I don’t. I am about 100% protected from skin contact with the earth. I use plastic gloves, insulated shoes, I have pants on and kneel on a rubber mat. I never go barefoot. (I got planters warts from going barefoot when younger and they were hard to get rid of.) I don’t go to the beach or lakes. My hands are prone to roughness and splitting, so I use surgical gloves extensively to protect them.
AI
According to the Cleveland Clinic, earthing is about having direct skin contact with the Earth’s surface, which can include your bare feet, your hands, or other parts of your body. [1]
Common ways to achieve these benefits without standing include:
Gardening with bare hands: Touching or playing with the soil is a recognized earthing technique.
Kneeling or sitting: Resting your knees or other body parts directly on grass, sand, or soil facilitates grounding.
Localized grounding: Some proponents suggest that placing the grounded contact point near a specific area of pain, such as a sore knee, may offer more targeted relief.
Indoor grounding: For those who cannot go outside, specialized products like grounding mats can be placed on a desk to touch your hands and arms while you work.
Key Considerations for Effectiveness
Surface Type: Grounding works on natural surfaces like grass, soil, sand, and unsealed concrete. It is typically blocked by asphalt, plastic, and finished wood.
Duration: Experts generally recommend grounding for at least 10 to 30 minutes a day to begin experiencing physiological benefits like reduced inflammation or improved mood.
Skin Contact: While some products can work through thin layers of natural fabric (like cotton) due to moisture, direct bare skin contact is often considered the most efficient method for electron transfer.
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Are you insulated from the earth or do you make regular skin contact with the earth?
I played in the dirt as a kid and still do when gardening, although I do sometime wear gloves to protect my hands from cuts.
Biodiversity Hypothesis may or may not be accurate. There is the problem of research showing associations, not proof of cause-and-effect.
Biodiversity Hypothesis
The biodiversity hypothesis is an environmental microbiome theory proposing that reduced contact with diverse natural environments and their microbial communities can negatively affect human immune function and health. It links ecosystem degradation and urban living to increased allergies, asthma, and inflammatory diseases through loss of beneficial microbial exposure.
Key facts
Introduced by: Ilkka Hanski and colleagues (early 2010s)
Core idea: Microbial diversity in the environment shapes immune tolerance
Health focus: Allergy, asthma, autoimmune and inflammatory conditions
Environmental link: Biodiversity loss and urbanization reduce microbial exposure
Origins and theoretical basis
The hypothesis builds on the Hygiene Hypothesis but shifts emphasis from cleanliness to environmental diversity. It posits that natural ecosystems—soil, plants, animals—harbor microbiota essential for immune system education. When humans have less contact with these microbiota, regulatory immune mechanisms may weaken, predisposing to inflammatory diseases.
Supporting evidence
Studies comparing rural and urban populations, especially in Finland and Russia, found that people in biodiverse rural settings had more diverse skin microbiota and lower allergy rates. Environmental exposure to microbes from vegetation, soil, and livestock correlated with better immune regulation, supporting the theory’s ecological-immune link.
No gloves here. I love getting my hands in the soil. Rough and cracked are how I like my hands to be. I’m not a barefoot guy though. Too many rocks and thistles around.
As far as gardening, I wear very little clothing. I’ll usually throw on some sandals. I grew up on a farm and only wore PPE when necessary to prevent physical injury (building barbed wire fence, cutting firewood, welding, etc).
If I’m just walking around the yard or garden in spring, summer, or fall there is a non-zero chance that I’ll be nude. I do wear a hat to protect my head from the sun.
If I’m working extensively outside, I’ll throw on some light clothes to ensure I don’t sunburn. I don’t run around barefoot too much, but I have been known to lay in the field to watch the clouds, star gaze, or take a nap.
I don’t personally subscribe to the idea of plugging a blanket into an outlet to “ground”, or whatever the current terminology is, but I do get satisfaction from spending time outdoors and observing nature. To each their own.
