Earthing mat is making me ill !

[nicebutdim]

Have you either done the maths or tried this as a practical experiment?
I have done both, Xc is about 6MΩ worst case. It's not exactly what I would call a shock.

Under less than ideal physical conditions, could it lead to unpleasant sensations?


Asking for a friend...

 

[Lucien Nunes]

If I stand on an insulating surface and firmly hold a wire live at 230V I can't feel anything. If I brush the back of my fingers against a plate live at 230V, I can feel as a vibration the muscular response to the stimulation caused by the few tens of microamps of capacitive leakage.

 

[James]

If I stand on an insulating surface and firmly hold a wire live at 230V I can't feel anything. If I brush the back of my fingers against a plate live at 230V, I can feel as a vibration the muscular response to the stimulation caused by the few tens of microamps of capacitive leakage.

Now there’s an experiment that needs a do not try at home warning!

 

[sunnyod]

It's slow and difficult to critique a video like that properly, based as it is on personal narrative, because it is deliberately made so that things are not presented as outright lies, just misleading and loaded. It would take me many hours to drill down and locate specific issues with it and I spent too much time on this already - I have electrical things to do!

As an example, look at the first 30 seconds. The guy says he grew up among native American people, and that one of them told him to take his shoes off because they would make him sick, and that at the time he didn't know why that would be. These are presented as though they are significant facts, and there is no reason to doubt them as facts. However, he does not say that the shoes made him sick, or that the person who told him had reliable evidence that they would make him sick, or that if they did make him sick, it was due to an electrical phenomenon.

This narrative is there to plant a seed of an idea, to get your curiosity aroused, so that when the link between sickness and grounding and shoes is later broached, you recall those 'wise words' and make a connection by yourself regardless of whether there is one or not. You infer that the native American knew through folklore that insulative shoes make you sick and now you seem to have a scientific reason for it, and you have used your powers of analysis to corroborate two independent sources to improve the reliability of your data. But actually, it's only one source, the guy who wants to promote his views on grounding.

"In simple terms, grounding is literally putting your bare feet on the ground."
Simple, but in an electrical context, not correct.

"Mother Earth is endowed with electrons." True, but misleading, as all neutral matter is endowed with electrons, including synthetic rubber shoes, the air, your body.

"These electrons are literally absorbed through your feet." Borderline false. Some exchange of electrons might occur but there is no net flow of electrons without electric current, and he does not state that they are absorbed through your feet only if you connect yourself to a source of a potential difference to drive the electron drift against the resistance.

"It's like taking handfuls of antioxidants." False. Antioxidants can participate in chemical reactions in which electrons are exchanged, but the mere presence of electrons does not cause the same chemical reactions.

I have to get on with some work now...

Thanks for breaking down some of the myths in the video, bud. Really appreciated and I was able to understand a lot of it. I'm not sure what to believe at this stage and am open to either outcome. Obviously i'm hoping that it works however as I'd like to be able to draw a line under some of my health issues

I've still not got the final setup as the earthing rods (5mm x 300mm) won't arrive until tomorrow. I did receive some cabling though, I went with the most modest speaker wire I could (13 strand 0.5mm), hopefully this should limit the danger?

I've connected the speaker wire with the same skewer I used last night and have tested for continuity. There is still 100 megohm resistance as per the original spec of the cable that came with the mat. The speaker wire is about 12m in length and is the final cabling I will be using when the steel rods arrive so it shouldn't differ much if at all in terms of electrical function (other than the old bits of meat stuck to the skewer adding resistance)

Please give feedback on this setup. I'm not married to it as it was very cheap and can easily be replaced. Assuming grounding works for me, I'll be happy to make any upgrades

FYI. I have been using the mat in my study all day today. It's been connected using the original cable directly to the skewer as the distance to the garden is short enough not to need an extension. No connection to the mains at all. So far it's been good. No discomfort or 'buzzing' that I felt before. I have also felt a decent level of 'awakeness' and considering the lacklustre sleep i've been getting last few nights I'm doing better than i'd expect. I've gotten a good chunk of work done too and have been focussed all day.

