"He shrugged and said, 'incredible.'

"Acute traumatic injury is common in the world of athletics, so Earthing is a great boon. Grounding helps minimize injury downtime and speed recovery. I know how long it takes to recover normally. And I also know what happens when an athlete is grounded. The changes in terms of body recovery from day to day, the ability to repair tissue, to recover from activity and the stresses and strains of the day, are amazing. To me, it's obvious that any athlete should make Earthing part of his or her regular wellness program.

"Earthing also appears to accelerate recovery from surgery, which, as far as the body is concerned, is basically a form of traumatic injury. One of my patients is a champion in Supercross, a wild and wooly sport where off-road motorcycles race in stadium dirt tracks filled with steep jumps and obstacles. My patient suffered a bad shoulder injury that required surgery. He was treated in a variety of ways to speed the healing process, including sleeping grounded. In three weeks, he was able to compete in a national event and win the compet.i.tion. He made an amazingly rapid recovery."

Less Pain "Among the different athletes I help, the common feedback I hear about Earthing goes something like this: 'I'm sleeping so much better and have less pain. I get up the next day, and I feel so much more recovered. I can't believe the workouts that I'm doing. I should be more tired. My results and improvement are increasing with more frequency. They're staying at a high level. It takes less effort to get and stay where I am.'

"Athletes say frequently they are able to push through the day better. They don't have that midafternoon energy drop. They get up in the morning with much more clarity, ready to seize the opportunity of the day. They seem to need less sleep. They have better quality of sleep. They may have been used to having eight hours of sleep before. Now they need maybe an hour or so less, but they still can perform at the same level. Matter of fact, they even feel better.

"Professional football players live with one degree or another of pain from all the hard physical contact in their sport. They tell me they just don't have the normal pain that they think they should based on what they do. These are the things that I constantly hear.

"Probably the greatest value that I've found with Earthing is that it provides a rock solid biological platform, a basis, for all the other treatments and care that I use. It makes everything else work so much better. Everybody wants a treatment for a specific problem. Earthing, though, is like a universal antidote. It seems to reset the physiological playing field, allowing the body to be its own best healer and do the job it's designed to do-repair and regenerate itself, and create energy to sustain a long and productive life. I think of Earthing as the primer for a canvas on which I paint all the strategies for getting my clients to the top and keeping them there. In art, if you don't properly prime the canvas, the paint won't stick.

"It's now been seven years that I've been Earthing personally and in my work. During that time, there have been only a handful of days that I have not been grounded. On those occasions where for some reason I either forgot my bed pad or the building that I was in didn't allow me to use the technology, I could definitely tell the difference in terms of how I felt and recovered from exercise. I do a lot of traveling, both domestically and internationally, and one of the personal benefits that I found is the dramatic reduction in jet lag. I get up the next day and function fully in the time zone I'm at and not where I came from.

"Earthing is amazingly simple. It's as easy as going barefoot on the beach or in your yard. Or if you have an Earthing device, all you do is plug it in. You lie down, you go to sleep. You do what you normally do. No refills. No prescriptions. No calibrations, settings, timers, no nothing.

"In my view, biology is biology. It doesn't matter who you are. We all share the same basic human biology. What I've observed with high performers in terms of the response to the Earth is exactly what I have observed with patients who aren't athletes. All of us need to perform as best as we can in life and have the stamina to carry out our daily routines, which often are very demanding and stressful. Whatever we can do to enhance our performance and bolster our recovery from day-to-day stresses helps ensure that we become consistent top performers in whatever we do in our lives. That's really what life is all about."

EARTHING AND FOOTBALL.

Chike Okeafor, thirty-three, linebacker for the National Football League's Arizona Cardinals: "I've been sleeping grounded regularly for more than five years after experiencing the effect of grounding on a leg injury. It was a hamstring injury in the back of my knee, plus some deep bruising of the thigh, incurred during a practice session. As I lay on a grounded sheet, I watched a computer monitor connected to a real-time thermal imaging camera. I was amazed to see the colors depicting the intensity of the inflammation from the injury cool down quickly, like within fifteen minutes. The intensity was dramatically different within an hour or so. I felt the difference physically, but to see the changes like that so rapidly was mind-blowing. "I've been sleeping grounded regularly for more than five years after experiencing the effect of grounding on a leg injury. It was a hamstring injury in the back of my knee, plus some deep bruising of the thigh, incurred during a practice session. As I lay on a grounded sheet, I watched a computer monitor connected to a real-time thermal imaging camera. I was amazed to see the colors depicting the intensity of the inflammation from the injury cool down quickly, like within fifteen minutes. The intensity was dramatically different within an hour or so. I felt the difference physically, but to see the changes like that so rapidly was mind-blowing.

