands had significant analgesia which resulted in lowered blood pressure, lowered heart rate response, and a lowered respiratory rate.

 

 

Another interesting medical review, published in 2010 in PLOS Medicine, looked at over 300,000 participants in over 145 medical studies about relationships and mortality rates and found that no matter your age, sex, health status, disease status, or cause of death, having social ties (like friends, family, neighbors and colleagues) increased your survival rate by 50%. This protective health boost is dramatic, meaningful and significant.  The study also found that having low social interactions is actually a risk factor for death similar to or even more impactful than other well known health risk factors. For example, having less social interactions was equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, equivalent to being an alcoholic, more harmful than not exercising, and twice as harmful as obesity.  It makes sense that if having healthy relationships protects your lifespan, having low social relationships drops it.  And that’s exactly what researchers found in a medical study published in 2015 in Perspectives on Psychological Science.  They found that isolation, loneliness and living alone each increases likelihood of mortality rates by 29%, 26% and 32%, respectively.

Researchers postulate that one reason being connected to others is protective to our health is that giving support actually helps mitigate the body’s stress response.  In a study published in 2019 in Psychosomatic Medicine, researchers used functional MRI imaging to examine what happens to the brain during the giving and receiving of social support. Researchers found that not only were there beneficial, protective brain changes during social interactions, but giving support was associated with the additional benefit of significantly reduced stress. They found that giving support to others actually buffers the experience of stress by supporting areas of the brain that would typically activate during stressful situations.

So if you are looking to strengthen your connections to loved ones that live near and far, here are 7 simple ways to get started:

 

 

1. Connect through texting:

 

While studies show that social media can dramatically decrease mental health, direct texting is different, allowing you to stay in touch with people who are meaningful to you in real life, in real time. Make a list of one, two, three, or twenty people you love and miss, and make a point to start each day off with a text to each, touching base with them. Their responses throughout your day will help you feel connected. Repeat daily.

 

 

2. Connect through writing letters:

 

Yep, snail mail is still a thing. Write a letter to someone you love and send it in the mail. You can even include a folded up self addressed envelop and a request that they write you back!  For a special gift to my son, when he graduated high school a few years ago, I asked family and friends to each write him a letter, then collected them all and put them into a special binder.  He told me that opening it and reading the letters, page after page, was the best gift I had ever given him.  

Hate to write? Of course calling over the phone is a classic way to reach out to someone, or you can FaceTime or use any other video or streaming app (like Marco Polo, which is how I stay in touch with my mom and my childhood bestie!) to stay connected to your favorite loved ones who live far away. 

 

 

3. Connect by organizing a get together:

 

It doesn’t have to be fancy, you don’t need to clean your home, and you don’t need to cook a stressful meal in order to gather a few friends together. Host a book club at a coffee shop, a potluck dinner (all you provide is the plates and cutlery!), a group picnic at a local park (no cleaning your house at all!), a beautiful night under the stars around a fire pit at a campsite, an after dinner walk with a group of neighbors, a cocktail or dessert party after dinnertime (skipping the meal all together!), an art night or a craft night in your backyard, a sewing or knitting circle on your patio, a karaoke or music night gathered on your front porch, there is no limit to the ways you can bring people together in simple and fun ways.

 

 

4. Connect through playing games:

 

Something as simple as playing a game together can boost your connections to others easily.  Card games, board games, golf, tennis, pickleball, horseshoes, tic tac toe, water balloon toss, nerf gun battles… basically any game you think to play can bring people together in endless fun ways. 

If you have in person loved ones, you can play cards or a board game together, but even if you live alone, you can connect to others through online platforms. From playing online games together through apps like Words With Friends or Chess, or even buying multiple sets of the same puzzle and shipping to a few of your friends or family members for a grand Puzzle Race — see who can finish it first! — there are plenty of fun ways to stay playful, even if virtually, connected with those that you love.

For more fun ideas on how to introduce more play into your life, and to take an easy quiz that will tell you your own favorite “play style”, read my free blog post to discover your play style here.

 

 

5.  Connect through healing touch:

 

When you were a kid, did you ever walk around in your socks, rubbing them on a carpet repeatedly so you could sneak up to your sibling and shock them? (Or was that just me, LOL? My poor older brother.) If you’ve ever shocked someone when touching them, you know this on a large scale — you could literally feel the large quantity of electrons passing between the two of you that caused the shock. 

On a smaller scale, this is happening with every interaction, all day long. Because no two bodies are 100% completely balanced and neutral in respect to each other, electrons are always flowing one way or another when you touch someone else, or they touch you. Although the amount of electrons transferring is such a small amount relative to the amount of electrons in a human body, I believe this is in part why healing touch is so powerful. When you “donate” some of your electrons to someone who is in worse physical condition than you (such as someone in pain, with an inflammatory process going on) you are supporting them in many ways. I think this is part of what massage therapists, physical therapists, acupuncturists and other healers are doing when they touch you. Even your pet can donate electrons to you when it snuggles up with you while you are sick or have a chronic condition bringing you down. 

So touch those that you love, offer a foot massage, shoulder massage, scalp massage, a warm hug, or ask for any of these things you need, or invite your pet to take a nap on your lap.

 

[image error]6. Connect to your pet:

 

We just went over this in the #5 above, but it bares repeating: don’t forget to stay connected to your beloved pet!  Spend extra time each day getting into a routine of connecting with them at least morning and night.  From walking your dog to playing with your cat to letting your guinea pig or bird out of his or her cage for a little play time, enjoy spending time with someone who absolutely loves you unconditionally.

