Earthing

Earlier barefoot and sleeping-grounded ideas

A 2012 review by Chevalier and colleagues says that a back-to-nature movement in late nineteenth-century Germany claimed health benefits from barefoot contact with the ground. It also says that in the 1920s a Dr White investigated the practice of sleeping grounded, after people reported that they could not sleep properly unless they were on the ground or connected to it. These are the review authors' own historical statements, and the source reviewed does not trace a continuous line from those episodes to the modern practice.

Modern revival and its sponsors

The same review credits Clint Ober, described as a retired cable television executive in the United States, with starting experiments toward the end of the twentieth century. It says that K. Sokal and P. Sokal in Poland carried out similar investigations independently at about the same time. The authors of the review state that Chevalier, Sinatra and Oschman were independent contractors for a company that sponsors earthing research, and that they own a small percentage of its shares.

The earliest human study in the sources reviewed for this record is a 2004 pilot of 12 people by Ghaly and Teplitz, who slept on a conductive mattress pad connected to the earth. Oschman later argued in a 2007 commentary that wearing insulating shoes and sleeping in beds isolated from the ground had disconnected most people from the Earth's electrical rhythms. That is a hypothesis stated by its author and not a measured finding.

Earthing and grounding

The research literature treats earthing and grounding as the same thing. The 2012 review defines earthing (or grounding) as walking barefoot outside, or sitting, working or sleeping indoors connected to conductive systems that transfer the Earth's electrons from the ground into the body. Jamieson's 2022 integrative review defines grounding as providing a low-resistance pathway for electricity to flow to ground while reducing the build-up of excess charge. Both definitions describe the proponents' framing, not a settled physiological category.

Direct and indirect contact, and related terms

Jamieson distinguishes direct contact, such as barefoot contact with soil, from indirect methods, and notes that most grounding studies use indirect methods, in which a conductive product is connected to the ground through an electrical outlet. A 2025 surgical study likewise connected an ankle pad to the earthing system of a socket. The same review groups grounding with what it calls electromagnetic hygiene, a wider set of measures for limiting exposure to electromagnetic fields. That term belongs to the author's proposal and is not an accepted category in the studies reviewed here.

Barefoot contact and conductive products

Practitioners and proponents describe two routes. One is walking or standing barefoot on soil, grass or similar surfaces. The other is indoor use of conductive products such as mats, sheets, mattress pads and adhesive electrode patches. In a 2015 trial of muscle damage, participants were grounded through 5.1 by 10.2 cm electrode patches on the quadriceps and 50.8 by 30.5 cm conductive mats under bare feet. A 2025 study in spinal surgery patients used an adhesive pad on the ankle connected to the earth terminal of an electrical socket.

Durations used in studies

Protocols vary widely, and none of them is a standard dose. The 2004 pilot used a conductive mattress pad for 8 weeks of sleep. The 2015 muscle study grounded participants for 4 hours on each of two days, a 2015 mood study used one hour in a recliner, and a 2018 trial grounded massage therapists at work and while sleeping for four weeks. A hypertension case series asked patients to ground themselves at home for at least 10 hours a day for several months. A running-shoe study used a conductive element in the insole.

Who delivers it

The studies reviewed describe products used by the participants themselves, with researchers supplying and monitoring the equipment. None of the sources describes a practitioner-led session format, a professional register or a training standard for earthing, so this page cannot describe what a service would involve.

Claims made by researchers and advocates

The 2012 review says earthing has been associated with better sleep and reduced pain. A 2015 paper by Oschman, Chevalier and Brown proposes effects on inflammation, immune responses, wound healing and chronic inflammatory and autoimmune disease, and presents several hypotheses to explain them. A review of electrons as antioxidants by Oschman proposes that free electrons from the Earth neutralise free radicals associated with chronic inflammation. These are claims by authors who, in two of the papers, declare a commercial interest. They are not findings of independent reviews.

Uses that have been tested only partly or not at all

Small studies have looked at muscle soreness after exercise, mood, pain in massage therapists, blood pressure in 10 people with hypertension, markers after spinal surgery and cortisol patterns during sleep. Respiratory infection has also been discussed. A 2016 review by Mousa states that no in vivo or clinical studies were found on earthing and respiratory viral infections, so that claim has not been tested in the sources reviewed. Claims about running performance were tested in one trial, described below, which found no effect.