"I needed to play that weekend in a big game and there wasn't much time to recover. We were thinking it was going to be nothing short of a miracle to get me ready. My naturopath did some work on me, and I slept grounded the rest of that week. I recovered enough to where I was able to play and without injuring myself further. I was sold on grounding from then on.

"There haven't been very many occasions since then that I do not sleep grounded. I can always feel the difference. In those situations, my wife and I always notice that we're not getting as restful sleep as we do when we are grounded. I used to be a guy who needed eight hours of sleep, and I would take ten if I had the opportunity. I quickly saw that with grounding I was well rested with six hours.

"I have also felt a big difference on the days after games. Normally, you are super sore the day after because of the physical nature of the game, from all the hits and banging that goes on. I never ever miss grounding the night after a game because it so dramatically reduces the inflammation. I am not nearly as sore. It feels almost as if I have skipped that tough day of normal recovery. With grounding, the experience is more like how I used to feel on day two after a game."

EARTHING ON THE TRIATHLETE FRONT.

Chris Lieto, thirty-seven, a professional triathlete, is three-time Ironman champion and former U.S. National Champion: "I first got involved in the sport more than ten years ago. Early on, I set a goal of being world champion. So I needed to figure out the best route how to get there and as quick as possible. I needed to maximize everything-my effort, my equipment, my supplements, my food, my water, and my recovery process, that is, recovery from injuries and exhaustion, and that's where grounding came in. "I first got involved in the sport more than ten years ago. Early on, I set a goal of being world champion. So I needed to figure out the best route how to get there and as quick as possible. I needed to maximize everything-my effort, my equipment, my supplements, my food, my water, and my recovery process, that is, recovery from injuries and exhaustion, and that's where grounding came in.

"I train full-time. That's my job. I love it. I love being outside and being healthy. My training schedule is a little bit different every day, depending on what race is coming up. The Ironman involves a 2.4-mile swim, followed by a 112-mile bike ride, and then when you're done with all that, you run a marathon. That's 26.2 miles. So it ends up being a very long and tough day to say the least. But that's just in the Ironman. There are also half-Ironman distances, with a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike race, and a 13.1-mile run, and other variations on the theme as well.

"I usually get in anywhere from three to eight hours of training daily on a regular basis, about twenty to twenty-six hours a week total. That includes swimming and biking four or five days a week and running about five or six days a week. There are days I will rest and not train at all. When I am preparing for an Ironman compet.i.tion, during the course of a week I'll swim probably twelve miles, bike up to fifteen miles, and build up to about eighty miles a week running.

"The sport is really tough on your body. You have to train so much and for different activities. This is different from most any other sport. For most sports, you go out and train specifically for one event or one thing, and you train for two to four hours a day. Here, you really put your body through the ringer every day. So recovery is a major issue. Anyone can go out and train. But if you don't have that recovery, and your body's not adapting, then the training is just going to be hurting you instead of benefiting you. You have to take the time and the focus to recover. You need to get good sleep and get enough good foods and protein and calories in you. It's vital to stay on top of everything.

"I've been sleeping grounded for more than four years, and it has been a huge boost for me and my recovery process. I'm able to come back a lot stronger and feel a lot better. I noticed right away that I wouldn't get as fatigued on a daily basis. If you're tired and you go out and train, you're just going to dig yourself a hole. I was now able to recover better to be able to workout the next day. Because that's what it's about. You want to get in the workouts day in and day out. But you want to make sure that you recover enough to get that workout to be of benefit. So for me, grounding has been a simple way to recover without really doing anything different.

"The swelling is a lot less. During the day, if I have a chance, I'll put my feet on a grounding pad. When I get done with a workout, I make my recovery food and drink, sit down, and wrap my legs in a recovery bag. Any time for me to be hooked into the Earth is good.

"If I have really sore shin splints or a sore calf or a hurting hip, I'll attach a grounded electrode patch right on the spot. The Earth's energy gets fed straight into that point, and the swelling in that area will go down. Recently, I had an ankle that flared up. For a week, I was applying alternate ice and heat, but it wouldn't go away. I put the patch on it, and the following day it felt normal and I could run that day. So now I use the patch directly on the spot whenever something feels a little sore or is a little swollen. I'll put a patch on and I'm good.