 

7. Connect through a class or group:

 

Want to expand the amount of connections you currently have?  From online classes you can join into from the comfort of your own home, to in-person gatherings, one easy way to meet new people and make new social connections is to join a group or sign up for a class.

From a meditation or breath work class, to an exercise class, to a cooking class, to learning a new language at your local community college, to learning a new musical instrument, to taking voice lessons, and so much more… there are lots of classes just waiting for you to sign up for. Or, instead of signing up for a class, you might consider just joining an established group. There are lots of ways to find a new group to join in person, for example, Meetup ( meetup.com ) Meetup can search your local community by city or zip code to find you anything from a local improv group, a toastmasters group, a yoga or tai chi meet up, a group to go running or biking with, a coffee lovers meet up, a local foodies group, a hiking club, a book club, a wine club, a gardeners club, a beekeepers club… you name it, if you have even a passing interest in an activity, there’s a club for that!

 

 

Don’t want to connect with another person at the moment? 

That’s okay, did you know you can boost your own health by practicing self compassion and loving yourself?  A study on self compassion, published in 2021 in Health Psychology, found that folks who reported extending compassion to themselves during times of suffering not only had better psychological outcomes and protected their heart health.  Researchers used ultrasound technology to look at participants carotid artery health and measured carotid artery IMT (a well documented measure of cardiac disease.) They found that participants who practiced self compassion actually had healthier IMT measurements, lower rates of subclinical cardiovascular disease and lower over all cardiac risk factors, even after adjusting for all other standard cardiac risk factors.

So today, consider protecting your health through connection in many many ways… through sharing a deep connection with loved ones, through spending quality time with your fur babies, through practicing self compassion by dropping into your own heart space.  

And if you are lucky enough to be near someone you love, take a few minutes to drop down into your heart space and literally feel their energy. Over time you will get incredibly good at attuning with your loved ones, even matching your breathing to theirs without effort, calming and centering them as well as yourself.  Loved ones protect our health and buffer us from stress, so let’s become acutely aware of the precious heart energy of those we love and cherish the time that we are lucky enough to overlap them.

Xoxox,Laura Koniver MD

 

The post Healthy Relationships Can Improve Your Health, Here’s How. appeared first on Intuition Physician.

Sick Of Winter? Me Too. 3 Reasons We Are Both Going To Feel Better Soon

 

I’m sick of being cold.

I’m sick of the shorter darker days.

I’m craving to be outside and luckily this spring I have a whole line up of awesome free healing articles for you on my blog that will help you get outside and feeling the best you’ve ever felt.  If someone has forwarded you today’s article, you can sign up right here to get one free article each week directly into your own inbox.

 

 

Today we are going to start with why I know you are going to instantly feel better soon, as spring is just around the corner.  Let’s go:

3 Reasons You Will Feel Better This Spring:

 

 

1.  You’ll Hear Birds Returning Soon

 

We’ve known for a while that animals improve our mood, health, and even boost longevity (I’ve blogged about how pets can do all of this and more for you right here) and that plants do much the same… decreasing depression rates, anxiety rates, and dramatically reducing stress.

But even knowing all of that, I still think if you ask most people if they would rather see a couple extra birds today or earn a slightly higher paycheck, most would assume that money would provide more satisfaction.

But studies suggest that bird diversity is as important to life satisfaction as an income is.  This study, published in Ecological Economics on Nov 2020, found that not only is happiness correlated with local bird diversity, but a 10% boost in bird diversity actually increases happiness to a similar magnitude as a 10% boost in income does!

Analyzing data from over 26,000 adults across 26 different countries, researchers evaluated biological diversity, socio-economic data and life satisfaction surveys to examine what makes the biggest impact on our long term happiness.  It turns out, more than plants, more than large fauna, more than insect or tree diversity, bird diversity has the biggest impact on happiness… comparable in magnitude to that of income.

So as the world wakes up around us this spring, stop and look for birds.  Or, even easier, just stop and listen. We can often hear birds even when we can’t see them.

Living in an urban area? There are still birds. Listen for them in early morning — sunrise is the best time to hear birds — or listen in the late afternoon hours.

 

 

 

Want to increase the amount of birds you see and hear?

Hang a bird feeder in a window, put some potted plants, a birdbath or a birdhouse on a porch, balcony or doorstep — even without a yard, you absolutely can attract more birds to you, even in urban settings. For inspiration, check out this article Bird Feeding In The City.

Want to give your body a double shoot of happiness and a health boost?

Combine grounding and birding (simply touch a leaf or a tree or a flower or a rock or a balde of grass and you will be grounded while you listen to the lovely birdsong) and you will be directly supporting your body’s function while simultaneously boosting your happiness.  More on this below…

 

 

2.  You’ll Be Getting Outside More

 

We’ve know for a long time (and honestly common sense and personal experience tells you this as well) that time spent outside lifts your spirits.  And while you are out there, touch something that will get you grounded.   A leaf on a tree, a metal sign post that is anchored into the ground, a flower starting to bloom, even the sidewalk.   We already know that grounding (touching) the earth outside immediately impacts our brains.

In fact a double blind medical study published in 2015 found that participants who were grounded had measurable improvements in mood that were significantly higher than the sham-grounded participants.

This fantastic medical study, published in 2018, documents the brain wave shifts that happen near instantaneously, within milliseconds, recorded via an EEG (electroencephalogram) when the human body is grounded.

