Can Earthing Help Tinnitus?

Has anyone ever tried earthing to deal with tinnitus?

Having just been regifted with loud tinnitus via the Pfizer vaccine I am looking for ways to reduce inflammation. Earthing is said to do this by reconnecting with the ions given off by the earth.

Basically you walk or stand barefoot on sand or earth.

There have been quite a bit written about it but nothing much on any effects on tinnitus.

 

I tried that at the beach. No effect.

I did however almost kill a loud banana man...

 

Hello! Sorry, this is an old thread, but I wanted to respond, in case someone else has this question.

There's a thread here where someone said they tried a grounding patch on their neck that eliminated their tinnitus:

Placing a Grounding Patch on My Neck Made My Tinnitus Go Away for a Day

There are also some customer testimonials of grounding products helping people on the Earthing Institute website:

https://earthinginstitute.net/tinnitus/

I was also reading some Amazon reviews where a reviewer mentioned that grounding helped them with getting rid of visual snow and the ring (unfortunately I looked at a lot of products and can't seem to remember which one had this review).

So if all this is true, looks like it has helped some people. I have been trying to be barefoot outside as much as I can. But some days that doesn't amount to much time. Other days I've been able to spend a few hours out. I felt great, but can't say it made a difference on my tinnitus. But we just bought a mat for the bed. We figure that will give us much more consistent time to really test it and see if it does anything. I'll update once it arrives and we put it to the test.

 

Not to sound skeptical, but... This sounds no different than healing crystals and other "alternative medicine" which amounts to placebo effect and treatments for which the efficacy of has not been established. Magnetic socks, anything promoted by Dr. Oz, etc... Modern version of witch doctoring, imo.

I walk barefoot on the beach all the time. It has no effect on anything other than getting sand all over everything.

"...reconnecting with the ions given off by the earth..." Hmmm... Sorry, this sounds like nonsense.

 

If you believe it makes you feel better, then absolutely try it out. I don't see any harmful effects from going barefoot in your backyard or around the beach. New Zealanders do it all the time.

 

Sure, placebo effect. It's not harmful but it's also not a real treatment. Negative ions are in the air. Standing barefoot in dirt doesn't do anything. If someone wants to test whether ions will help them, go outside in the rain. Go stand near a waterfall. Go to the beach (barefoot or not). A regular shower also generates ions.

You will be exposed to more negative ions by doing any of those things than by standing barefoot in the dirt.

 

So, I saw a review on Amazon where a product reviewer claimed that after doing long demonstrations with a Van Der Graaff generator nearby, it helped his tinnitus. There's other people that report that being around one for a period of time gives them headaches. So it may be actually doing something.

This particular unit generates a negative charge on the dome, so a human nearby would be bombarded by negative ions, but induction has a stronger effect so the person would become more positively charged through induction. I do own the same unit and have not noticed any effect good or bad, but I've not used it for more than a few minutes at a time.

 

If what they're doing isn't based on something they read in a peer-reviewed study, but on a holistic "medical" news site, I doubt they care whether or not it's proven standing in the rain is better ion exposure than standing barefoot on the dirt. If the placebo makes them feel like they're better then who am I to tell them otherwise? Myself I don't believe it will have any significant effect on tinnitus.

 

If only tinnitus could be cured by being barefoot...

 

I've been aware of earthing for many years, and have gotten into the habit of laying on the ground whenever I get a chance. I've noticed that usually after about 10 minutes, I feel immensely better. I've never thought about whether or not is was because of "ions", but I doubt it.

I think it's more a connection with the calmness of nature, and I suspect an easy way to drain various kinds of noxious EMF radiation from my body. I don't really care why it helps me so much, but I know that it does. Having this in my repertoire was extremely helpful when I got hit with catastrophic tinnitus four years ago.

 

I don't trust Amazon reviews etc for this type of nonsense. I bought some eye drops recently - I trust the Amazon reviews for those oddly enough. But kooky new age tree hugging type remedies - no.

