Grounding/Earthing

Grounding is the foundation of safety in electrical systems—

Without it, chaos could spark.

(I don’t know who said it but it sounds cool!)

K, so… last week I told you that I was going to discuss a bunch of stuff that, on its surface, will make you call BS! This “Hippie medicine”, as my wife calls it, has been extensively studied!

IT'S SCIENCE!

The first thing that I will talk about is so simple that you are not going to believe it until you try it for a few weeks, but I promise you, it’s a thing!

That thing is grounding or Earthing. This simply involves touching the dirt. Without getting too “Hippie”, we are “Of the Earth”. We are made of the same material and share an electrical current. The frequency at which the Earth naturally vibrates is referred to as the Schumann Resonance.

 PubMed, which is the clearinghouse for all research studies documented by the National Institute of Health (NIH), lists 469 specific studies on the health benefits of grounding or Earthing. Including a paper called “Grounding – The universal anti-inflammatory remedy” by (Sinatra et al 2023) which states:

 “The fundamental frequency of the Schumann resonances vibrates at 7.83 Hz or roughly eight times per second. This key frequency of the grounding phenomenon is maintained by a global electrical circuit. This circuit has three main generators: the solar wind entering the magnetosphere; the ionospheric wind and in thunderstorms occurring predominantly around the equator as well as the rest of the globe with lightning strikes happening thousands of times per minute. This creates a constant current of thousands of amperes transferring positive charge to the upper atmosphere (ionosphere) and negative charge to the surface of the earth. The earth's surface is, therefore, inundated with enormous amounts of free electrons”.

Is that a little technical for a health blog? Probably, but I feel that it is important to understand WHY things happen. That makes it easier to understand what to do about it.

So, we have established that the Earth does have an electrical current and why. Now, to understand why it is important in the context of health, the same study also found that: “Such Earth electrons, when conducted to the human body, result in favorable and physiological changes”. “Previous research has demonstrated attenuation of the inflammatory response, decreased red blood cells RBC aggregation, improved heart rate variability (HRV) and a favorable impact on blood viscosity”.

A study from all the way back in 2015 states: “Multi-disciplinary research has revealed that electrically conductive contact of the human body with the surface of the Earth (grounding or earthing) produces intriguing effects on physiology and health. Such effects relate to inflammation, immune responses, wound healing, and prevention and treatment of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases” (Oschman et al. 2015).

Okay, there is an electrical field and it does affect our health. How did we get to where it doesn't work right? As you may recall from my first post, “Cavemen in Fast Cars”, we evolved to have very specific needs related to the environment in which we developed. For 99% of human time on earth, we touched the dirt every day. We slept in caves or on the ground. We didn't have shoes. We swam in dirty, cold creek water, and we readily shared electrons with the Earth. We started wearing rubber-soled shoes in the 1920s and 30s. They did not become every day, indoor/outdoor footwear until the 1960s. Looking back, this was around the same time that we saw a dramatic upswing in chronic illnesses, including high blood pressure, cancer, heart disease and diabetes (The four horseman). The science behind this is relatively complex but understandable.

If you remember back in Junior high science class, they told us about cells. Inside your cells are mitochondria, which are the “powerhouse” of the cell. What they did not tell us is that we have 40 trillion cells in our bodies and each cell contains hundreds to thousands of mitochondria depending on the kind of cell it is. Our bodies generate a lot of electricity. In a wildly oversimplified description, what the mitochondria do is to convert oxygen and fuel (in the form of carbohydrates or fatty acids) into chemical electricity. Electricity is what makes your life happen. Now, switch gears and look at an electric cord going to your coffee maker. The process of transferring electricity is kind of sloppy. As the charge moves along the cord, you lose electrons. These electrons bounce around in the cord and create friction which creates heat. The heat causes fire. This is why they put that third prong on your electric cord. This is the ground wire. It collects all of those crazy electrons and flings them into the earth to rejoin our planet's natural electromagnetic field.

Your mitochondria do exactly the same thing. The electrons bust loose and bounce around inside your cell and cause heat in the form of inflammation. For 99% of man’s time on Earth, we touched the soil with bare skin every day. Those pesky electrons shot straight out of the bottoms of our feet, and we collected other electrons from the Earth that bonded with free radicals to render them electrically stable and all was right with the world. Until about 60 years ago, when we all started wearing rubber-soled shoes and stopped going outside. All of those electrons are now bouncing around inside you instead of going into the earth. This causes uncool things like high blood pressure, heart disease, strokes and general joint pain. To get rid of these annoying electrons, you either physically touch the ground every day for 20 minutes for free, or you can buy grounding mats and sheets that do the same thing.

So, how do we do this amazing thing? Go outside. Put your bare feet on the grass or dirt. If it is cold or raining and you have access to a cement floor that touches to soil (Think basement or garage floor) then that will work… not as well as touching dirt but better than a sharp stick in the eye. For the record, asphalt will not work.

It truly is that simple.

Next week, we will discuss breath work.

Class dismissed!

Cavemen in Fast Cars!

