Crazy Good Sleep

For a number of years I have noticed a deterioration in my sleep patterns, particularly waking too early and awake during the night, unable to go back to sleep for a couple of hours.* I am 73 years old and have tried numerous things, none of which helped much. This Instructable is about something simple that does work and has worked for nearly all who have tried it, even though it sounds like medical quackery. It is known as earthing or grounding. You can spend a couple of hundred dollars for commercial earthing devices. This Instructable will show how I made all I need to reap the benefits of being grounded through the night as well as for several hours during the day and did it with simple things, even scraps.

Materials

• Light gauge stranded wire. Speaker wire works.
• #10 machine screw and nut, or a steel rod 3/16 inch in diameter
• Flattened copper or brass or aluminum about 20 gauge
• A diode (optional) or a large washer (also optional)
• Heat shrink tubing (optional) or Duck Tape (optional)

Tools

• Wire cutter
• Screwdriver
• Soldering gun
• MIG welder (optional)

*UPDATE: After nine months of grounding I had my gall bladder removed. The surgeon told me it was inflamed, twisted, and full of stones. I had no painful attacks, only a need for an occasional ant-acid tablet. I grounded most of the day in the weeks after surgery. From the first week doctors were amazed at how quickly I was recovering. In 2003 the US Cycling team used grounding to speed the healing of rider wounds from tumbles and falls at racing speeds. Since the removal of my gall bladder, I am not awake during the night like I have been. My blood pressure also dropped into a much better range without any change in habits. Other things are also improving. I theorize some benefits of grounding were being used in my body to calm my inflamed gall bladder.

Step 1: My Basic Setup

The goal is to connect yourself to a grounded wire. You can do that in a variety of ways. Some run a wire out of their bedroom window and drive a metal rod about 18 inches long into the earth. A metal foil could be used to get through a tight fitting window and connect to the foil both inside and outside the window.

The photo shows what I have been using during the last six weeks. I use a piece of 3/16 inch steel rod to connect to the third or grounding hole of a 120 volt wall outlet of the type used in the USA. I know many other nations use a 230 volt outlet as their standard. I assume there is a grounded terminal, but I am not sufficiently familiar to comment.

I welded a #8-32 nut to the end of the rod and inserted a #8-32 screw, This is the terminal for about 10 feet of #20 gauge plastic covered wire. See the third photo.

A video advertising a commercial cable spoke of a feature that allows electrons to flow only one direction. That means there is a diode. I have used a diode with a peak inverse voltage (PIV) of only 50 volts. A jolt of static electricity from synthetic sleepwear might destroy my diode, even though it has very nicely survived six weeks so far. A 1N4007 diode has a PIV of 1,000 volts and would likely survive most static electricity discharges. I placed the diode as near to my body as possible to work against and hopefully block electro-magnetic fields (EMF) picked up by the 10 feet of wire. There is more about a diode in a later step.

I have some rigid copper tubing I used as a terminal. I cut and flattened some to make a square about 5/8" x 5/8". This is soldered to the end of my #20 gauge wire and lays against my skin. Initially I used an old metal watchband for holding the copper in place and for making a broader connection surface. (Commercial cables use EKG pads to connect to one's body. My copper square has a larger surface area than an EKG pad.)

The second photo shows a close-up of my copper square attached with a flexible metal watchband.

Step 2: A First Consideration

The electrical wiring is not always done properly in all houses, especially older houses that may not have included a third wire for grounding before that was required. It can happen that an outlet with two slots only had to be replaced, but only three prong outlets are available at the time. There is no third wire in the wires feeding power to the outlet. The tester shown is called an outlet tester or a three-prong outlet tester and they are available at hardware stores, as well as big box home improvement stores. They cost about $5 US. If everything is as it should be, the center and right LEDs should be lit as shown, but the left LED should not be lit. A handy friend may have one of these you can borrow for a very short time. (You can also ground to a metal water pipe, if the whole system uses metal pipes, not plastic.)

Step 3: Is It Safe?

People have phobias about electricity. Some cannot imagine sticking a wire into an outlet and then connecting the other end of that wire to one's body.