"I haven't won the world championship yet. That's the big goal that has eluded me so far. My career has gotten better and better every year, and even as I am getting older-I'm thirty-seven and racing against guys who are ten years younger-I am keeping up in fitness and my ability to race. Grounding has been a big help in allowing me to do that."

EARTHING AND WEIGHTLIFTING.

Ken Jones, Ph.D., fifty-three, Clarksville, Tennessee, is an exercise physiologist, high school math teacher, and football coach. In 2008, he won the American Drug-Free Powerlifting Federation t.i.tle in the master's 110-kilo division and, later in the year, the World Amateur Athletic Union t.i.tle: "I've been a powerlifter since the age of twelve, and over the years I've achieved many records with different federations. I have been grounding myself for more than two years, ever since the age of fifty. The most I had squatted before that was 505 pounds. After six months of grounding, I was able to increase my lift to 585 pounds, a jump of 80 pounds. When that happened, at my age, I thought it was a bit strange. So I went to an endocrinologist to find out if something was going on with my testosterone level. He checked me out. My testosterone level was not real high. So that wasn't the thing causing my lifts to go up like I was a kid again. "I've been a powerlifter since the age of twelve, and over the years I've achieved many records with different federations. I have been grounding myself for more than two years, ever since the age of fifty. The most I had squatted before that was 505 pounds. After six months of grounding, I was able to increase my lift to 585 pounds, a jump of 80 pounds. When that happened, at my age, I thought it was a bit strange. So I went to an endocrinologist to find out if something was going on with my testosterone level. He checked me out. My testosterone level was not real high. So that wasn't the thing causing my lifts to go up like I was a kid again.

"I improved across the board. Not just squats, but bench press and dead lifts as well. My overall strength level has gone up. I'm able to lift heavier with the big muscle groups in training and still recover faster than I used to from my workouts. That's a big deal. And then to top things off, I won national and world powerlifting championships last year.

"I didn't change any of my workout patterns. I didn't change my diet. I didn't lay off and then come back. The only thing I can attribute to this unusual improvement is grounding. If I can make those kind of gains at an older age, it should be amazing what someone younger will do."

EARTHING AND GOLF LONGEVITY.

Ted Barnett, seventy-one, Palm Desert, California, retired mattress factory owner: "My wife and I owned a mom-and-pop mattress factory. We did at least half the work ourselves and had one or two employees. We made mattresses, delivered them, and set them up in the homes of our customers. In our factory, I was the 'closer.' I ran the big tape-edge machine, which is one of the toughest jobs in a bedding plant. This operation is where you sew the top quilted mattress panel to the side border. People who run this machine for any length of time have problems with their hands because they are constantly pulling hard with their fingers. My hands were in pretty bad shape. I had arthritis, and I was concerned. "My wife and I owned a mom-and-pop mattress factory. We did at least half the work ourselves and had one or two employees. We made mattresses, delivered them, and set them up in the homes of our customers. In our factory, I was the 'closer.' I ran the big tape-edge machine, which is one of the toughest jobs in a bedding plant. This operation is where you sew the top quilted mattress panel to the side border. People who run this machine for any length of time have problems with their hands because they are constantly pulling hard with their fingers. My hands were in pretty bad shape. I had arthritis, and I was concerned.

"Our factory made some of the first Earthing bed pads for Clint Ober back in 2001 or so. And in the process I got grounded. I thought that grounding might be able to help my hands and my heart. I had had open-heart surgery the year before.

"The grounding helped indeed. My hands stopped hurting. I don't recall exactly how long it took, but I remember that I was significantly impressed to the point that I continued doing it. Even to this day, if I travel or otherwise go without sleeping grounded for two or three days, my hands will start hurting again, as well as the shoulders, neck, and other parts of my body where I have a touch of arthritis. As soon as I get home, I ground myself. Within one day, or even within hours, I can stop the pain. It disappears.

"I'm an avid golfer and have been so all my life. Now that I'm retired I play practically every day, and even though I'm seventy-one, I'm still very compet.i.tive. I was a 2 to 3 handicap golfer in my younger days. Now I'm still at a 4 to 5 handicap level. None of my contemporaries are at my level anymore. All the guys I used to play with when I was younger and who played me even or beat me can't come close to me anymore. They have lost their capacity to play compet.i.tively. I have not. I play with the pros my age and I kick their tails. They can't believe it.