While grounding has been shown to support brain function by decreasing inflammation, boosting mood, and even shifting brain wave patterns, I believe there is also an exciting novel pathway that explains why grounding may even help improve mental clarity and decision making. 

Published in the Journal Of Signal and Information Processing, scientists found that electrical activity from the earth makes a measurable synchronization in our cerebral cortex that allows for real-time coupling between the Schumann resonance and cerebral activity.  The researchers postulate this activity is the exact amount of time, length of time, amplitude of signaling, and frequency of time required for a “ping” from the planet to our human brains to occur. 

 

 

Researchers found that the frequency of this brain ping is once every 30 seconds, which is the brain’s short term memory decay time, indicating that the earth provides perfectly timed “micro-guidance”, re-orienting us in a subtle way that provides meaning and clarity but not long enough as to disrupt cognitive thought as we navigate daily life.

The duration of coherence was long enough to give rise to the possibility that the earth itself may send electrical signaling, or electrical information our brain, just long enough to allow an intuitive insight, or a flash of understanding to occur, but not long enough to disrupt our stream of consciousness.

In other words, it’s possible that the earth boosts our ability to receive orienting information without disrupting cognition.  

Even more exciting, the highest cohesion between the earth’s Schumnn Resonance and our human brains is in the parahippocampal gyrus of the brain’s cerebral cortex — this in an area of the brain that provides spatial awareness and navigation.  The parahypocamppal gyrus is responsible for accurate and meaningful interpretation of our surroundings, our environment, and for support in making life decisions in a contextually appropriate way. 

This gives a very real explanation for why time spent in nature, on the earth, grounded, helps to give rise to a feeling of centeredness, helps to give a deeper perspective on our personal life’s journey, and may even help open our subconscious up to reframing and refocusing our life’s meaning through these environmental “pings” from our planet.  

 

 

Have you ever spent time in nature when you are mulling over a big life decision, or feeling distraught, overwhelmed or confused, and then you suddenly have a deeper insight, a gut feeling, a pull, or an intuition that provides greater clarity?  

These studies suggest a direct pathway for the earth to enhance and support our not only our daily decision making, but also connect to our deeper understanding and even our intuitive capabilities through earth-to-brain coherence.

I think of grounding as hitting a reset button, a chance for a pause that brings clarity into focus.  By connecting with the earth, we can shift the brain from high strung beta waves to calming alpha wave patterns, decrease inflammation to help improve mood, even possibly help provide greater clarity or boost intuitive navigation in our lives, all naturally. 

Want to read more deeply about this concept?   I’ve got you.

I published an article in the Open Journal of Neurology & Neuroscience in March 2023 that you can read on the Neurological Pathways Supported by Grounding.Another article I published on how the earth support healthy brain function was published in the Current Research in Complementary & Alternative Medicine in April 2024 on how Grounding Can Improve Cognition.And the American Journal of Neurology Research published my article on Grounding and Our Cerebrospinal Fluid in June 2023 here.

Grounding is an instantly accessible healing tool that can provide immediate support during periods of stress no matter where you are or what you are doing.

Whether it’s just a few deep breaths as you sit on a patch of grass, taking a walk through a local park, or standing outside at night looking up at the stars… grounding supports your mood and enhances brain function and provides you with inner clarity and a deeper understanding of meaning in your life.

So the next time you are feeling anxious, or having difficulty finding the clarity to make a big decision, or simply feel your mood dive, just go outside. Touch the earth and let nature support you immediately.

 

 

Live in a city?

You can get all of these benefits just by heading to a local park.  Studies suggest that adding even a small green space to an urban setting boost health in a measurable and meaningful way. Published in Science Advances in October 2020, researchers found that by adding a small green play area to urban playgrounds, they boosted the immunity of the children using the play area.

Researchers in Finland added a very small, low cost green area in the corner of existing playgrounds in several different urban daycare centers. They added a little grass patch, some small plants and a planter box with garden crops the kids could tend to.

This is what one of the modifications looked like:

 

University of Helsinki

After only one month — just 28 days — not only did the children who played in this urban greenspace (an average of 90 minutes a day) have boosted immune markers in their blood (like boosted T cells) they also had an improved microbiota (both on the skin and in their gut biome) similar to children that lived and played in rural areas with large greenspaces and forests. These changes were statistically significant compared both to controls and to their own baseline measurements.

This study is just one example of how you don’t need to live in the country to experience improved health from nature. In fact, in my book The Earth Prescription, I go into great detail about how you can get grounded in urban settings through sidewalks, through touching a metal signpost, through simply touching a leaf on a bush or a tree — even one growing in a downtown city street — that’s all it takes to get grounded from head to toe and experience all of these health benefits.

 

 

3.  You Might Plant Something This Spring

 

When you combine the fact that growing plants has been shown to have huge mental health benefits, longevity benefits, grounding benefits, nutritional benefits and more, you would be hard pressed to find another activity that supports your health from so many different angles and in so many ways as gardening does.

Even if you just grow a potted plant or two on a doorstep, there are tons of health benefits from interacting with plants… beyond all the benefits of grounding.  It’s actually healing just to be around plants of any kind, even while ungrounded (for example, just seeing a plant through a window or adding a potted plant to a workspace can provide measurable health benefits!)

From a windowsill garden to a flower bed to a large plot of farmland, gardening is more than a way to grow flowers and food… it’s a lifestyle that can help ensure longevity and health.