 

Despite the fact that many of these things are not "proven", may be marketing hype/bullshit claims or even real improvement for some but the "placebo effect", the concept here is not worthless and for some even powerful or life saving. I think that many of these things all get to the same end. Relaxation, a belief that we can get better and visualizing healing, improvement, coping.

Let's look at the placebo effect for instance. What is going on there? Worthless mumbo jumbo, unproven science, a meaningless fake treatment with no merit? It's called the placebo effect because for some, it has an effect. In olden days doctors would send some patients home with sugar pills. Good doctors tell their patients all the time that everything will be OK, we are just ruling some things out. My cancer doctor refuses to forecast lifespan because she says that too many patients die near that day almost on schedule. If you can will yourself to die, can you will yourself to live, to heal. Patients still alive in ICU's after unspeakable trauma often elicit the comment from doctors that this patient really has a will to live. Voodoo works (real voodoo in ancient cultures) because of the strong perception and fear or relief placed into the person's head, their thoughts. Doctors can have the same effect in both direction with their words. If a suggestion, a sugar pill or laying on the ground makes someone get better, what has just happened and is it meaningless, with no merit? What if modifying our attitude, emotions and expectations about our illnesses is part of the outcome? Your brain, its thoughts and emotions have a powerful effect on your health, healing and sickness. It changes brain chemistry, physical processes such as oxygenation at injury sites and brain wiring. This has been studied extensively in pain and in some circles, starting in tinnitus. This is what Back to Silence is, also CBT. mindfulness, etc. What if the placebo effect is not bullshit but an illustration of one of the tools to help us heal better and faster. Part of the toolkit, nothing more, nothing less.

I recently had to stop putting off the dentist after 3 years of the pandemic and later, pain hyperacusis, or I was going to start losing teeth. I mean a fork hitting the tile floor is devastating but an hour in the chair with drills in my mouth 5 inches from my bad ear, holy f*&k! I was reminded of some old affirmation work by a member here who said it helped him, stuff I did in the 80s for panic attacks and back pain, all eventually "cured". So everyday for two weeks before and a week after my dental work I was literally talking to myself convincing myself that I can deal with the noise and heal from the pain. He did everything he could to minimize noise but the high speed drill at the end was shockingly loud and nasty. When I left, I went out in the parking lot and almost threw up, it was so bad. I went home, took a hot shower and laid down but never stopped talking to myself getting my mind and body right for this challenge. The pain and nausea was typical, no worse than my worst prior exposure BUT, instead of a week or longer setback, it was hours! And now every exposure that I have is hours or minutes with reduced intensity. Did my internal self-talk cure my tinnitus and pain hyperacusis, no, at least not yet, but did it make it WAY better under the worst possible circumstances. Yes it did. Call it the placebo effect if you like that term but it is making me better so double blind placebo studies and a flow chart with a physical body process model don't matter, I am better and I suffer less. We are more powerful than we know. We have a bigger effect on our healing than we know and it does not matter what training helps us tap into that. Healing is healing. YMMV but we have no cure right now and if a tool can help you get part of your life back, take a look at it.

George

 

I was talking to my chiropractor about the mind-body connection yesterday. I have known him and his family for 35 years. He told me about a patient with multiple personality disorder that used to come in with a variety of identities. He said that each identity had a different spine. When he would examine and then adjust this patient, he saw different abnormalities that were consistent with each identity. He had different records for each unique personality. The person's identity changed at each visit and her spine problems consistently changed with each version of the same person. Their mind or emotion state profoundly affected their body. This is an extreme and rare situation but it is a glaring example of the mind body mechanism. He said that this experience is what convinced him so strongly of the mind-body connection.

George

 

No.

 

Hi @GeorgeLG -- I don't doubt for a moment. My wife is a counselor who has worked with people with multiple personality disorders. I ran across an account once of someone with MPD who had severe allergies when in one personality, and no allergies when in another. Profound implications!

 

Another great example. Profound indeed.

George

 

Lol, simple and to the point.

 

I like a little color myself.