Being in touch with nature is a positive thing, but there’s a lot of pseudoscience surrounding earthing. It’s surprising how many people believe you can get the same benefits from a mat or other device plugged into an electrical outlet—on the premise that the outlet’s ground, being connected to the earth, allows electrons to transfer into the body.
I’d strongly suggest that anyone interested in this idea simply spend time outdoors instead: get your hands dirty in the garden, go for a swim, or lie on the beach—and skip buying anything marketed as a way to “connect” with nature.
even with bad psoriasis on my hands i still love dirt contact. i even handle composted manure bare handed. i wear gloves when shoveling etc where i dont want to tear my psoriasis callouses open. i wear crocs in the summer so theres always dirt getting in them. i just hose the inside out. ive had a few infections where something pricked my foot causing infections needing antibiotics. doc tells me to wear boots in the yard. i cant stand them in the summer so im doing it my way. just building up my immunity like people have for millenia. if the man upstairs wants me, he will take me despite what i do.. my father used to say ‘‘ what doesnt kill you
only makes you stronger’’.
my wife thinks im wierd. i wont swim in a public pool, but i love swimming in a lake or river. id rather swim with a little fish poop than with the chemicals they put in a pool.
I garden barefoot, even tried a lil barefoot jogging, That was before I got some glass in the ball of my foot. Dug most of it out. Cut out the jogging. Still gardening with dirt between my toes.
The only time I wear shoes is when I am slopping out the compost tumblers. Actually, my garden crocks. Garden hose required after…just like @steveb4
I can answer all over the map here, but bottom line is that I never where gloves for dirt or plants. I have them and pretend I will for the thorny things, but it’s more annoying to get them to let go of the gloves. I am prone to poison ivy (as in saying it probably just gave it to me) but playing in the dirt minimizes how long it lasts and how much it itches. Playing in the dirt also makes my fingernails grow fast. (Alas, it’s localized, so it does not help my receding hairline.)
I will say that the myth about wild blackberry thorns increasing joint pain appears to be true. That has not changed my pattern. I find some seeming truth in the notion of eating things from your own yard to reduce some allergy responses, too, although the molds are what hit me the hardest, and it doesn’t seem to change that pattern.
Ringwork and ticks are a thing here, so I’m almost always covered from waist down and tuck my remaining hair, which is still long) into a gardener’s hat. I’m reaching the age where at least a t-shirt seems a kindness if I’ll be near the road.
(Not to mention if the local rednecks see skin AND long hair, they take a beat too long to notice the beard as they fly by It’s a whole thing and kindof amusing. It’s just a taste, but I don’t envy you ladies dealing with the full dosage.)
As a sidebar, I recall one young lady on a beach in the Dutch Antilles who was taking the whole “earthing” thing waaay too far. I’m sure she had sand in places that took weeks to get out, and that stretch of beach was not in a state I would consider sanitary. It is probably when I first heard the term and it took me quite a while to realise that it also included healthy practices and was not just some weird fetish. I’m with the crowd that says enjoy nature and don’t be afraid to touch it, but don’t fall for the capitalization aspects. And, use a little bit of common sense. Rub an apple on your shirt before biting it, but don’t eat berries out of a bird’s nest kindof logic.
My kids and I rarely have shoes on unless there is snow on the ground. As someone with high anxiety, I do feel like its been helping some now that its warm enough to be outside and walking in the grass and through the garden. The kids were playing in a mud hole yesterday and really getting their grounding on lol
I gardened naked until that tyrant of a local judge threw the book at me.
Nah, I’m kidding. I wear old work gloves when I’m going to be digging something substantial like planting trees. May or may not bother when transplanting in annual veggies.
I usually have on shoes. Although I may water things barefoot during the Summer (walking on the grass). Only step on a bee/wasp/something that didn’t appreciate it about every other year. That’s a laziness thing for me, not a philosophical one.