 

 

Multiple studies have found that having access to a garden or other green space decreases depression rates, anxiety rates, and dramatically reduces stress. One study, called the MIND study (conducted in 2007) found that simply walking through a garden or greenway significantly improved mental health, while walking through areas without greenery (such as a shopping mall) significantly decreased mental health.

If simply walking through a green space impacts mental health so much, you can probably guess that hand’s on gardening would boost mental health even more. And you would be right. After an extensive systemic review of 22 studies looking at the health impact of gardening, the results of this meta-anylsis (published in Preventive Medicine Reports in 2016) found that gardening significantly reduced anxiety levels, anger levels and depression rates, decreased tension, stress levels and boosted mood… all while simultaneously improving life satisfaction and boosting over all quality of life. It’s absolutely incredible that simply tending to a garden can offer such a transformative life make-over, but it’s true!

Even indoor gardens can positively impact on your well being, so don’t discount the power of a windowsill garden or a simple house plant to support your health. An exciting study published in 2015 in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology, showed that simply adding plants to an indoor computer room not only boosted the worker’s productivity, it also significantly decreased their blood pressure.

Another study, published in 2007 in the American Society for Horticultural Science found that workers with potted plants in close proximity to them while working took less sick leave off from work and enjoyed increase productivity.

 

 

Being physically near plants is so impactful to our mental and physical health that it turns out, even just seeing a plant can significantly impact our recovery from stressful health events. We have such an innate need to be submersed in a world with foliage and plants around us that a study (published in 1984 in Science) found that patients who simply had a view of plants through a window while recovering from surgery had better moods, used less pain medications, had less surgical post-op complications, and even decreased their length of stay in the hospital.

Less pain during recovery and getting to go home sooner after surgery just by looking at plants? That’s an awesome health strategy that I wish more hospital and clinics would take into account when designing their architecture.

By now we’ve all heard of the importance of getting adequate Vitamin D… vitamin D protects so many different aspects of our health, from decreasing diabetes risk to boosting weight loss benefits to decreasing depression risk to preventing depression to predicting better cancer recovery to boosting fertility!

But does gardening actually increase Vitamin D levels? 

Yes, says a study published in PLOS One in 2014. Researchers studied thousands of blood samples from patients who engaged in a variety of activities, and found that gardening and cycling were the only two activities that significantly decreased the risk of vitamin D deficiency… superior all other outdoor activities, including fishing and walking. Gardening boosted Vitamin D levels across all age groups, so it’s a fantastic pastime that you never need to outgrow, a hobby to get into for life!

 

 

 

A study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine in 2016 found that people who stayed indoors and avoided sun exposure actually had a shorter life span than those who spent time outside. Participants who avoided the sun had higher rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and pulmonary disease than those who had daily sun exposure. And the results were dose-specific… meaning that the benefits of increased life expectancy went up directly in correlation to the amount of sun exposure. Longer time in the sun = longer life span. That simple! Gardening is a fantastic way to routinely be inspired to go outside and get that sunshine and fresh air, two of natures best holistic health treatments.

Another reason that being a gardener might lengthen lifespan, besides getting more sunlight, is the increase in activity level. A fabulous study (published in 2019 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine) found that replacing just 30 minutes of sitting each day with light physical activity was enough to significantly decrease mortality rates. And again, here’s the clincher: the health benefit of replacing sedentary time with light physical activity was actually even stronger if you were older than 75 years old. So light activity decreased mortality rates in adults older than 75 years old even more than it decreased mortality rates in younger age groups. In other words, the older you are, the more that activity of any kind increases your lifespan.

No matter how big or small your space is, whether you have a windowsill garden, a potted houseplant or two, a few medicinal herbs grown on your porch, access to a community vegetable garden or pick-your-own orchard or berry farm, or are even blessed enough to have your own land, tending to plants and growing flowers or food is one of the most rewarding, most pleasurable activities that I can recommend.

 

 

Want more tips on how to reap the benefits of nature, even when living an urban lifestyle?

I shared the idea to go bird watching, gardening, and hundreds of other tips to boost your health outside this spring with you in my book: The Earth Prescription.   I’m so excited to share it with you, and I’d love to sign a copy for you and send it directly from my hands to yours.

Order signed copies of The Earth Prescription on my website here.

Or, order it anywhere books are sold, including:

Order On AmazonOrder On Barnes & NobleOrder On Indiebound

To a blossoming spring that is right around the corner… hang in there, only a few more weeks to go!  We’ve got this!

xoxoxo,Laura Koniver MD

 

 

The post Sick Of Winter? Me Too. 3 Reasons We Are Both Going To Feel Better Soon appeared first on Intuition Physician.

Your Top 15 Grounding Questions… Explained and Answered In Detail Right Here

 

 

The great thing about grounding gaining more awareness in mainstream health and healing forums is that it’s reaching more people.

But that means more questions than ever about how it works, why it works, and how to do it.

Today, I want to share with you some quick videos I’ve made answering the questions I am asked most, and more resources if you have questions that were not answered in this free article.

Here we go!