"I play golf grounded. I put copper wires in the insole of my shoes, bend them through a hole in the soles, and then bend them again flat against the bottom of the shoes. I think that sleeping and playing grounded has something to do with being supple and able to take the physical beating caused by regular practice and playing. Most people my age stop being compet.i.tive on the golf course because they can't take the abuse to their body. They can't practice, swing really hard, or push their games to be a winner because it hurts. So they don't win. They lose. I can't beat the really good twenty- or thirty-year-old kids. Nothing hurts when they swing. But the older ones don't beat me."

CHAPTER 14.

The Auto Connection: Earthing on the Move A truck stop is an unlikely setting for a "scientific" experiment. But one busy truck stop just north of Los Angeles along Interstate 5 was just that for a few days in February 2000. Truckers who stopped there were approached by an enthusiastic trio of Clint Ober and two old friends, Corky and Kathleen Downing.

The three of them were busy enrolling long-haul drivers into a simple experiment. All the drivers had to do was agree to sit on a 10-by-14-inch conductive seat pad connected by a wire to the metal frame under their seat. Installation would take less than five minutes. When they got to their next distant destination, the drivers were asked to write down if they felt any difference while driving with the seat pad, such as any change in tension, pain, or fatigue levels, and then mail in their comments with a provided self-addressed stamped envelope. Any driver doing that would receive a check for $25. And twenty-seven of them, with an average age of forty-eight, did just that. They were all from different parts of the country and didn't know each other.

As Corky explains, "We wanted to test the concept of grounding drivers to the metal frame of their seat, which in turn is connected to the huge metal cha.s.sis of the truck. We believed that vehicular grounding in this manner would help ease the strain and tension involved in long-distance driving.

"My wife was the first person to try the seat pad in her car. She didn't like driving at night. It made her nervous and raised her blood pressure. When she drove sitting on the seat pad, her blood pressure actually went down. She still uses it to this day.

"If you go into any truck stop and examine the counter near the register, you will see a lot of over-the-counter pain pills and no-doze remedies. The truckers live on that stuff. They need them to keep awake and ease their driving aches."

LESS STRESS FOR THE LONG HAUL.

Clint Ober was very aware of these common challenges facing long-distance drivers. He had parked in many a truck stop during his years of driving an RV around the country. While living in Ventura in 1999, he thought he could help truckers with a grounded seat pad. So he approached a neighbor who drove up and down California in a big rig. Here's Clint's story: "I asked to go along with him on one of his trips to test the seat pad. I brought a square of conductive material and put it on his seat, then connected it to the metal frame beneath the seat with an alligator clip. There are 10 tons of metal in a truck like that. Seats in cars and trucks are bolted to the floor, and thus connected to the metal frame of the vehicle. I figured this setup would offer an electrical ground plane that could perhaps serve as a 'sink' into which static electricity from his body could be discharged. A lot of static electricity builds up on the body as a result of the material from the shirt or jacket of a driver or pa.s.senger rubbing up and down against the back of the seat as the vehicle is in motion. This phenomenon is called 'triboelectrification,' and it builds up whenever you drive. It's particularly noticeable on dry days whenever you slide across the seat of your car and touch a metal door handle to exit the vehicle after driving a distance. Though sometimes quite jolting, these shocks are not really dangerous to a driver or pa.s.senger.

"I took a voltmeter with me on the trip and I measured the trucker's body voltage connected and unconnected. There was a big difference. When the driver was grounded, the buildup on his body disappeared. The electrical potential of the body of the trucker and the truck became the same. The trucker told me at the end the trip that he felt much better and more relaxed than he usually did after his long hauls.

"Based on this experience, I then designed a proper seat pad. It had conductive carbon fibers set into a nylon fabric backed with a soft, nonskid material. We then went out to test it on more truckers."

HAPPY TRUCKERS.