But, look closely at the photo. It is typical of appliances in your kitchen and tools in your garage. You will notice a three prong grounding male plug. The handle on this heat gun is a rubberized plastic and insulated. But, in order to reach the trigger switch, your finger must rest on the metal frame of the tool. You do not receive a shock because the third wire carries no electricity, unless there is a fault and the wires carrying power short to the frame of the tool. In that case, the third wire carries the current away from you and safely to the ground.

Step 4: Cheap and Easy Ways to Make a Cable for Yourself

The first photo shows a #10-32 round head machine screw and nut used as a terminal and post. This is an easy way to make what is needed for the person who has few tools and very little technical prowess. One problem with this approach is that the screw slides into the third hole on a grounding outlet, but practically needs to be turned out with a screwdriver. That is OK if you do not need to remove the screw from the outlet very often. I am glad I used a smooth steel rod because I can easily take my cable with me when I travel.

See the second photo. Someone who does not have copper or a soldering iron could use some scrap aluminum or steel sheetmetal, or go to a hardware store and buy a piece of flat brass. Brass is not cheap, though. Hardware store do sell individual brass washers. If you do not have a soldering gun, you can bend some of the metal over the end of the wire and crimp it in place. You will want to avoid oxidation because that can ruin the electrical connection over time. Cover the joint with hot glue or Vaseline to protect against oxygen exposure. I rounded and smoothed all edges to avoid irritating my skin.

See the third photo. This is a homemade toroidal coil. Potentially undesirable EMFs are usually higher frequency alternating currents. Wire wrapped around a steel core presents a huge hindrance to the flow of such currents called inductive reactance. EMFs are everywhere. Some come into our houses from things in our neighbors' houses, like computers, WiFi routers, and a plethora of electronic devices common to life in our time. No one toroidal coil will eliminate all EMFs, but this may help reduce some EMFs in a frequency range. EMFs come in a wide variety of frequency ranges. There will be a discussion of diodes as limiters of stray EMFs in the next step.

Step 5: How to Attach to Yourself

I have come to like slipping my copper square under an elastic band to hold the copper against my skin. The photo shows slipping the copper square under the elastic band on top of my socks. It normally goes an inch or two into my sock. Find a place on your skin where you do not notice its presence. That is very easy to do. During the cold of winter sleeping with socks on feels good. An elastic band around your waist on your sleepwear works, too.

The black bulging section on the wire is some heat shrink tubing that covers a diode and provides some physical strength to reinforce the diode and solder joints from physical damage. If you choose to use a diode to limit EMFs you may use it together with a toroidal coil, or separately. The silver polarity band on the diode should be placed so it is toward the wall outlet and away from your body. You want electrons to flow into your body. See the second photo. It shows a test for getting the diode connection right and for testing to see if a diode is still good. Use the diode test function on a multimeter.* While the use of a diode is optional, I recently had opportunity to compare a wire with a diode and a wire without a diode. I could tell right away the wire with the diode was better and the only way to use a grounding wire. Diodes were easy to get before Radio Shack stores went out of business. Often you can harvest a diode from an old piece of electronic equipment, but use a heat sink to protect the diode from too much heat that can destroy it. Keep the wattage of the soldering iron as low as possible to avoid too much heat. Or, find a friend who dabbles in electronics, maybe a radio amateur, and ask if he can give or sell you a diode. I find myself making grounding wires for friends, so I ordered a quantity of diodes on-line to have on hand.

I sometimes slide the copper square up a sleeve on my T-shirt and just onto the back of my shoulder where it will be pressed against my skin. Sometimes I slip the copper square under the elastic waistband on my undershorts. Any of these seem to work well. In all cases, I need to pull the copper square off of my skin in the morning. This is especially true on another cable I made. I used Duck Tape to cover the diode and it folded over to make a strip about 1/2 inch wide. That smooth surface really sticks to my skin. The copper square does not move during the night, but I do not thrash around a lot when I sleep, either. I have never had the wire separate from contact with my body during the night.

Commercial connectors for grounding include sleeping on conductive mats or sheets put into the bed. These can be expensive. Some use a conductive cuff that goes around one's lower arm.

