Are Grounding Mats Grounded In Good Science?

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❝Could you research grounding mats? Fact or fiction?❞

We could! There are a couple of layers to this:

The Down-to-Earth basics (No mats yet)

Grounding, also called earthing, is first and foremost a matter of making literal contact with the ground. The Earth’s surface contains (usually) a negative electrical charge, meaning that it is expected that an ion exchange will happen when we touch it. Specifically, we’ll gain electrons. This is not proven, since it’s hard to measure rigorously, but the principle is reasonable, simple science, and is broadly uncontentious. There are scenarios in which something can be expected to play out differently, if something unusual is going on electrically for example (e.g. thunderstorm, Van de Graaff generator, just rubbed yourself against a nylon carpet for some reason, etc), but for the most part: the ground indeed has a negative charge and touching it should usually cause us to gain electrons unless we also were negatively charged.

So, the first question is: why would we want that?

It’s suggested that grounding has many health benefits, including reduction of inflammation, pain, and stress, improvement of blood flow, sleep, and vitality:

Integrative and lifestyle medicine strategies should include Earthing (grounding): Review of research evidence and clinical observations

That’s a paper in the International Journal of Psychophysiology, which is neither a very well-known journal, nor a journal of ill-repute. As best we can tell, it is a legitimate journal functionally, i.e. it doesn’t appear to be a scam journal etc, but the standard of evidence looks to us to be quite low. For example, many of the references are not from high quality sources, and some are simply dead links.

This means that meaningful evidence for these claimed benefits is, ironically, thin on the ground.

Should-be-decent sources that we were able to follow up on, i.e. that were peer-reviewed studies, were methodologically weak insofar as they relied on subjective reports of stress reduction, inflammation symptoms (when there are clear biomarkers of inflammation that could have been measured), sleep improvement, and so forth.

Most of the other papers we could access had Gaétan Chevalier as an author, whose PhD is from Quantum University, which is not accredited, and appears to be a diploma mill.

See also: Quantum University Misuses Physics to Train Fake Doctors

What about grounding mats?

Grounding mats aim to recreate the benefit of the ground, without actually having to get one’s feet dirty. Bearing in mind that most modern shoes are already sufficient to insulate against the very modest ion exchange that could otherwise be occurring.

So, with a grounding mat, it’s possible to do it without going outside, and indeed while living on the tenth floor of an apartment block or such.

How do they work? Usually it involves a conductive wire running from the mat to the Earth itself, or to the Earth/ground port of an electrical outlet.

Yes, that does create an electric shock risk if something is incorrectly connected, so do be careful about that.

So, do they help? In all honestly, probably not. Or at least, not beyond placebo.

Which is not nothing! A benefit that’s “just” placebo is still a benefit, but there are other ways to leverage placebo effect (yes, even if we know about it) that don’t involve connecting yourself the mains:

How To Leverage Placebo Effect For Yourself

And if you do want to practice grounding/Earthing, the best way to do so is a) in direct contact with the actual Earth b) somewhere that you’ve checked is safe to stand barefooted (please don’t cut your feet, get tetanus, etc).

Take care!