Putting things into perspective though, It could easily be psychosomatic. If that's the case I will probably know for sure after at least a week of testing. The promoters of this 'tech' say that 30m of grounding per day is a must and I will be getting on average 6-7 hours grounded in bed and 8 hours at my desk each day, so any benefits should be very noticeable

The proof is in the pudding and that 'test' for me is:
1. Being able to get a FULL nights sleep
2. Feeling more rested than I normally do
3. Having less 'brain fog' the next day due to the rest
4. Managing stress better (I'm a trader by trade so am used to a good amount of stress)
5. Any other benefits are icing on the cake at this stage

Again, thanks to the group and especially to you, Lucien. You're a patient being and I appreciate your time. I'll update you all tomorrow if there's anything of significance to talk about... Good evening all

 

[NorthernLad]

sometimes i fall asleep with my under electric blanket on with no problems (other than getting a bit hot)

This reminds me that occasionaly my wife and I get a tingle between us when we touch. (I know there will be comments)
Our electric blanket is controlled seperately, she being on high setting, me being medium, and if we happen to gently brush against each other we feel the tingle.
I dont pretend to understand the reason, but are we safe to indulge in this behaviour?

 

[Vortigern]

Thinking the above through a little; You bought a product to stop making you feel unwell or feel better. The product is making you ill. Therefore product does not deliver the promised benefits. Why are you still using it? Your dabbling with meters and wires is an attempt to fix the product that is apparently causing you harm.

Moving on, what kind of materials do you wear? What kind of bedding materials do you sleep on/in? I ask as nowadays most peoples clothes are made of recycled plastic bottles they put out for free each week and buy them back at tescos as highly expensive plastic clothes. Also bedding is invariably plastic of some kind. Maybe between your nylon carpets, plastic hoodies, pants, socks, trousers and T shirt and bed and carpet with your plastic toothbrush you are in effect a Van der graaf generator. The shocks in bed are you generating megawatts of static electricity. Perhaps conjugal relations might provide more of a van der graaf effect, seriously!
Anyway enough of that. I am a trained acupuncturist (non practicing) it is held in this ancient technique there are meridians points in the feet that benefit greatly from making direct contact with the earth for an hour or two each day. In the book of Abramelin he recommends walking on the earth for a couple of hours at the point of your birth location. There are stranger things than in your or mine philosophy! I haven't mentioned the acupuncture before as certain members on here might treat me unkindly. I trained in Leamington Spa college of traditional chinese acupuncture under Professor Worsley, but that was a another lifetime.

 

[loz2754]

Thinking the above through a little; You bought a product to stop making you feel unwell or feel better. The product is making you ill. Therefore product does not deliver the promised benefits. Why are you still using it? Your dabbling with meters and wires is an attempt to fix the product that is apparently causing you harm.

Moving on, what kind of materials do you wear? What kind of bedding materials do you sleep on/in? I ask as nowadays most peoples clothes are made of recycled plastic bottles they put out for free each week and buy them back at tescos as highly expensive plastic clothes. Also bedding is invariably plastic of some kind. Maybe between your nylon carpets, plastic hoodies, pants, socks, trousers and T shirt and bed and carpet with your plastic toothbrush you are in effect a Van der graaf generator. The shocks in bed are you generating megawatts of static electricity. Perhaps conjugal relations might provide more of a van der graaf effect, seriously!
Anyway enough of that. I am a trained acupuncturist (non practicing) it is held in this ancient technique there are meridians points in the feet that benefit greatly from making direct contact with the earth for an hour or two each day. In the book of Abramelin he recommends walking on the earth for a couple of hours at the point of your birth location. There are stranger things than in your or mine philosophy! I haven't mentioned the acupuncture before as certain members on here might treat me unkindly. I trained in Leamington Spa college of traditional chinese acupuncture under Professor Worsley, but that was a another lifetime.

