People often ask me for my top tips on Natural Health. There is so much that we can do to support our natural health, for example through touch, movement, food, breath, and a positive attitude. However sometimes the simple things have the most profound impact, and our connection with the natural world holds more healing for us than we may realise.
My Summer Trip
I have just returned from a long summer break; 6 weeks of pure luxurious immersion into the natural world. My intent for this trip was to find the Yoga (union), to come into presence and to rediscover my sense of humour. I experience this, and so much more.
I slept on the earth, walked every day, and listened to the silence in the wind and the rain, basked on the rocks in the sun. Some days I’d walk all day, resting into the rhythms of the undulating coast path (North Cornwall) or the challenges of a climb (Snowdonia). Other days I’d walk to a remote spot and sit and stare. One day at “the strangles”, a wild remote spot, I spent 4 hours just watching the tide return.
As I began to relax, I noticed I was feeling happier, my body was strengthening, my breath deepening and my thoughts softening into nothing… space.
I started to naturally know my direction with home projects; I saw the steps, the next pieces in my life, all those decisions just fell into place as I moved… I talked it all into my phone and let go…. Happy and grateful.
In this liminal space, I talked with the nature around me. The trees at my camp told me to come back to the ground more often, the rocks showed me how they amplify information through their crystalline seams and transmit consciousness into the universe, the ocean reminded me of the power of magic and opened my heart to love.
In the evenings I took walks into the sunset; watching as the wild turned golden in the last flickers of light, sometimes I walked in the dark, listening to the birds nesting in their trees and the hedgehogs snuffling the rich earth beneath.
Below is a little of the science behind the natural healing properties of the earth.
Negative Ions
The natural world is full of negative ions. These negative ions are crucial for health and wellbeing.
We come into contact with negative ions when we walk along a beach or stand under a waterfall. They can be found in all of nature, the rays of the sun, the forests, the soft soils of the earth.
In our body, ions regulate our bodies fluids, supplying cells with nutrients, “oiling” our detox pathways, transmitting nerve signals, contracting muscles for movement and “fuelling” our internal organs for digestion, elimination, pro-creation, inspiration and so much more.
Negative ions help our blood absorb oxygen, increasing oxygen levels in the brain, helping us fell more focused and alert and giving us energy and motivation.
Negative ions help the body to balance serotonin and melatonin levels which regulate sleep and activity. Helping us to wake up fresh in the morning, whilst sleeping deeply at night. During deep sleep our bodies natural go into "healing mode".
Negative Ions are everywhere but are not so present inside homes and workplaces.
How You Can Increase Negative Ions in your body
1. Walk barefoot on the earth or put your hands in earth.
2. Walk in dense forests (especially pine forests)
3. Visit the mountains.
4. Sit under waterfalls and swim or paddle in rivers.
5. Walk on the beach and swim \ paddle in the ocean.
6. Fling open your windows, allowing fresh air to circulate through your home.
7. Go outside after heavy rain and storms breathing deeply of the charged air.
Earthing
This term was coined by a man called Clint Ober who was by trade an electrician. During a debilitating illness Clint had a flash of inspiration; he began to reason that the human body was not earthed. Rubber soles, concrete, high rise flats and city living all take us up off the ground. He knew about electrical circuits and now considered how a lack of earthing might affect the human body with its complex nerve pathways, firing information all day long. Sending signals for every action and body process.
He began researching and conducted many experiments which over time gained recognition from the medical world. It was conclusive that the negative ions in the earth are essential for our bodies healing mechanisms. Inflammation requires these negative ions from outside of the body, to be processed and safely eliminated.
Experiments have shown that earthing (grounding) reduces inflammation, reduces pain, reduces cortisol (our chronic stress hormone), and supports better quality of sleep. It also improves circulation, thins the blood, and reduces blood pressure.
Below is an exert from a scientific experiment published by the NCBI ( the national centre for biotechnology information) in 2012.
“The research done to date supports the concept that grounding or earthing the human body may be an essential element in the health equation along with sunshine, clean air and water, nutritious food, and physical activity.
Emerging evidence shows that contact with the Earth—whether being outside barefoot or indoors connected to grounded conductive systems—may be a simple, natural, and yet profoundly effective environmental strategy against chronic stress, ANS dysfunction, inflammation, pain, poor sleep, disturbed HRV, hypercoagulable blood, and many common health disorders, including cardiovascular disease.”