*Benjamin Franklin thought charges flow from positive to negative and electrical devices have been stamped that way ever since. Today we know that idea as conventional current. When JA Fleming was working with attracting and repelling charges on a grid in a vacuum tube he saw that Franklin had guessed wrong, and electrons actually flow from negative to positive. We call that electron current. What I wrote about the polarity of the diode and its placement may seem wrong, but electron current flow is important here, not conventional current.

Step 6: To What Benefit?

About five years ago I noticed some occasional sharp flashes of pain in my right wrist when I used a drill press. While the results of grounding are different from one individual to another and the time span after which they first appear is different, about four weeks after I began sleeping grounded I noticed the nascent arthritis in my right wrist has all but completely disappeared. That is something objective that is not just my opinion.

After about five weeks of sleeping grounded and attempting to ground when sitting to read or do computer work, I noticed I had some nights during which I did not need to rise and use the bathroom to empty my bladder. Sleeping through the night without using the bathroom is becoming the rule rather than the exception. Previously I could count on two trips to the bathroom each night.

I was a pastor for forty years. There have always been some stage jitters on Saturday night and Sunday morning as I tried to make sure my sermon was ready. Grounding calms people. When I waken during the night I have such a contented sense of calm that it is unbelievable. As I get ready to go to a church where I am to give a sermon, I simply feel mellow and unworried. My wife says my sermons come off better, too.

The first thing most notice shortly after they begin grounding is waking in the morning feeling much more rested than they have in years. You may still waken during the night, but in time that will likely change for the better, too. After six weeks of grounding I find I now waken briefly and go back to sleep fairly soon. I am not awake for two or more hours as in the recent past. Grounding oneself brings a better balance between cortisol and melatonin in one's body, but it is not immediate. That has been shown with blood tests. If more and better sleep were the only benefits of earthing or grounding, it would be more than worthwhile to connect each night and as often as possible during the day. For a really interesting account of what happened when the whole town of Haines, Alaska began grounding, search YouTube for the 65 minute film "The Grounded."

At my current age (73 years) seventy percent of men experience serious ED (erectile dysfunction). Grounding aids circulation, apparently by making the blood more viscous. That helps many with ED problems. But, some blood pressure medicines also increase ED problems. I have experienced some benefit, but that has been muted as I am on a particular blood pressure medication. I am hoping my doctor will take me off of it at my next physical now that my blood pressure dropped into a much better range after my gall bladder removal.

Clint Ober is a pioneer in grounding oneself. In his 2013 book Earthing he lists a whole series of benefits from grounding that are quite phenomenal. I will not mention those here, but will stay with those I have experienced myself up to this point. It appears the human body can make many, many repairs to itself if it has access to free electrons. Most of our disease problems are related to inflammations and those involve free radicals that are missing an electron. Grounding oneself seems to provide the missing electrons and kill off the free radicals.

It is very popular to criticize and find fault with grounding. Before you do that, try grounding yourself for a week and see what happens. Ten weeks is an ideal test period. I was very skeptical, but realized it would cost me nothing to try it. If it was a sham, no one needed to know I had tried it. If I found benefits, I am well ahead. From what benefits I have experienced already, I plan to ground myself as much as possible until the day I die.

Step 7: Grounding on an Airplane?

We flew across three time zones in one day recently. I have read that grounding is a big help in overcoming jet lag. Some remove their shoes and socks as soon as possible after landing to walk in the grass for 20 minutes or so. That is a very easy way of grounding.

I wondered if I could ground while in flight.* The first photo shows the outer part of the wing on our Boeing 737-800, Notice the two black rods about six inches long. They are called wicks. They are to wick away the static electricity that accumulates on the metal of the airplane as it strips electrons from air molecules at cruising speed. That is similar to the belt inside a Van de Graaf static generator. The purpose of the wicks is to bring static charges down so they do not interfere with radio communications. Although the airplane is a Faraday Cage, those protect occupants from pulse charges like EMPs and lightning. But, they do not block occupants from steady charges. To me that suggests touching metal on the seat frame provides an electron rich environment, just as the earth does. See the second photo. I am touching the seat frame ahead of me from my window seat. I cannot say for certain if touching the seat frame provided extra electrons for me or not.