Grog doing his taxes!

WARNING: This blog will involve microbiology, anthropology, and dark humor. Parental discretion is advised!

So, the name of the blog is “Cave Men in Fast Cars” and it is about non-traditional ways of thinking about health. This may lead you to wonder “What does that even mean? How do these cave men or cars have ANYTHING to do with my health”? You may say “Hank, what the hell is wrong with you? Did you just have a stroke?” No, I didn’t have a stroke. As to, what is wrong with me?… We will need to wait and see.

“Cave Men in Fast Cars” is an analogy. We are the cave men, and the fast car is the world that we find ourselves living in today. Biologically, we have evolved from and are designed to live in a world that looks NOTHING like the one we live in.

So, now you say, “Hank (That’s what they call me. It’s only one syllable and less to remember), why should I listen to you?” The answer is, because I will tell you things that your doctor will not. My name is Darryl Hankins. I am a family Nurse Practitioner. I live in Southern Ohio. I have been in the medical field for over 40 years. I started as a Paramedic in the 80s, became a Registered Nurse in 1990. 5 years ago, I received my master’s degree as an FNP. I have spent my life in primary care and emergency medicine. I have a “Functional medicine” private practice. Functional medicine is an approach to healthcare that focuses on treating the root causes of illness, rather than just managing symptoms.

Viewing chronic illness through the lens (and by not accepting insurance) I am able to research and embrace practices that are not part of main-stream medicine.

The medical system is run by corporations, insurance companies, big pharma and medical device manufacturers who make billions from you being sick. Finding and treating the root causes of disease does not fit their financial model.

I however am not beholden to the cabal that is corporate healthcare so I am able to speak the truth whereas many of my colleagues in “The system” cannot.

So, follow along, try some or all of the simple habits that I suggest and tell me if you benefit from them! Spoiler alert, you will.

So, like I said previously, “Cave men (and women) in fast cars is an analogy. From an evolutionary standpoint, we are all still cave men. Our bodies have evolved over millions of years and adapted to the environment that we were exposed to, but in the big picture, we are still, biochemically the same as a caveman (not the overly sensitive one on the commercial).

Picture Grog on the savanna, spear in hand, stalking a gazelle. Clad only in a loin cloth, he has a lot of his skin exposed to the sun. He is barefoot and dirty. His entire body is covered with bacteria. If he is lucky enough to spear the gazelle, he will drag it back to his cave, rip it apart with his stone knife. Cook parts of it on a rock beside the fire. He and his family will eat this entire beast. They will eat the meat but also the liver, brain, intestines, bone marrow, fat and skin.

If, on a rare occasion, Grog wanted to clean his body, he jumped in a stream. A stream of very cold water. If grog did not successfully kill the gazelle, then his family would gather tubers and other edible items they had discovered (often the hard way) would not poison them. If they could not find a gazelle or a turnip, the family went hungry. It was okay though. Grogs body is also adapted to go for long periods of time without eating. He has fat stored in his liver for just such an emergency. Grog will most likely die from a broken leg or getting eaten by a lion.

This is how we lived for millions of years. Our bodies evolved to fit this environment. We lived this way for 99% of human time on Earth.

THIS is the caveman in our apt analogy...

Enter Bob. Bob was born in 1965. Bobs body has the same structure and function as Grogs. The difference is that Bob wears shoes all the time. He rarely touches the soil with his bare skin. Bob rarely sees the sun much less exposing skin to it.

Bob gets out of his nice, warm bed in his nice warm house that is filled with millions of chemicals to make it a nice, sterile environment that smells good. Bob takes a nice, warm shower. He uses soaps and shampoos that are filled with hundreds of different chemicals, to clean all the bacteria from his body. He shaves and brushes his teeth. He puts on deodorant lest he smell bad to other people that he encounters. He gets a drink of water from the faucet that has been chlorinated, sterilized and had fluoride added to protect his teeth. Then Bob puts on a jacket and walks to his car that he had remote started so that he wouldn’t need to be cold or scrape frost from his windows. Bob drives to work, stopping at a fast-food joint on the way to grab a bacon and egg biscuit with deep fried hash browns. Bob works in a nice, warm office where he sits in front of a computer all day.

Bob is a victim of chronic, toxic comfort and overconsumption.

If Bob is the average American, he is overweight or obese. He has high blood pressure, prediabetes, and is probably working on a heart attack or stroke. Depression and cancer are strong possibilities as well. THIS is the fast car. The fast car that we are not equipped to drive.

Here is a fun way of looking at the problem (It may not be fun for you but I’m a nerd, so I think it’s fun!)

To put it in perspective; If all of humanity was condensed into one hour, for the first 58 minutes, we lived like grog. We started farming less than 2 minutes ago. The industrial revolution started about 2 seconds ago and it has been about 2 milliseconds since 1960 when a lot of our chronic, toxic comfort and overconsumption began.

So, you see, we have not had adequate time to adapt to the world that we live in. Our bodies can’t keep up!