1.  How Does Grounding Actually Work?

 

The REAL Reason Grounding Works (Laura Koniver, MD…The Intuition Physician)

2.   How Long Do I Have To Be Grounded To Feel Benefits?

 

How Quickly Does Grounding Start To Benefit Your Body? (Laura Koniver MD)

3.   Can I Get Grounded In A City?

 

Grounding In A City (Dr. Laura Koniver MD… The Intuition Physician)

4.  Why Does Grounding Clear My Head So Well?

 

Why You Can Think Better If You Go Outside (Dr. Laura Koniver, MD… The Intuition Physician)

5.  How Can I Get Grounded Indoors Right Now?

 

A Quick Way To Get Grounded Right Now, Even Indoors (Dr. Laura Koniver MD…The Intuition Physician)

6.  What Is An Easy Way To Get Grounded Outside?

 

A Quick Grounding Boost You Can Do Tonight (Dr. Laura Koniver, MD… The Intuition Physician)

7.  What Is A “Grounding Detox”?

 

What A “Grounding Detox” Really Is & 5 Ways To Fix It (Laura Koniver MD… The Intuition Physician)

8.  How Can Grounding Protect My Long Term Health?

 

Grounding: An Anti-Aging Breakthrough? (Laura Koniver MD… The Intuition Physician)

9.  How Does Grounding Make Me Feel So Calm?

 

How Grounding Can Lower Your Anxiety (Laura Koniver MD… The Intuition Physician)

10.   How Does Grounding Help Me Sleep?

 

Grounding & Circadian Rhythm (Laura Koniver MD… The Intuition Physician)

11.  Can I Be Grounded Through Pajamas And Sheets?

 

 

Am I Grounded Through Pajamas or Bed Sheets? (Laura Koniver MD… The Intuition Physician)

12.  Do Grounding Shoes Really Work?

 

Do Grounding Shoes Work? (Laura Koniver MD… The Intuition Physician)

13.  Where Can I Read The Medical Studies For Myself?

 

 

Right here!  On this page I keep a running list of the latest medical literature on grounding, and updated it routinely, so bookmark it to check back to often:

Grounding Medical Studies

 

This list includes my most recent 7 publications on grounding that you can read for yourself:

Grounding To Treat AnxietyGrounding And CognitionGrounding, An Anti-Aging BreakthroughGrounding And Skin Repair: The Power Of DC EnergyCerebrospinal Fluid and Brain Health: Optimized By GroundingNeurological Pathways Supported By GroundingPractical Applications Of Grounding To Support Health14.   How Can I Ask You More Questions?

 

Every month I host a live Q&A session  — in it, we spend about 20 minutes grounding together through a mindful meditation exercise, then I host a 40 minute live Q&A to answer all of your questions personally.

I’d love to see you there.  Join me by signing up here:

Dr. Koniver’s Live Monthly Q&A

 

15.  How Can I Meet You In Person?

 

I would love to meet you in person and guide you through an amazing, restorative, rejuvenating time of healing in an immersive, hands on grounding retreat.

I run several retreats throughout the year, this year I have retreats in March, May, September, and November.  Sign up now to reserve your spot and let’s prioritize your health in 2025… together!

My next retreat in March has a few spots left if you would like to make this spring a time of renewal and to jump start your health:

 

 

I hope this resource list is helpful to you and I’d truly love to see you live, either on my next live Q&A Zoom meeting or at my next grounding retreat!

xoxoxo,Laura Koniver MD

 

The post Your Top 15 Grounding Questions… Explained and Answered In Detail Right Here appeared first on Intuition Physician.

Using Grounding To Treat Anxiety … What The Medical Literature Says

 

 

I’ve been anxious my entire life.  I can’t remember a day when I did not wake up with a huge knot in my stomach that felt like death was gripping my solar plexus and sneering up at me.

Unfortunately the medical literature is pretty clear — anxiety has major health effects, but it’s equally clear that those deleterious health effects are actually reversible.  Meaning, if you suffer from anxiety, it’s very worth addressing, not just for the relief on a daily basis but also for the longevity benefits.

Today, as someone who very much knows the felt sense of existential anxiety haunting me day in and day out, and someone who reaches for grounding to effectively help cope with this, I’d like to encourage you to include grounding in your anxiety treatment plan.

Grounding to the earth to help regulate the body’s fight or flight, panic state, and bring balance back to your autonomic nervous system is easy to do, readily available to you at all times, and works to alleviate anxiety immediately (loosening the grip of that impending panic attack within milliseconds) as well as with incredible long term anxiolytic benefits too.

Because it’s so helpful, and because I have both professional and personal experience using grounding to decrease anxiety, I wrote a medical literature review article on this so that other health care professionals can start to incorporate this free healing treatment into their patient recommendations as well.  Grounding can work adjunctively with all other treatment plans for anxiety, so it is a ground add-on therapy for anyone who feels like their anxiety is not adequately controlled even if they are already one a good treatment plan.

 

 

It was published a few weeks ago on Dec 30th in the European Society of Medicine and I have it here as a printable PDF for you, so that you can have it, share it, and even send it to any physicians, nurses, PAs, NPs, chiropractors, social workers, therapists, counsellors and other health care professionals you know that might be open to using the healing properties of grounding to help their patients and clients get deeper relief, faster and for free.  Also consider forwarding this info to any loved ones you have that deal with anxiety — and that’s most of us, right?