Clint, Corky, and Kathleen explained their plan to one of the managers on duty at the busy truck stop north of Los Angeles. She asked to try it first. She lived about three-quarters of an hour from the business and said that she had bad neck pain aggravated by the back-and-forth drive each day. She would have to take pain pills when she arrived at home or at work. After test-driving the seat pad, she said she was convinced. There was no or little pain, and no need for the pills. She gave the "scientists" a green flag to approach the truckers stopping at the station. Their feedback was across-the-board positive. Nearly all of the twenty-seven partic.i.p.ants reported more relaxation and reduction in pain and stiffness. Around 70 percent said they experienced less fatigue and more alertness while driving. More than 60 percent said their night vision was improved. Here are some of their individual comments: * *"More alert. Less pain and stiffness." R.M., Federal Way, WA *"My whole body feels more relaxed." H.S., Brookings, OR *"Reduction of fatigue." R.N., Lone Pine, CA *"I've noticed I have fewer aches and pains." R.B., Missoula, MT *"Stress in shoulders and back is gone." D.C., Houston, TX *"A great stress and road-rage reliever." R.C., Oklahoma City, OK *"Helped my headaches go away." R.F.R., Gretna, NE *"Reduced leg and back pain." C.H., Yakima, WA

As news of the benefits of the seat pad spread throughout the trucking industry, an article in a 2000 publication of the a.s.sociation of Professional Truck Drivers of America informed its readers that the seat pad addressed the nervous system consequences of extraneous electrical charge on the body resulting from road vibration and the related motion of the driver's body on the vehicle seat. Overdrive, Overdrive, a leading publication serving commercial truck owner-operators and company drivers, humorously explained the concept this way: "Lower your stress with honorable discharge." a leading publication serving commercial truck owner-operators and company drivers, humorously explained the concept this way: "Lower your stress with honorable discharge."

Over the years, drivers using a conductive seat pad in their vehicles have consistently commented about less tension and fatigue when driving.

CHAPTER 15.

The Animal Connection: Earthing and Indoor Pets Clint Ober recalls an incident from his youth and growing up on a farm in Montana that left a vivid image in his memory: "One day while tending to some cattle with my dad we came upon a calf lying on the ground with a portion of its intestines hanging out of a large gash in its stomach. The mother cow was standing nearby as if protecting the calf. We were not sure what had happened. Maybe dogs or wolves attacked it, or it had gotten tangled up in some barbed wire. My dad took a needle and some coa.r.s.e thread out of a saddlebag and went over and rolled the calf onto its side. He told me to sit on the calf to hold it still. My dad then pushed the exposed intestines back in the calf's belly and then proceeded to sew her up. No antiseptics. No antibiotics. Upon completion, my dad said she would either live or die and there was nothing more we could do. We were several miles away from the barn. The weather was very cold and it was snowing. There was no way we could have taken the calf back to the barn.

"I didn't think much more about this incident until a week or so later when I saw the same calf running around with the other calves like nothing had happened. Thereafter, I often wondered why outdoor animals seemed to heal up naturally and quickly from wounds as compared to humans, or even indoor pets, who seemed to take much longer to heal and to need excessive treatment and care. So many times I noticed sick animals lying in a dark corner on the Earth and then coming around seemingly healthy again.

"Whenever I asked veterinarians who treated both outdoor and indoor animals about this, they would just shrug and say the outdoor animals are out in Nature and that gives them something that indoor animals don't have. That something obviously includes more sunlight but, as I have learned, the natural healing energy of the Earth. They are connected."

GROUNDED DOGS.

Several years ago, pet health writer CJ Puotinen and her husband obtained a grounding bed pad, which improved their sleep. "My husband was a professor of mechanical engineering," she says, "and the theory behind this simple technology made perfect sense to him." A writer of books and magazine articles about holistic pet care, Puotinen wondered whether bed pads could improve the life of animals as well. She contacted Dale Teplitz, a health and energy medicine researcher who had helped conduct several Earthing studies over the years. The two teamed up to design an experiment for dogs in 2007 utilizing a prototype grounded pad.

Together, they identified sixteen canines with histories of unresolved arthritic pain, fatigue, anxiety, hip dysplasia, chronic coughs, old injuries, and emotional problems. For the purpose of the study, the animals slept grounded on the pad for four to six weeks. The owners kept daily and weekly logs of their observations. During the experiment, the animals were only allowed to be naturally grounded for several minutes a day when relieving themselves outdoors.

The typical feedback from owners who kept detailed records included improvements in energy, stamina, flexibility, joint mobility, muscle tone, calmness, sleep, and signs of pain such as limping, stiffness, tentative movements, low activity levels, or a reluctance to jump, play, or move quickly, according to Teplitz.