Controlled trials with a sham condition

In a 2015 trial, 32 healthy young men did 200 half-knee bends and were randomised to grounded (16) or sham-grounded (16) conditions for 4 hours on days 1 and 2. Creatine kinase, a marker of muscle damage, rose significantly on day 2 in the sham group but not in the grounded group, with a between-group difference of P=0.04. Pain scores did not differ significantly between groups. The authors said the study could not be repeated at larger scale. In a 2015 mood study, 40 adults were grounded or sham-grounded for one hour, and pleasant and positive moods improved in the grounded group only.

A 2018 trial of 16 massage therapists used a stepped wedge design over six weeks and reported lower pain, fatigue and depressed mood and higher physical function while grounded. These outcomes were self-reported on questionnaires, and the sample was small. Full text of this paper was not opened for this draft. In contrast, a double-blind randomised crossover study of 10 elite male runners found no differences in running economy, lactate, heart rate or perceived exertion between grounding shoes and ordinary shoes.

Pilots, case series and surgical recovery

The 2004 pilot of 12 people reported lower night-time cortisol after grounding during sleep for 8 weeks, with no control group. Jamieson notes that a placebo effect cannot be ruled out for that study. A case series of 10 hypertensive patients reported an average fall in systolic pressure of 14.3% over several months, again without a control group. A 2025 study of 84 spinal surgery patients compared an earthed group with a control group and reported greater falls in creatine kinase and pain scores in the earthed group, with the authors listing a small sample and heterogeneous operations as limits.

Mechanism and laboratory work

The mechanism is a hypothesis. Oschman, Chevalier and Brown describe their main hypothesis as electrons from the Earth's surface spreading over and into the body and acting as antioxidants. The 2007 commentary says this requires revising the older view that the body is a volume conductor in which charge is carried only by dissolved electrolytes. In a 2025 laboratory study, isolated mouse liver mitochondria in wired, sham and untreated conditions produced 5 to 11% more ATP and 22 to 33% less reactive oxygen species in the grounded condition. The authors say no earlier work had unequivocally shown such an effect, and the study used isolated organelles in buffer, so it cannot be transferred to people.

Reviews and gaps

A PubMed search for earthing combined with systematic review or meta-analysis publication types returned no such review on earthing as a health intervention. The only review-type hits were narrative or integrative reviews, including Jamieson's, which states that it does not describe formal study-selection criteria. No independent physics or physiology source assessing the proposed electron-transfer mechanism was found in the searches run, and no source reviewed reports independent replication of the small trials.

Funding and competing interests

Much of the human research comes from a small group of authors. The 2012 review and the 2015 inflammation paper disclose that Chevalier, Sinatra or Oschman were contractors for an earthing company and held shares. The 2015 muscle trial was financed by that company, which the authors say played no role in design, analysis or writing, and in which only the sponsor knew which equipment was functional until the analysis was complete. The running-shoe trial was supported by a shoe manufacturer, and four of its authors were employed by it. The 2025 spinal surgery study reports no external funding.

Design limits

The trials are small, short and mostly self-reported or based on single time points. Jamieson lists placebo effects, seasonal soil resistivity, indirect rather than direct contact and the surrounding electromagnetic environment as confounders. The authors of the spinal surgery study describe some biochemical changes as minor and not clearly distinguishable. The running-shoe authors say the intermittent contact of running may have limited any grounding effect. The sources do not allow conclusions about long-term outcomes.

Adverse events and medication notes

The 2015 muscle trial and the 2025 surgical study reported no adverse events, which does not show that none can occur in larger or longer studies. The 2012 review says earthing combined with warfarin has the potential to produce a compounded blood-thinning effect and must be supervised by a physician, and that some people taking thyroid medication reported hyperthyroid-type symptoms such as palpitations after starting. The review describes these as anecdotes, and no controlled data on them were found.

Electrical protection of products

Products wired to a socket or rod involve electricity. The 2015 muscle trial used cords with a 100 kilohm resistor moulded in for protection. The review says some devices contain such a resistor to protect against electric shock, but states that it impedes the flow of electrons, and also raises poor building grounding as a concern. No independent electrical-safety standard for these products was found in the sources reviewed, so product design and wiring quality cannot be assessed from them.

Care boundaries and oversight

Earthing is not a diagnosis or a treatment for any condition, and the studies above do not support replacing or delaying medical care, including blood pressure, anticoagulant or thyroid management. No statutory regulation or training standard specific to earthing was found, and the sources reviewed describe no professional register for it. Anyone taking warfarin or thyroid medication, or recovering from surgery, can discuss any change with the clinician managing that care.