 

The mind is indeed a very powerful thing.

Standing in dirt barefoot... not so much...

 

I have never even thought about earthing before myself. While almost anything is possible, I have no idea about positive ions, the earth's healing energy, lying on the ground or barefoot in the dirt but what if for some people, this activates their powerful mind. What if these are one of the variety of rituals found all through human history that activates the process and taps into our internal power for healing? Nature's life coach.

George

 

The "healing" ions are the negative ions. They are not magically released by the earth and absorbed through the skin by standing barefoot in the dirt. They are generated by the things I mentioned earlier. If you're in an environment that is rich in negative ions, you will inhale them whether you are barefoot or not. If someone believes that the barefoot aspect is what activates the negative ions, that's fine and everything but in reality it has nothing to do with it.

Like I said, go stand by a waterfall, go outside after a big rainstorm, go stand by the shore of a beach when there are some decent waves breaking, etc... and you will be exposed to negative ions. You can do all of that barefoot too but there's no point unless you simply like being barefoot.

https://www.healthline.com/health/negative-ions

 

Negative ions, got it. I’ll have to do some reading, always up for something new.

George

 

Hi @GeorgeLG -- This is just one of many unusual things that can happen to people. As I mentioned earlier, my wife has worked with clients with MPD. She's also worked with clients who have various kinds of entities attached to them.

As best I can recall, she worked with one young early adolescent girl who was having problems breathing while she worked out with the track or cross country team. Doctors were stumped, and couldn't find anything wrong. Turns out that an aunt who had passed away before she was born ended up attaching herself to this young child at birth. And this aunt had died of emphysema. My wife was able to persuade this aunt to let go and move on.

Entities can be much more malevolent than this case. They can hang around bars and attach themselves to people who are vulnerable to such influences. They can then get them to drink too much so that they can experience the drunkedness experience vicariously through them. Same thing can happen with other drugs. Deep seated addictions can be the result of entities that have attached to that individual. Various diseases can also be the result of entity attachment.

Most people would scoff at such things, but this kind of stuff is actually recorded throughout history. If I remember correctly, demonic entities are mentioned throughout the bible, and priests used to be trained in how to excorcise them.

My understanding is various things can make a person susceptible to entity attachment. Poor or fragile health, stress and/or trauma in a person's life, indulgence in alcohol and/or other drugs, extreme anger, etc. I "suspect" that some people who end up experiencing extreme stress from catastrophic tinnitus can become vulnerable to various entity involvement. I think the Chinese tend to attribute most tinnitus to entities.

Anyway, perhaps a little too much rambling. This isn't something I'd start a thread on with the intent to start a tinnitus related discussion. But I thought it might fit in with some of your comments on MPD, and that you might find it interesting. The good news is there are ways a person can protect themselves from entity influences.

I hope you're having a great Thanksgiving!

 

Sorry... you lost me. There are no such things as disembodied "entities" that can "attach" themselves to someone.

MPD is not supernatural in nature. Like we've discussed above, the mind is a very powerful thing. Invisible entities are not. No amount of seances, ouija board games, sacrificing chickens to the gods, or chanting any kind of incantation will resolve my tinnitus or anyone else's.

Every culture has their own mythical creatures, spirits, and entities with their own unique rituals to do various things to or with them. If you're in the USA and believe one of these entities has attached itself to you, how do you know what ritual from what culture to use? What if you use an American ritual on an ancient Mayan demon? Or a traditional Latin ritual on a Japanese entity? Should you take a gamble and perform an ancient Inuit ritual? What if you use a ritual from the wrong culture and just piss off the demon?

BTW, part of my background is extensive study and research in the field of parapsychology, the paranormal, and the supernatural, which I've learned that although it is interesting to ponder such things is essentially quackery.

 

I have no experience in and have spent almost no time considering the concept of supernatural entities and so that's not my thing. I think it's possible that rituals or treatments to "remove" them may work on some people because they believe that it can. Do such things exist? I don't know, that's above my pay grade.