Interesting @Vortigern. I have had acupuncture treatment, also reflexology and kinesiology. All of which are based on principles based outside of mainstream science. I'm of the opinion that the 2 are not mutually exclusive, and each has a place, sometimes working in tandem.

 

[timhoward]

Maybe between your nylon carpets, plastic hoodies, pants, socks, trousers and T shirt and bed and carpet with your plastic toothbrush you are in effect a Van der graaf generator

Thank you for making me laugh out loud for almost a minute - that was the exact tonic I needed this morning.

 

[Darkwood]

I believe what is occurring here with the OP and improvements to health, sleep etc when 'grounded' are nothing more than a placebo effect, this is why my critique on the posted video link highlighted the fact that the experiments lacked any form of control sample thus effectively making them void.

The question we thus need to ask here is, if the outcome is positive and favourable to the OP's health then is it such a bad thing even if it is shown there is nothing in this grounding claim, personally I think not unless there is a safety issue in doing this or a financial burden, if this is simply is a cost to the OP we also have to way up if it is worth it.
I would in all honesty prefer to be fully open here and explain that there is no real solid evidence of 'grounding' working, there is no electrical theory I can apply to the claims made and no medical support either, the effects thus are in my opinion based on the placebo effect, his own psychological response to the believe in the system, I believe that demonstrating this could be a positive thing as it would in fact show many of the symptoms the OP has can be controlled in other ways, what it shows is many of this symptoms have no physical foundation and simply are psychologically based and thus require a total new approach to reducing or stopping them. (disclaimer - only my opinion not a professional psychological diagnosis)

I am of a scientific mindset and a logical approach and nothing presented or what I can find in research on this remotely convinces me there is anything in these grounding claims, in fact I am convinced it is more a hoax than anything else because of the many deliberate attempts to package what are factual points into a very misleading context, attempts to show relationship between other earthing systems in electrical circuits which are not relevant and work in a very different way and then self confessed claims of positive results from teams of voices who you find have vested interests in the claims been believed..
It is not a knee-jerk reaction here to dismiss this because it sounds crazy but the fact I spent a bit of time to see what was been claimed and how they demonstrated and tried to prove such claims, the fact that many lines in my opinion had been crossed to mislead and convince the viewer it was real kind of sealed the deal that it is a total hoax, one does not need to go to such lengths if there was something genuine in this.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Onwards.

L.K. "Grounding means connecting to the earth to support the specific function of the organs of your body. It supports the body as a whole but it specifically supports organ systems down to the tissues and the cellular function of the entire body"

Presented as a definition, but meaningless. No definition of 'support' is given nor is there a generally recognised mechanism, by which connecting to the earth 'supports' functions of organs and cells, that the speaker is referencing implicitly.

C.O. "In 1960 we invented synthetic materials."

False. Viscose 1905; Nylon 1930s; Terylene 1940s; etc.

L.K. "It's the most common-sense thing that we are organsims that live and grow and depend entirely on the Earth while we're alive, and yet we have completely isolated ourselves from it. We're so disconnected that it becomes this weird thing if we actually slip our shoes off."

Conflation of different ideas. We depend on the Earth for many resources and are not isolated from it with regard to those resources. Wearing insulative footwear isolates us electrically from the mass of earth, but electrical connection to the mass of earth is not one of the resources on which we are proven to depend. Therefore that form of 'disconnection' may be inconsequential. Not everyone finds it weird to take their shoes off.

C.O. [Holding and indicating a trainer] "This was the single thing that happened, that probably caused the proliferation of inflammation-related health disorders, far and above anything else."

Presented as a statement, but with the qualifier 'probably' and no attribution or reference to any study to justify the statement.

"S. S. [emphatically] "This is so incredible, this is Nobel Prize material."

Does not say what, specifically, is 'Nobel Prize material.' Viewers might reasonably infer that it is the connection between insulative footwear and a supposed proliferation of inflammation-related health disorders, metioned a few seconds earlier by C.O. Seems to be intended to lend 'independent' support to amplify the significance of the suggestion made by C.O.


There, two minutes. More later.