 

Grounding To Treat Anxiety — free printable PDF

 

If someone sent this article to you and you’d like to sign up for my newsletter so that you get these holistic healing articles directly into your own inbox, for free, just click here:

Dr. Koniver’s Free Weekly Newsletter

 

Here we go, I encourage you to read through the full article, below, so that you understand just how much support is waiting for you outside — our entire planet is waiting to calm, soothe, and center you.  Here’s why it works and how to do it to help with anxiety symptoms:

 

Grounding To Treat AnxietyLaura Koniver, MD

Abstract

Background: Anxiety disorders are prevalent worldwide, affecting approximately 34% of the U.S. population and contributing significantly to global disability and disease burden. While effective treatments exist, access remains limited, with only 25% of affected individuals receiving care. This review explores grounding, a holistic practice that connects individuals to the Earth’s electrical field, as a potential adjunctive treatment for anxiety.

Methods: This review examines the existing literature on grounding and its physiological effects on anxiety. Key mechanisms of action include the regulation of the autonomic nervous system, reduction of muscle tension, improvement of mood and cognitive clarity, with a focus on how this support can help reduce anxiety and anxiety related symptoms.

Results: Grounding has been shown to provide immediate benefits, such as the regulation of heart and respiratory rates, reduction of muscle tension, and calmer brain wave patterns. Long-term effects include improved mood, enhanced cognitive function, and better sleep quality. Grounding may also decrease markers of inflammation, potentially reversing the telomere shortening associated with anxiety disorders.

Conclusion: Grounding presents a safe, accessible, and cost-effective strategy for alleviating anxiety symptoms and improving overall well-being. Given it is a free healing modality that offers immediate and long-term benefits, and that it is a universally available treatment world wide that removes the obstacles of cost and access to healthcare facilities, grounding should be integrated into comprehensive anxiety treatment plans. Further research is warranted to explore its full potential and mechanisms of action in anxiety as well as other mental health disorders..

Keywords:  Grounding, Earthing, Mental Health, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders, Autonomic Nervous System, Cortisol, Sleep Quality, Circadian Rhythm, Inflammation, Telomere Shortening, Mood, Cognitive Function, Muscle Tension, Heart Rate Variability, Adjunctive Treatment, Vagal Tone

 

Introduction

Anxiety disorders are extremely common in every country in the world.  Not only is it the most common metal disorder in the United States, affecting about 34% of the US1, it’s the most common mental disorder in the entire world collectively2. Anxiety has a major impact on daily function and can cause significant impairment as well as a huge impact on the global burden of disease3. Anxiety can impact school attendance, job performance, harm important relationships including marriages and friendships, increase the incidence of other comorbid health conditions as well as increase the risk of substance abuse4 culminating in one of the top causes of disability in the world5. 

While anxiety has major health effects, it’s equally clear that those deleterious health effects can be reversible. When looking at telemeter length relative to chronological age, there is significantly accelerated aging in all anxiety disorders including social phobias, agoraphobia, panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorders (GAD). On average, anxiety disorders significantly shortened telomere length by 75 base pairs, the equivalent of aging more than 5 year.  However, adequately treating anxiety resulted in a restoration of telomere length to almost the same length as non-anxious controls, and the longer the patient has been anxiety free, the closer it was in telomere length to those who had no history at all of any anxiety disorder6. Unfortunately only about one in every four people who suffer with anxiety get medical treatment7.

It’s important to increase global access to competent medical care, as well as increase awareness for safe, effective treatments that patients utilize in a addition to, and in between medical appointments that provide significant anxiety relief.  Breath-work8, mindfulness meditation9, 10, music therapy11, exercise12, 13, 14, 15, 16, dietary changes17, and readily available supplements such as probiotics18, 19, omega-3 fatty acids20, magnesium21, and ashwagandha22, have been shown to provide benefit in reducing anxiety.  Another one of those holistic healing modalities is grounding, an easily accessible healing modality that is absolutely free and globally available, with immediate neuromodulative benefits23. 

Grounding is the healing practice of directly touching the earth outside, touching the human body to the surface of the earth, which connects the conductive human body to the global electrical circuit that the earth produces in order to regulate and calm the central nervous system24.  Although there are many reasons that patients may have difficulty obtaining treatment for anxiety, from poor access to medical services, to the high cost of anxiety treatment mediations and mental counseling, touching the earth outside routinely is an option that is a round-the-clock, readily available treatment option easily accessible to everyone on the planet. 

Grounding to the earth helps regulate the body’s fight or flight anxiety state, and brings balance back to the autonomic nervous system by instantly boosting vagal tone, activating the parasympathetic nervous system and decreasing over all markers of stress on the body (including the brain25. Grounding can begin to work to alleviate anxiety immediately (as the entire human body becomes grounded within milliseconds upon contact with a grounded surface) and provides long term anxiolytic benefits too26. Here are what we know so far about how grounding can help with decreasing anxiety, from short term immediate benefits to long term support.

 

1.  Grounding instantly regulates heart and respiratory rate

Connecting the fully conductive human body to the global electrical output of the earth grounds the body from head to toe immediately, providing immediate regulation to the central nervous system and directly support healthy autonomic nervous system function27.  In anxiety, hyperventilation, heart pounding, syncope, and other anxiety related symptoms that occur because of the activation of the sympathetic nervous system going into fight or flight, panic mode can be counterbalanced by the activation of the parasympathetic system that occurs during grounding.

This includes a boost in vagal tone support by almost 70%28 with the parasympathetic nervous system immediately supporting healthy heart rate, respiratory rate, improved oxygenation29 and a significant reduction in autonomic nervous system stress30.

 

2.  Grounding releases muscle tension immediately

When you touch the earth outside, your entire body is instantaneously grounded and that includes every single muscle in the body31. Because the entire musculoskeletal system is conductive, grounding leads to a near instantaneous effect of decreasing muscle tension, reducing muscle inflammation, and ameliorating muscle soreness.  

