[fainz]

I do a lot more outside when its warmer – also ‘tree hugging’ works well for me as we have a lot of very old live oak trees. It’s nice just to sit outside and absorb the sun before it gets too hot as well!

I enjoyed the discussion last night!

[IMA-HelenT]

I do love a tree, and if you can climb it and sit for a while, thats really joyfull.

[marthajean]

Since I’m in southern Arizona, I don’t go outside unless I’m wearing shoes or sandals. Reason: A lot of thorny plant life here.

And hugging trees? Well, our trees have thorns too.

[IMA-HelenT]

😁, I must say I prefer to walk on grass or the beach … could you just stand barefoot on a patch of ground in the garden for a while.

[robin-whittle]

Each cell, multiple cells and our entire body is highly electrically conductive due to them being full of liquid water. The dead cells of our hair and the top layer of skin are less conductive, since they contain less or no liquid water.

Static electricity, such as that generated by the triboelectric effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triboelectric_effect), can raise (+) or lower (-) the voltage of our entire body with respect to zero volts, the voltage of the surface of the Earth. However, this does not affect cells since the entire cell, all its neighbouring cells and the rest of our bodies are at the same voltage, so no current flows within our body and there are no electrostatic fields (differences in voltage from one place to another) within or between cells as a result of the whole body being at a different voltage with respect to the Earth.

Static electricity from the triboelectric effect is commonplace. In a dry environment, walking in plastic soled shoes across a carpet or the solid plastic floor of a supermarket can cause our bodies to build up a voltage thousands of volts above or below ground (0 volts). We find out when we touch a steel shelf and get a zap, with a small spark, as our body’s total electrical charge with respect to ground is discharged to an object which is connected to ground.

Likewise wearing cotton clothing while sitting on a chair covered in synthetic material such as nylon or polyester. When the two slide or are separated, our body gains or looses trillions of electrons.

The shoe material or the cotton has a different (stronger or weaker) affinity for electrons than the other material – carpet/plastic-flooring or synthetic chair fabric. When the two, initially zero voltage, surfaces touch, some of the electrons at the surface of both materials tend to stay on one surface or the other. Since those surfaces are connected, electrically (flow of electrons) to our body and to the Earth respectively, our body ends up with an excess or a deficit of electrons, which we measure as a negative or positive voltage. (In the 19th century, I recall, when batteries were first invented someone decided to name one terminal positive and the other negative. This was before anyone knew what an electron was, or that voltage was pressure of electrons and that current is a flow of electrons or of other charged particles. They happened to give the negative name to the terminal which is pushing out electrons. So electrons have what we now call a “negative” charge.)

It is easy and common to develop a body voltage thousands of volts different from that of the Earth. This buildup of charge (excess electrons, or fewer electrons than match the number of protons in all the atomic nuclei in our body) generally will not occur in conditions of normal or high humidity, because this is a slightly electrically conductive environment in which the charge imbalance does not develop, due to the displaced electrons quickly being conducted back to where they came from. They are negative and wherever they were removed from has an overall positive charge, so they are attracted in that direction.

In normal life, these triboelectric displacements of electrons only result in overall changes of voltages which we notice when the air and so the points of contact and the materials themselves are dry – when the relative humidity is low.

Why does anyone think that these high voltages affect cells, or any part of our body, with the following exceptions?

1 – Our hair can be made to stand on end, due to it, like the rest of our body, having more than a few hundred volts positive or negative voltage with respect to zero, so each strand repels each other strand and the scalp. (This can be induced by a Van-de-Graff generator or an electronic power supply. I once sat on some styrofoam blocks, touching the high (+) voltage section of a power supply within a cathode ray tube computer monitor. I guess this was +20,000 volts or so. I didn’t just touch it, since that would have induced a spark and a shock as it removed electrons from my body. I touched it with the monitor turned off and my wife turned it on, so the current flowed over a second or so as the power supply charged up the capacitance of the CRT. My hair fanned out and stood on end, as predicted.)

2 – The sensation and possible small burn to our skin where there is a spark due to a very short, high-current, discharge of our entire body to some grounded object. Also, if a car developed a high voltage charge and we are ~0 volts, when we touch the car. Likewise if cotton and synthetic sheets are in contact and we separate them, we can get a zap from one of the sheets.