I could be very wrong about this and would welcome correction from anyone who has more data and knowledge than I have. I do know I was not conscious of any jet lag after we got home.

*Since posting this Instructable, I bought and read the e-book version of Clint Ober’s Earthing. One chapter mentions an experiment with long haul truckers. At a California truck stop truckers were randomly asked to volunteer to be grounded to the frame of their trucks by means of a grounding mat on the driver’s seat. Those who took part reported feeling less fatigue at the end of the day. I have some questions about this. First, there are a couple of layers of clothing between the trucker’s skin and the grounding mat. Unless a lot of perspiration is involved to become a conductor, it seems the driver would not be in contact with a grounded surface. Second, the rubber tires on the truck prevent direct contact with the earth’s surface. Were there free electrons in the massive metal structure of the truck? Did the truck moving at highway speeds strip electrons from the air and those built up on the truck? But, if that is true, a trucker would feel a shock when exiting the truck and touching the truck while a foot first touches the ground. We have a long day of auto driving soon and I want to try grounding to the frame of the car to see what I notice.

Comments

[cody305]

Greetings. For future reference, today is April 22, 2023, since I haven't found any dates in this area. First, let me ask the usual questions:

1. When did you first begin grounding regularly?
2. Are you still grounding regularly now?
3. Are you still experiencing health benefits from grounding?
4. Have you changed your methods of grounding from what you wrote about in your article?
5. Have you convinced yourself without any doubts that grounding is not a placebo or pseudo-science but is actually conducting some type of beneficial energy into your body?
6. Have you tried grounding some potted plants like they did in the movie?

Now, about me: I am a 76 year old retired mechanical engineer, formerly in nuclear power and then on the space program. I began grounding after reading your very thorough article about your experience with it, in December of 2022. I used a wrist strap with ground wire and also had copper mesh spread across the bottom of my bed so that my feet and ankles would rest on it while I slept, thus I had 3 points of contact with my body. I did not use any of the safety devices (fuse, resistor, diode) as I wanted to get the full effect without any flow reductions, and believed that the risk was very low. I will probably incorporate one or more of them when I have completed the experiment. I am fortunate to not have any persistent aches or pains (knock on wood) that might be helped by grounding, so the only way that I know of to judge if it is working or not is if my sleep is improved. In the beginning, I thought that it was definitely better, and I convinced my older and smarter (PhD in physics) sister to try it. She agreed to try it for two weeks, and for the first two nights, felt that it was helping. By the end of the two weeks, she had decided that it was not helping at all and stopped doing it.

My sleeping steadily improved, with faster getting to sleep, and longer sleep spans, and faster getting back to sleep after waking for bathroom breaks. Eventually, it reached a peak, and that became the "new normal". So now, instead of it getting better, it occasionally falters a bit. That has led me to wonder if I inadvertently "trained myself" to sleep better, by relaxing and deep breathing, etc. due to the anticipation that grounding would improve my sleep, and therefore it might not have been due to the grounding at all. So then, I decided that I need to find some actual proof that grounding actually provides some beneficial health effects. I had already seen the Alaska movie, and some of the double-blind testing that Ober has done, which are very convincing. But as I searched online, I found that the "mainstream scientific community" believes that grounding is junk science. Wikipedia calls it "pseudo-science". And there are a tremendous number of articles that claim it is fake and non-scientific. The problem seems to be that none of the "accredited institutions" have tested it, nor do they want to. There is also the feeling that all the test results are tainted by the fact that the funding was provided by the folks who profit from selling the grounding equipment.

It seems unbelievable and unconscionable to me that a simple, inexpensive method that has so much potential for health and life improvement benefits has been ignored by the institutions who have the resources and the standing to either prove or disprove it as a useful health improvement method.

Do you know if there is a coordinated effort to get this done? I thought of three possible approaches that interested people could get involved with it:

1. If someone knows a billionaire or multimillionaire who could easily fund the research.

2. If someone knows a politician or a government official who has the influence needed.

3. If we could start a "gofundme" account to raise the funds for testing.

Do you have any ideas along those lines?