For those with anxiety, this offers the immediate relief of relaxing muscles that are being held tight in fight or flight mode, even loosening trigger points in tight neck and shoulders muscles and stopping a tension headache in it’s tracks. Medical studies have found that grounding immediately and significantly reduced muscle tension within seconds, and that this lowering of muscle tension is effective even in distal points of the body far removed from the point of contact of grounding32. 

Multiple studies using many different muscle straining exercises have all found that this protective benefit of grounding translates into decreased muscle damage and reduced delayed onset muscle soreness, of example one study had subjects carry one-third of their entire body weight in barbells on their shoulders and preform repetitive toe raises until total muscular exhaustion and found grounded subjects had significantly reduced muscle soreness and enhanced muscle recovery after exertion compared to ungrounded controls33. Not only do grounded subjects report lower pain levels after a muscle loading challenge, but they also have significantly lower creatinine kinase levels, confirming a protective effect of grounding against muscle damage during exertion34. Another double blinded medical study found the same significant muscle protective benefits during an exhaustive deep knee bend challenge35 as well as decreased muscle damage and improved muscle recovery when test subjects were grounded on a downhill stress test challenge as opposed to ungrounded control subjects36.

 

3.  Grounding lowers blood pressure

Bloop pressure can significantly raise during anxiety and panic states, as a result of skyrocketing heart rates and a over activated sympathetic nervous system response37, 38, 39, 40.  As a result of the calming effects of grounding that include a reduction in muscle tension as well as a boost to vagal tone and a calming of the autonomic nervous system, a regular grounding practice can help lower high blood pressure as well.  Grounding was found to significantly reduce blood pressure, with an average decrease in systolic pressure of 14%41.

 

4.  Grounding shifts brain waves instantly

Anxiety can make the body on extreme alert mode, not just with a heightened autonomic nervous system response and tightened muscles on alert, but also with a brain that is hyper alert.  Thankfully, connecting our electrically based central nervous system to the electrical output of the earth via grounding makes an immediate impact on how the human brain functions.

Because the brain is and electronic organ that sits in an electrolytic solution of cerebrospinal fluid that has been evolving for over 7 million years in cohesion with the earth’s electrical field, it is very easy to understand why the calming, natural, gentle electromagnetic output from the earth helps to boost healthy brain function near instantaneously42. Getting into the relaxed but alert alpha brain wave pattern, which is seen in calm, alert meditative states, is one of the hallmarks of grounding. Grounding provides an immediate shift in brainwaves — within milliseconds — measurable on an Electroencephalogram (EEG)43. This calming shift that grounding provides significantly influences brain function, documented in neuroimaging studies44.

This may translate from not just a more calm, less anxious brain, but into behavioral patters that move an anxious person away from anxiety provoke behaviors.  While more research is needed in this area, a recent animal study found that grounding reduced stress-induced anxiety behaviors45.

 

5.  Grounding improves mood

This improved, healthy brain function translates into improvements in mood,   And that’s exactly what researchers found, statistically significant improvements in mood after just 40 minutes of grounding in a double blinded study46.

We know that inflammation in the body worsens mood and even plays a role in clinical depression47, 48. Grounding is a crucial way the body keeps inflammation down49. So one mechanism of action in grounding’s ability to boost mood is that grounding results in statistically significant decreases in blood markers of inflammation, compared to non-grounded subjects50. 

Grounding decreases multiple different markers of whole body inflammation, such as dropping c-reactive protein levels by almost 60%51, and it also specifically decreases the exact same inflammatory cytokines that have a direct impact on dopamine levels. Researchers found that cytokines such as such as IP-10, MIP-1α, and sP-Selectin, all decreased in grounded subjects, and that the average drop induced by grounding a patient was a 10 — 20% drop in inflammatory cytokine concentration52. And because research shows that inflammatory cytokines have a direct reflection in our mood and motivation levels53, 54 we can see a potential direct explanation for why grounding boosts mood. By decreasing inflammatory cytokines, it’s reasonable to suggest that grounding gives a natural dopamine boost to the brain.

 

6.  Grounding helps boost mental clarity

Beyond simply impacting mood, anxiety can cause rumination and intrusive thoughts which impair the ability to think clearly and act in an effective way.  Grounding is a great way to boost cognitive clarity, on top of improving mood.  

The electrical output of the earth — the Schumann Resonance — acts as a globally available synchronization system to our brains55. Using EEG imaging and Schumann Resonance frequencies to evaluate this interaction between our human brains and the earth’s electrical field, research has shown that electrical activity from the earth makes a measurable synchronization in the cerebral cortex that allows for real-time coupling between the Schumann resonance and cerebral activity56.

Even more exciting, the area of the highest cohesion between the earth’s Schumann Resonance and the human brains is in the parahippocampal gyrus, the area of the brain that provides meaningful interpretation of visual input.  Research into the parahippocampal gyrus of the brain utilizing fMRI has found that brain damage to that area of the cortex results in patients being able to generically identify images and items that are viewed, but not be able to meaningfully interpret these images57 and is a sensitive early indicator of Alzheimer’s Disease58. The parahypocamppal gyrus is responsible for the meaningful interpretation of our surroundings, our environment, and for support in making life decisions in a contextually appropriate way59. This gives a very real explanation for why time spent in nature, on the earth, grounded, can enhance clarity and meaning through this earth-to-brain coherence60.