"After the trial ended, some of the owners stopped using the pads briefly to see if there was any difference in the animals," she added. "They reported seeing pre-trial signs starting to return. That really made them believe in grounding even more."

Chip Feeling Chipper One partic.i.p.ant in the experiment was Chip McGrath, a ten-year-old retired racing Greyhound who belongs to Roberta Mikkelsen of Pearl River, New York. Chip had a bad limp because of joint stress and racing injuries, a result of hard running at speeds up to 45 miles per hour. The dog had also reinjured his leg and was unable to jump onto the couch or into the car for nearly a year.

"Now, thanks to the Earthing pad, he does both all the time," said Mikkelsen. "He has no evidence of pain or joint problems. He's more playful, jumps and runs more, tolerates longer walks, and has far more energy than before. He still limps a bit, but the veterinarian says that's because of the corns on his paws from his earlier racing days."

One of the surprising "side effects" of grounding was an "amazing mental change" in Chip within three weeks of sleeping grounded. "He had always been anxious and afraid of thunder, fireworks, and other loud noises," said Mikkelsen. "He would pant, pace, shake, and hide during storms until the storm was over. Greyhounds who have been raced a lot seem to develop lots of fears, and Chip sure had his share. But that behavior just stopped. The Earthing pad seems to have taken the fear out and calmed him. Now, when the weather is stormy, he is as calm as can be and goes readily off to sleep. For two years in a row now, he has even slept through Fourth of July fireworks."

Impressed by the improvements in her dog, Mikkelsen obtained a bed pad for her husband who suffered with pain from spinal compression fractures. Her husband experienced minor relief, but Mikkelsen was totally surprised about what happened to her own pain problem.

"For two months, my fingers, elbows, hips, and knees had all been hurting, a consequence of overdoing it while laying a brick patio in my backyard," she recalled. "When I got up out of a chair, I could hardly walk. I had to wait a few moments before I could get moving. Within three days of Earthing, my pain disappeared and hasn't returned. I am as spry as before. This was totally unexpected."

Improved Quality-and Length?-of Life Jill Queen, of Mount Pleasant, North Carolina, has an affinity for rescued standard poodles and two of her older dogs were part of the study. Both animals pa.s.sed away in 2009, but Queen said that grounding greatly improved their quality of life and probably also extended their lives. Mikey died at fourteen. He had been grounded for nearly two years. Marilyn died at twelve. She had been grounded for a year and a half.

"Most standard poodles tend not to live longer than ten years, so I feel that grounding contributed to a longer life," said Queen.

Mikey's joints were badly affected with degenerative arthritis. He was restless at night. Within one week of grounding, he was showing less signs of stiffness and sleeping better. Improvements continued throughout the trial. At five weeks, he was eager to go for a walk and had more mobility. "He was doing much better than what his x-rays indicated he could do," Queen said.

"He was doing much better than what his x-rays indicated he could do," Queen said.

Marilyn had a history of arthritis, gastrointestinal problems, lower back disc injuries, pancreat.i.tis, and renal failure. She tended to slip and fall frequently, her paws seeming to come out from under her. She slept restlessly and had poor energy.

Within two weeks of Earthing, her energy level was up. She was more playful and slept better. Her appet.i.te improved. At week three, she was doing more running, less falling, and appeared much steadier on her feet. After five weeks, she was dramatically healthier, calmer, and much more energetic.

One of Queen's observations is that her animals would always seek out the grounded pad to sleep on despite the availability of other, and even more comfortable, doggie beds she had in her house. Wherever she placed the pad, the dogs would look for it.

"They must sense something," she said.

After Mikey and Marilyn died, she obtained another standard poodle. "As soon as the dog entered her home, he went straight for the pad and pa.s.sed up the other beds. It was amazing to me."

In a report she wrote for the Whole Dog Journal, Whole Dog Journal, Puotinen observed, "Since time began, animals have lived in direct contact with the Earth. Their feet were always on the ground, they always breathed open air, and the sun and moon illuminated their days and nights. Even after their human companions moved into houses, most dogs lived outdoors. Now people and their pets are indoor creatures. Sure, dogs go for walks and enjoy other outdoor activities, but, like most of us, our dogs often spend more than twenty hours a day inside. If your dog spends most of the day and all of the night indoors, do what you can to increase his time outside. Resting or playing in a fenced yard is perfect, as are long walks, hikes, and swims." Puotinen observed, "Since time began, animals have lived in direct contact with the Earth. Their feet were always on the ground, they always breathed open air, and the sun and moon illuminated their days and nights. Even after their human companions moved into houses, most dogs lived outdoors. Now people and their pets are indoor creatures. Sure, dogs go for walks and enjoy other outdoor activities, but, like most of us, our dogs often spend more than twenty hours a day inside. If your dog spends most of the day and all of the night indoors, do what you can to increase his time outside. Resting or playing in a fenced yard is perfect, as are long walks, hikes, and swims."