I am not aware of any mechanism by which these occasional high bodily voltages cause any other physical effects. I am not at all concerned about them. (The spark could, however, ignite flammable substances. Also, this static electricity can permanently damage electronic devices. I am an electronic technician and one day, after I had removed a worn out cotton cover from my synthetic fabric covered chair, I must have developed a high voltage via my cotton clothing, because three chips in the device I was working on suddenly became faulty on at least one of their pins. I did not feel any spark or discharge. These integrated circuits are built with Metal Oxide Silicon Field Effect Transistors – MOSFETs. These rely on a very thin, fractions of a thousands of a millimetre, insulating layers of silicon dioxide. These cope with a few tens of volts, but are destroyed by hundreds or thousands of volts.)

By all means walk barefoot on the ground and sleep in whatever fabrics you feel happiest in.

However, before any professional person, makes claims about “grounding”, they should explain, or cited evidence and arguments for, why an overall voltage difference between the human body and the outside world, which is generally 0 volts == Ground, has any effect on cellular function and health.

Likewise anyone who sells “grounding” products or runs classes on “grounding”.

This “grounding” stuff is a distraction from what we should be concerned about – most importantly ensuring we all have at least 50 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D, which is needed for full immune system function: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/. We are also rightly concerned with nutrition in general, pesticides, Ill-effects and ineffectiveness of vaccines and gene therapies falsely portrayed as vaccines, herbicides, corruption, medical freedom and freedom of speech and a long list of problems in mainstream medicine.

Moreover, any IMA-associated medical professional who publically promotes “grounding” leads critics to claim that that person, or the entire IMA, should not to be taken seriously. This is a broad-brush criticism but it is perfectly valid. If a doctor believes in grounding, or homeopathy, why should we trust them regarding human health?

Electromagnetic radiation is not the same as an overall voltage charge on the body. At high frequencies (short wavelengths) such as of ~290 nanometre wavelength (1,034,000 Gigahertz) UV-B light, the electromagnetic waves can penetrate tissue and give individual electrons, in molecules, 4.2 electron-volts of kinetic energy, which is enough to break covalent bonds and so alter molecules. Such electromagnetic wave break a bond in a carbon ring of 7-dehydrocholesterol, changing the molecule into a form which isomerizes (changes shape by one part twisting with respect to the other) of its own accord to become vitamin D3 cholecalciferol. UV-B also breaks bonds in DNA, causing cell death or predisposing the cell to becoming cancerous.

Visible and infra-red wavelengths (violet 380 nanometres to tens of thousands of nanometres = lower frequency = less energy per excited electron) may well be beneficial in some respects – see Jeffrey et al. 2025: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-09785-3.

Longer wavelengths, such as microwaves, with frequencies around 1 gigahertz (30 cm wavelength) cannot break chemical bonds, since the energy per excited electron is far too low. (https://www.rapidtoolsonline.com/unit-converters/photon-energy-converter: 0.000004 volts) Generally such electromagnetic radiation, such as is produced by cell-phones, Bluetooth devices, WiFi devices and which might leak from microwave ovens (2.4GHz, 12.5 cm = 5 inch wavelength), dissipates into our tissue with the only effect being heating. Assuming the heating is very mild, there will be no effect on health or cellular function.

However, it can’t be ruled out that such radiation has subtle effects on cellular function, since biology is so subtle and complex.

The whole body having a high voltage, which is what grounding prevents, has no such effect on our cells. A cell – or a sensitive voltage field detector placed inside our bodies – cannot detect that the whole body is at a higher or lower voltage than 0 volts. The whole body is conductive and it is the same as if the cell, or the detector, were inside a Faraday cage and the voltage of the entire cage was raised or lowered with respect to ground. Likewise when a metal-bodied car or aircraft is struck by lightning. No-one inside can detect what has occurred, yet the entire car or aircraft and its contents has suddenly been made hundreds of millions of volts positive or negative with respect to ground.

[IMA-HelenT]

Thanks @robin-whittle

I think that there are people that support grounding and others like yourself, that think, while our bodies can build up static electricity, it doesn’t actually affect our cells because everything inside us stays at the same electrical level, so no current flows internally.

I for one, love being in touch with the ground, getting outside, walking barefoot, and reconnecting with nature. It’s only going to benefit my overall health.

That’s something we can probably all get behind:)

We are hoping that Dr. Cole will do a full webinar on grounding so we can really dig into the questions—but in the meantime, this week’s discussion was excellent and worth a watch if you havent yet 👇

https://imahealth.org/drug-cycling-in-cancer-care/