For me, all of this has to do with the mind-body connection, our thoughts and emotions about our bodies and illness. The work is within ourselves with the concepts and techniques that I have discussed frequently on Tinnitus Talk. In the end I think that it all gets to the same place and people need to choose whatever fits their belief system and works for them.

George

 

Hi @GuitarMan -- Interesting post, I have to say. One of the interesting things is that you talk about demons "almost as if they were real", even though you said earlier that you don't believe in them. Not trying to pin you down or anything, but I did find it sort of interesting.

Just to be clear, I don't have any kind of "agenda" on this kind of "stuff", and certainly have no interest in trying to convince anybody of anything. It's taken me years to try to grasp some of the things I've heard my wife talk about, and I still don't feel I've grasped the extent to which various kinds of invisible forces can impact our lives in many ways.

I look at some of the things that happen in the world today, and just have to "wonder" how much of it "might" be instigated by various kinds of dark entities. All I have to do is look at some of the contorted faces and expressions on some of the Jan. 6th Capitol rioters to make me think there's almost a certain kind of possession going on.

I also wonder if entities are sometimes involved in suicide decisions. Or eating disorders. People often make herculean efforts to overcome what's weighing them down, but never consider whether or not an entity might be involved. I just happen to think it's possible.

But that's just how I look at it. I can certainly understand anybody else believing differently. It's really not some kind of big part of my belief system. But I have heard many stories from my wife of how people's lives have been transformed after getting rid of entities that had been affecting them. Lots of stories online about it as well.

Take care!

 

"Almost as if they were real..."? Not sure what you mean. Demons are mythical creatures and in no way "real" any more than a magical flying unicorn one can conjure up in their imagination is real. My point was simple, assuming for the sake of argument that these imaginary creatures were in fact real, you are left with the problems I mentioned. People who believe these things are real tend to, very conveniently, ignore those things.

I can answer a couple of your questions - How many bad things that happen in the world are instigated by dark entities? Zero. Human nature is bad enough by itself.

How many suicides or eating disorders are caused by dark entities? Zero. No need to wonder. Seek real medical help, not a priest or shaman.

I'll keep my opinions about the Jan. 6th rioters to myself so I don't get banned... but suffice to say, if they were possessed by something, it wasn't anything supernatural.

 

For me the takeaway from all of this is that there can be severe human suffering that standard issue medical science following a physical disease model cannot solve, but then there are gifted practitioners that help some of these sufferers heal or at least get their life back. @GuitarMan points out that the models about unexplained phenomenon have as many varieties as there are cultures. As humans we do seem to have a fascination with the supernatural going all the way back to how the pyramids were built and beyond.

So what do people like @Lane’s wife do, what is being unlocked, solved, removed, et? For me and the model in my culture of one person, it’s addressing the incredible power and complexity of the human mind and either tapping into the potential for healing or ridding the sufferer of unhealthy thoughts and emotions, say from a childhood trauma. If there needs to be a story about an outside influence to get to healing then so be it and that practitioner has a gift. The patient is better.

If spending time at the beach makes you feel better and makes you healthier then wonderful, add more beach time. Is it negative ions, soothing sound, salt air, sun, tranquility, distraction from life’s troubles, ... Does it really matter?

BTW @GuitarMan, based on your suggestion I am going to add some beach time this week and see what happens regardless of the mechanism.

George

 

This brings to mind, one of the story classics - "The Secret Garden".

Understandably, it may not "cure" tinnitus, hyperacusis etc, but for many, helps to survive... and if one is lucky, (and many have) are healed by nature itself e.g., cleaner water, air quality, soil without chemicals, which are all at the fault of man. It's also one of those remarkable mysteries, which many don't believe in; close-minded, because it's invisible... just like tinnitus.

 

Reminds me of the article about soil as an antidepressant.

From my own experience I can say without doubt the only thing that has consistently given me tinnitus relief together with a kind of 'feel good factor', is being outside digging in the garden.

I should imagine that kind of activity equates to being 'earthed' too.