On a daily basis, we are exposed to up to 80,000 chemicals. 1400 of which are known carcinogens. Although our bodies are very good at detoxifying and eliminating waste, we are NOT prepared to deal with the overwhelming onslaught of the toxic soup that we live in.

We like to think that we are simple creatures but in truth, we are the most complex entities in the known universe. It takes literally trillions of chemical processes every second to keep us alive. Not to mention that we UNDERSTAND that we are alive. Want to see a miracle? Look in the mirror!

When we break it down to a cellular level, the environment that we live in has a profound effect on everything we are. Our health, our outlook on life, how and who we love, the shape of our body, how long we are likely to live. Basically, everything about us is influenced by the chemicals that we are exposed to. What we are exposed to is having a devastating effect on us! Do you realize that for the first time in a hundred years, the average life expectancy of American in actually decreasing?

Although, these chemicals may not kill us outright, they will very much, kill us over a matter of years and decades of exposure. Add our lack of exercise, our poor diet and our lack of exposure to anything uncomfortable and you have the very basis of 90% of health problems on this planet.

Wow! This is all depressing, isn’t it?! Here is the good news. There are things that we can do to offset some of these so called “Diseases of Civilization”.

Through this blog, it is my goal to spread this information so that we may regain much of our health. Most of the health-related advice that we have been told for the past 50 years is just flat wrong. I plan to discuss these things in detail and explain why they are wrong. All you need to do is look around. In a nation that spends more money per capita than any nation on Earth for healthcare, why don’t we feel “better”? The US spends almost 5 trillion dollars a year on healthcare, and we spend approximately 33 billion on diet and fitness each year. Why are we fatter and sicker than we have ever been? Two thirds of Americans are overweight or clinically obese AND WE FEEL LIKE CRAP!

I plan to do something different in this blog. In the very next post, I will be laying out a plan for regaining much of our health and our ability to feel “well”. This plan involves a variety of free or nearly free things that you can start doing today that can significantly change your life for the better. In subsequent posts I will discuss WHY these things work.

ANOTHER spoiler alert: These things do NOT involve healthy, whole grains, depriving yourself of fats or calories, hours of cardio workouts or any of the things that the healthcare cabal has told you over the past 60 years!

Some of the practices that I support, my wife lovingly calls “Hippie medicine” but rest assured, everything that I propose is based on scientific research.

Upcoming articles include:

• Grounding

• Breath work

• Cold exposure

• Sun light

• Gut health (SIBO)

• Mitochondrial health

• Dopamine

• Glutathione

• Muscle-centric medicine

• Time under tension (TUT)

• High intensity interval training

• Intermittent fasting

• Elimination of seed oils

• Slow carb diet

No, I am not selling anything. My only request is that you follow along with this blog and if you find value in it, share it with your family and friends. I will a be opening an online store in the near future to provide high quality supplements and equipment, but the information is free, and you don’t HAVE to buy a darn thing from me!

If you are interested in Functional medicine, call me to set up an appointment. I promise it will be NOTHING like going to your doctor's office! We will draw labs, talk about diets, exercise and lots of other things to keep you from dying!

So, hang with me. We will have some fun, learn some stuff and live forever! (Or at least a couple of more years).

Lets do this!!

Hank

I'm a dude...

Maybe you are like me. I am a man. Yes, a man. I love sports (Especially football).

I drink beer and I like cooking dead animals. I believe that my main role in life is to provide for and protect my family. I work hard, I mow the lawn, I play with my grandkids, and I love life. My heroes are the Duke and Dirty Harry. My music is Kiss, Van Halen and Jimmy Buffett. I am a Buckeye and a Bengal. I own a firearm (Or 3), I am more than happy to use them to protect my family, but I will not use them to endanger yours.

I am John Q public and I make no apology for it. This is who I am.

When I hit around 40 years old, something happened. I found myself laying on the couch a lot more. I wanted to nap when I got home from work. I didn't care about my sports teams. I even lost interest in sex. I started getting fat and lazy. people told me, "Hank, you are just getting old". I was 40! I still had a lot of life left in me. I couldn't even retire for over 20 years! There was no way that this was NORMAL!

I went to my doctor. She checked a lot of stuff. The diagnosis was something that no man wants to hear but nearly 100% of us eventually will... Hypogonadism. Hypo means low and every 6-grade boy knows what gonads are. The more acceptable term is low testosterone although, that is not much better!

Low T is an extremely common condition that is brought about by time, environment and increased body fat. Nearly everything we eat, drink or breath is filled with endocrine disrupting chemicals that not only destroy our testosterone. They also cause inflammation that plays a huge role in the most common "Lifestyle diseases" that plague society. These include heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer and many autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and Crohn's disease.

Although it is nearly impossible to avoid most of these chemicals, it is possible to replace the testosterone that has been taken from you. If you are interested in Testosterone Optimization Therapy (TOT), contact me at (740) 858-For more details, please sign or email me at Hank@hankinshealth.com. For more information, sign up for my weekly email where I go into much more detail about testosterone optimization therapy.

Thanks, and stay strong!

Hank