But nothing, she says, makes it as easy to provide the Earth's free electrons to indoor pets as an Earthing pad. "In addition to receiving reports from dog owners about how their companions' arthritis symptoms and other physical problems improve, I have heard from several people whose dogs and cats take turns sleeping on the grounded pad. When my Labrador retriever received her bed pad, it wasn't long before Pumpkin, my husband's red tabby cat, was taking naps on it. Neither of these animals have any health problems, so I haven't noticed a difference in symptoms or behavior, but I think it's interesting that they are both so drawn to the mat."

THE GROUNDED c.o.c.kATOO.

Don Scott is an aviculturist in Escondido, California. He is the founder of The Chloe Sanctuary, a rescue shelter for c.o.c.katoos and parrots. He finds "foster" homes for the birds and trains people how to handle them as pets.

His experience with Chloe, the namesake of his sanctuary, suggests that the use of a grounded perch may help prevent or minimize the common psychoses-screaming, pacing, biting, and feather destructive behavior-of caged birds.

"Something substantial changed after I installed a grounded perch in Chloe's cage," he said. That was in mid-2008. Chloe was a twenty-five-year-old umbrella c.o.c.katoo at the time. She had been rescued from previous owners unable to give her proper care.

When Chloe came into Scott's care in 2003, she had an established problem of feather-destructive behavior due to being left alone for weekends at a time. According to veterinary records, Chloe had apparently been doing this since 2000. Social birds like these do not do well in situations of sustained separation from those they consider their flock. c.o.c.katoos mate for life and always remain within screeching distance of their mate except when caring for their young. This devotion applies to their human "mates" as well.

"Chloe has become much calmer with the grounded perch," according to Scott. "She used to intensely pull out her feathers. It was bad. She doesn't do that anymore. She may tug at her feathers a little bit now and then, but only at the tips and not at the base as she used to do.

"Before, she would sit a good deal of the time in the cage and show little interest in her environment. Now she forages more for food and plays more with her toys. She is more active and playful."

The perch consists of an 18-inch stainless steel bathroom grab bar that Mr. Scott bought at Home Depot. He mounted it on a 1-by-3-inch piece of pine, attached a copper wire and connected it to the ground terminal in a wall outlet.

The grounded perch is not the highest perch in the cage. It's in the middle. Birds prefer a high perch at night out of an instinct for safety. The higher the perch the less chance of being attacked.

"But Chloe prefers this lower perch and uses it consistently at night," said Scott. "Instinctively, she picked up something that attracted her. What's fascinating is that once the grounded perch became disconnected and I wasn't aware of it, Chloe immediately sensed some difference and ignored the perch and went back to the perch at the higher level. I wondered why this was happening and then I discovered the disconnection. After reconnecting, Chloe went back to sitting on the middle perch again."

Scott said that Chloe was initially upset by the new perch but quickly felt very comfortable on it, and without screaming to be let out of the cage. Since installing the perch, she stopped walking a "figure eight" repeated pattern on the cage door, another sign of wanting to get out.

CHAPTER 16.

The Future Connection: The Earthing Revolution Ahead This book is a statement about Nature and health. Health is natural, and part of being naturally healthy and functioning optimally appears to involve connectedness to the Earth. Being disconnected seems to be both unnatural and unhealthy. The disconnect creates unnecessary suffering in the form of sickness, inflammation, pain, and poor sleep-the consequences of an electron deficiency. Connecting to the Earth remedies that deficiency and its consequences.

We think this book offers a relevant piece of the answer to T.H. Huxley's prodigious question about determining our place in Nature and our relationship to the cosmos. We live on our planet. But we have insulated ourselves from it-and at great cost. As a society, we are hurting and unhealthy, and we have been that way for quite a while. The health statistics indicate that we are no longer the hardy, red-blooded folks we used to be. We stress our bodies to the breaking point. We eat the wrong foods and don't exercise.