 

7.  Grounding decreases signs of brain stress

Beyond improving mood and boosting mental clarity, grounding has also been found to directly decrease over all brain stress and boost cognitive function. Researchers found that walking barefoot outside significantly boosted alpha waves, significantly decreased beta waves, and that this translated cognitively into a significant increase in cognitive speed and concentration along with a significant decrease in over all brain stress. The control group that did the same walking activity but wore sneakers had no significant change in any of the mental performance tasks.  The researchers concluded that grounding through barefoot walking improved cognitive ability, particularly in information processing and complex reasoning, while simultaneously reducing mental stress and brain fatigue61.

And because inflammation is now being linked with cognitive disorders such as mild cognitive impairment and dementia (including Alzheimers,)62, 63, 64 the long term effects of grounding to protect cognition may come from it’s ability to decrease inflammation and potentially decrease neuroinflammation over time65.

 

8.  Grounding improves digestion

Digestion is largely driven by the vagus nerve, which guides the function of the entire gastrointestinal tract, from salivary glands to esophageal swallowing to digestive enzyme secretion and gut peristalsis, so when anxiety causes a decrease in vagal tone and a shift away from parasympathetic activity, it can result in many digestive symptoms, from nausea, heartburn, indigestion, even irritable bowel symptoms. 

The vagus nerve even plays a role in metabolism66, appetite regulation67, and is such a dynamic part of our entire digestive system that it is able to change in response to both intrinsic factors (like stress) as well as extrinsic factors (such as grounding)68.

Grounding eases the body back into a healthy rest and digest state, reactivating healthy digestion as it releases fight and flight mode with the vagal tone boost it provides69.

In fact, the vagus nerve isn’t just tied in with digestion and intestinal function, it also may play a role in mood and appetite70 suggesting yet another mechanism of action that grounding boosts mood as well as support digestion, and that is through direct vagal tone stimulation.

 

9.  Grounding improves sleep

Anxiety is a hyper-stimulated state of the body where there are perceived stressors that often interfere with sleep.  Insomnia is a very common symptom reported in anxiety disorders71 and conversely, improving sleep can actually help treat anxiety and decrease severity72, 73.

Although the sun is commonly thought to impact circadian rhythm and sleep patterns, the earth’s electromagnetic field has as much, if not more, to do with our sleep/wake pattern than exposure to the sun does.  Experiments as far back as the 1970s have shown that contact with the earth’s electrical output is crucial for maintaining health sleep patterns. test subjects who are shielded from sun exposure but still in grounded to the earth’s electrical field were able to kept patterns that were close to a 24 hour rhythm, while those in the bunker that was completely shielded from the earth’s energies became internally desynchronized and experienced significantly longer, more irregular rhythms74. When subjects were were cut of from the earth had the earth’s electrical output re-introduced, normal sleep/wake patterns were restored75.

More recent research back this up.  On study found that sleeping grounding completely normalized cortisol patterns, improved sleep, and established a healthier 24 hour circadian rhythm76.  Another study found that patients with Alzheimers Disease had significantly improved sleep quality, improved by an average of 62% on Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) after 12 weeks of sleeping grounded77.  The end result is an improvement in the natural circadian rhythm of the human body through routine grounding practices78 possibly even slowing the aging process down as inflammation in the body is kept at bay79.

 

Conclusion

From decreasing insomnia to calming the autonomic nervous system to reducing cortisol to relaxing tense muscles to helping move the brain into more healing brainwave patterns, there are many reasons that grounding is a great adjunctive treatment plan for a variety of anxiety disorders.  Add to that the fact that the earth outside is available no matter where you live, is accessible day and night, and is completely free to implement, I strongly feel grounding should be added on to every anxiety treatment plan. Treating anxiety not only provides relief of uncomfortable symptoms that affect daily living and cause a tremendous impairment in functionality along with a huge amount of disability and worldwide disease burden, but treating anxiety helps long term to decrease the rate of aging and even reverse telomere shortening, in addition to many other potential longevity boosting benefits80. Let’s be sure to advocate the healing practice of grounding to anyone experiencing anxiety as a way to help improve both subjective and objective health and protect longevity. 

 

Print this article out (or send it to others) right here:

 

 

Questions for me?

 

Join my next live Q&A session right here — in it, we spend about 20 minutes together relieving anxiety with gentle body stretches and grounded mindful meditation, then I host a 40 minute live Q&A to answer all of your questions personally.

I’d love to see you there.  Join me by signing up here:

Dr. Koniver’s Live Monthly Q&Axoxox,Laura Koniver MD

 

References:

Szuhany KL, Simon NM. Anxiety disorders: a review. JAMA. 2022;328(24):2431-2445. doi:10.1001/jama.2022.22744. PMID: 36573969.Kessler RC, et al. The global burden of mental disorders: an update from the WHO World Mental Health (WMH) surveys. Epidemiol Psichiatr Soc. 2009;18:23-33.Piao J, Huang Y, Han C, Li Y, Xu Y, Liu Y, He X. Alarming changes in the global burden of mental disorders in children and adolescents from 1990 to 2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease study. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2022;31(11):1827-1845. doi:10.1007/s00787-022-02040-4. Epub 2022 Jul 14. PMID: 35831670.Wittchen HU, et al. The size and burden of mental disorders and other disorders of the brain in Europe 2010. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol. 2011;21:655-679.Vos T, Abajobir AA, Abbafati C, et al. 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