Grounding can be practised by anyone for physical, mental and emotional well-being, says Mohd Yazid. — Filepic
At least three times a week, Ahmad Ridzuan Midan and his 69-year-old mother Rahmah Mat Lani spend about 30 minutes barefoot while tending to the flower plants.
In the yard of their home in Merlimau, Melaka, they allow their bare feet to come into contact with soil and grass.
It may seem like they are playing with dirt but what they are doing is practising grounding or earthing.
This, they claim, is a form of therapy which has brought positive changes to their bodies.
“We have been practising it for the past one year,” Ahmad Ridzuan, 31, told Bernama.
Ahmad Ridzuan, who is pursuing a PhD at Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris in Perak, said he was drawn to grounding after following a programme talking about it on social media.
In the programme, grounding was advocated by Universiti Putra Malaysia Associate Professor Dr Mohd Yazid Mohd Yunos from the Department of Landscape Architecture in the Faculty of Design and Architecture.
Mohd Yazid is also a master practitioner in Neuro-Linguistic Programming and a US-certified life coach.
He described grounding as a practice involving direct physical contact with the earth’s surface to restore the body’s natural electrical balance.
He said grounding techniques included walking barefoot on soil, gardening, trekking, swimming, reading a book under a tree, and soaking one’s feet in salt water.
“Effective grounding techniques must involve some part of our body touching the earth or nature, such as our hands touching a tree, grass or soil,” he explained.
Mohd Yazid, who advises on therapeutic landscapes, said grounding was the cheapest and easiest therapy.
He said it could be practised by anyone for general well-being.
Citing recent research by Prof Dr James L. Oschman, Mohd Yazid said this technique was safe.
Prof Oschman’s findings were published in the article “Illnesses in Technologically Advanced Societies Due to Lack of Grounding (Earthing)” in a 2023 edition of Biomedical Journal.
“In several of Prof Oschman’s findings, free radicals present in the human body are found to be the cause of rapid ageing,” said Mohd Yazid.
