Brace yourselves, team. We’re heading into the kind of territory that brings folk out of the woodwork to throw the usual cries of “but where’s the vacuum-sealed, octo-blind, inreverse placebo, set-in-concrete scientifical study that proves what you say beyond a doubt?!”.  Yes, today we’re going to discuss earthing mats. Which sound like something that a dude in fisherman pants and a child called Forest Pxyiee would try to sell you, right?

Photo by Toby Burrows

Admittedly I did first hear about the idea while I was living in Byron Bay. And it was a dude in fisherman pants who waxed lyrical about the it will toting a chai. A few months back, however, building biologist Nicole Bijlsma brought the idea and the mats up again when she did a toxin audit on my home. She claims the mats will reduce body voltage created by the electric fields around you, and are particularly good for those who have electric hypersensitivity (EHS). You can see the video chats we did in my home here and here where we discuss the various sources of electromagnetic fields in the house and the solutions you can put in place to minimise them.

In a (cracked?) nut the idea behind earthing, however, is this:

The earth has a negative grounding charge. We humans build up positive electrons (free radicals) from EMFs, Wi-Fi etc.

Connecting directly with the earth equalizes things.

To earth is simply to walk barefoot on dirt or beach or grass. The effect is much like grounding electrical outlets to prevent build up of positive electrical charge. Health benefits, calmness, good sleep ensue.

How to earth:

* Walk barefoot. While we used to connect via our bare feet, know we have a layer of rubber between us and the earth, which insulates and prevents the grounding transfer. Get your shoes off and walk in a park on the grass or dirt, or along a beach.

* Walk on the beach. Wondered why you come back from a beach stroll so anchored and calm? Sand and salt

You haven’t really lived until you’ve experienced insomnia. As in, really felt the darkest, loneliest, nothingness core of existence that really only strikes around 4am when sleep eludes and sunrise is an hour away.

As in, descended to such a pit of wall-punching, stomach-clawing despair, and then risen again as the currawongs emit their forlorn caw, thoroughly aware of every fibre of yourself, the person next to you, the neighbours, and, in fact, all of humanity. Honestly, I feel closer to insomniacs than good sleepers because of the shared experience of this particular despair.

Image by Julia Fullerton-Batten

I’ve been an insomniac since I was 21. Actually, I was eight when I first became scared of the night – not of the dark, but of the task of switching gears to sleep. When I was 21 insomnia sent me mad. I was living in Santa Cruz, California, and….oh, there were things going on…and I wound up spending five months grabbing no more than 3-4 hours a night. They were the good nights.

Most nights it was a 15 minute snatch of delirium around 5am. Fifteen minutes in which I was able to give in to the night. Or, rather, the dawn. It was anyone’s – God’s? – guess as to whether I even got that snatch. I was at the mercy of…God? Fate?

This kind of vulnerability is particular to insomnia. You’re imprisoned, defenceless. You can’t control your destiny. You’re denied the freedom to “turn on sleep”. And why? A reason doesn’t seem to exist. And so it all seems so unfair.

At 4am you oscillate between anger (“This is unfair”) and grief (“I must have done something terribly wrong to deserve this”) and loneliness (“What am I missing? What handbook to life didn’t I get???”).

The extent of the madness back when I was 21 is for another story. Suffice to say at the end of the five months I no longer functioned and George, a loved one, came to collect me and take me home. I got my first auto-immune disease off the back of this, actually.

This post has been updated.

This is one of those straightforward posts I sometimes do when I come across information that I feel is important to share. It will involve factoids and a list. You’ve been warned! Basically I’m going to outline some interesting stuff that explain why problems with your gut are causing the mood and energy issues you might be having.

What’s a leaky gut?

You have a barrier protecting your abdominal wall. When this barrier is weakened (it quite literally gets holes in it, ergo the “leaky” descriptor), it reacts to external toxins – peptides from gluten and dairy and antibodies we make to food or infections or bugs. The cytokines that this triggers then enter our body and wreck havoc.

How does it get leaky?

Your abdominal wall can get weakened (leaky) from:

• a crappy diet high in sugar and low in fibre
• nutritional deficiencies of zinc and omega-3 fats
• overuse of antibiotics and hormones
• environmental toxins
• massive stress

How’s the gut linked to the brain?

Both the gut and brain originate early in embryogenesis from the same clump of tissue, which divides during fetal development. One section turns into the central nervous system, and the other becomes the enteric nervous system (the gut’s brain – our second brain – so to speak).

Stay with me now!

These two nervous systems later connect via a cable called the vagus nerve – the longest of all the cranial nerves. Vegus means “wandering” and it meanders (all across your torso) from the brain stem, through the neck, and finally ends up in the abdomen.

The gut has a brain? Let’s unpack this a little. 

• the gut’s brain is located in sheaths of tissue lining the esophagus, stomach, small intestine and colon.
• the gut brain contains some 100 million neurons, more than in the spinal cord or the peripheral nervous system.
• it’s packed with neurons, neurotransmitters and proteins that send messages between neurons or support cells like those found in the brain.
• it contains a complex circuitry that enables it to act independently, learn, remember and produce gut feelings.