As a child I grew up swimming in dirty ponds and around the woods and livestock barefoot. I can tell you I’m familiar with parasites, ring worm, pink eye, tapeworms etc that hogs and other things leave in the ground. My mom taught me about different diseases , parasites etc.. Everytime I got out of a dirty pond I would be covered in leaches. My saintly mother dumped bleach and water over me in the yard to ensure I was sterilized enough to come inside the house. As an adult I wear gloves when working outside when they are needed. I now wear shoes half the time outside. I get regular tetanus shots. I’m very familiar with the pros and cons of both. I do take black seed oil , garlic , oregano oil , 5 types of mushrooms regularly among many other types of things I won’t bore you with by mentioning. If you want to be a feral human learn about the things that go with that.
I have enough privacy on my own property that I could garden naked, but in the humid region there are as many pests out for my fluids as ones going after my plants. I don’t even get a tan anymore and protect my skin and eyes as much as possible wearing long sleave, light cotton shirts on the hottest days. I fear ultraviolet light to which I was over-exposed in my surfer boy youth-bur the dirt?
Do you also wear a mask…most anything in the dirt will find an easy entry point via your breathing and that seems to be what my body most negatively responds to. Once spring comes and mold spores reach high populations in the air (well before anything much is in bloom) I get seizures of really violent coughing and sometimes very annoying itching in my eyes. The coughing disappears after a couple minutes and I can eliminate the itching by washing out my eyes but it’s weird. Tree pollen sometimes causes the eye itching as well, but that was worse when I first moved here) It seems that when the weather turns warm I am literally allergic to apple trees and begin to suffer these symptoms as soon as my work goes to summer pruning. I suspect the fungus that is released when I’m sawing branches, but it could also be fungus on leaves fed by sucking insects like aphids and leafhoppers- especially leaf hoppers.
I could wear a mask to probably avoid this, but I find them more uncomfortable than the symptoms.
From about 1966 into the early 70’s I never wore shoes- only moccasins when there was frost or ice. When I went to Cal Arts, the first year the campus was open I was told to wear shoes because there was broken glass and nails that had never been adequately cleaned up, but I ignored warnings and orders because I could always feel the penetration before it was deep enough for injury… it was stubbed toes that tortured me. Once I began doing a lot of shovel work I got used to wearing hiking boots.
As far as early exposure preventing allergies, I have zero doubt that is sometimes the case. My family moved from the desert in Ariz. to the relatively lush hills of coastal CA when I was 11 and I got poison oak so bad that my parents were worried they’d have to move, but over time I developed partial immunity that allowed only minor reactions that quickly healed. My friends who were raised in the canyon where we lived almost all had immunity to poison oak (kids used to play outside).
I have since often noticed that kids raised in the city tend to react worse to things like the biting flies that tend to come out where I live now in May. One friend had to be hospitalized from an allergic reaction to them and even friends of my son who didn’t have experience in the woods were much more likely to suffer badly from our rampant poison ivy.
Sometimes anecdotal evidence is pretty convincing.
ive got a patch of stinging nettle i grow for the chics. i cut it 2xs a season and intentionally dont wear gloves or long sleeves. i get a few red spots now but it doesnt sting me anymore. my stepdaughter, who doesnt barely spend any time outdoors, brushed against it once. her whole arm swole up and i had to give her benadryl and ibuprophin for the pain and swelling. ive read that theres something to regularly coming into contact with nettle and poison ivy that helps folks with severe allergies have less reations over time..
Had a friend who her and her dogs were infected with bot flies. They are nasty creatures that literally get under your skin and wiggle around. The process of removing them isn’t fun. She thought she got them in Mississippi but she might have really got them in Mexico the previous week. There are places in this world where everything about us is edible. Sometimes there can be things we know nothing about like mosquitos in another place carrying diseases and other organisms. Never believe anything is the same in different places.
Some mosquitos are mostly active in early morning and evening. Here there are Asian Tiger mosquitos that are active all day. Also biting gnats.
Unfortunately I attract them so need long pants and long sleeve shirt in summer. Plenty of ticks also so my pants and shoes are sprayed with Permetherin.