Thanks for your great article!

[Phil B]

Cody,

Thank you for your interest and questions.

I have encountered a web page with peer reviewed articles on benefits of earthing. I was thinking it is earthinginstitute.net, but I am not certain. I just went there and did not find the list of peer reviewed articles I remember. I believe there already are people doing peer review work.

I recently had a discussion with my dentist. She was doing an implant on tooth number 27 (lower front right canine tooth). I am 77. Tissue was minimal and there were questions about whether my jawbone would properly grow around the titanium post. This was a six month process of a procedure now and then followed by lots of waiting for new growth. When the day for the final implantation to be made came she was pleased that the tissue was very good and so was the fit with the jawbone. This is anecdotal. We cannot back it up and do it again a different way for comparison. Grounding or earthing certainly did not harm me. I rather think it may have aided tissue and bone growth. That would be consistent with what I experienced after my gall bladder surgery when a couple weeks afterward a physician’s assistant poked at my incisions and I did not flinch as she expected, nor did I feel any pain. I told her about my use of grounding. All she could say was, “Interesting.”

I gave my dentist and her assistant both a grounding wire identical to the one I made for myself and use. I know the assistant is hesitant and probably has not used hers. She is apprehensive of anything related to electricity. I am not sure about the dentist. Both are somewhere around 40 yeas in age. The dentist did remark that medicine needs about forty years to become accepting of anything new or different. Certainlly, there are people ready to proceed against anything that does not fit their orthodoxy. I saw a video somewhere that mentioned baby incubators were regarded as junk science when they were introduced at Coney Island in the 1920s. Some wanted to shut down the people displaying them and proceed against the doctor responsible. Now they are accepted and standard.

I began grounding in early February 2019 (date corrected). I have continued it every night but one or two since. I sleep very well when asleep, but still find myself awake many nights for up to two hours. If I get some exercise during the day, I am awake less or not at all.

I like to think more about free electrons introduced by wire fighting against inflammations than about great sleep. I think the Alaska movie may have shown a thermal image of someone’s knee or hip. The first photo showed lots of bright colors over a wide area. A second image from a couple of days later with grounding showed a great reduction in the inflamed area. Clint Ober collaborated on a book titled “Earthing.” One of the co-authors related an experience with the US Olympic cycling team. Someone opened a car door in front of a rider doing 40 mph on a bicycle. The rider had a laceration that left bone visible. They thought he would be out for the rest of the season. They connected him to twelve grounding wires at the wound. He was not fully healed, but was riding again after two days.

During the first nine months I grounded I saw some immediate results. Some arthritis in my right wrist was no longer noticeable when I used a drill press, for example. But, for a long time I did not notice anything. Later, I learned I had an inflamed gall bladder the whole time. I think the effects of grounding were addressing problems with my gall bladder, but I knew nothing about it at the time. Just because we do not notice a benefit now does not mean grounding is not working against something of which we are not aware.

I gave a wire to a friend. He awoke each day with swelling on the back of his hands. The next morning after grounding he had no swelling.

I gave a wire to a woman in her thirties in age. She noticed no benefits after a couple of weeks. Perhaps at her age she does not have some of the inflammations I have in my 70s. I gave a wire to another friend. He said he slept great for about 90 minutes. Then he was awake. When he went back to sleep with the wire he had very disturbed sleep. He quit using the wire. Some think some people have anomalies that make them electrically sensitive.

This past October I connected a wire to the metal frame of my vehicle and placed a copper square the size of a postage stamp under the elastic on my left sock. I drove nine hours with a couple of stops. When I arrived in the early evening I had enough energy to move two pickup loads from a storage unit to a friend’s new home.

I hope this answers your questions.

[cody305]

I put my questions in my comment below. Thanks!

[Mic123]

Thank you for this detailed article and teh comments. I have been earthing for few months using a wire to the ground. The first few weeks I got immediate effects. First few nights I woke after < 4 hours of sleep and was very refreshe❤d. This seems to diminish over weeks. But I am posting here to share my experience with the Eeman biocircuitry method. After few weeks of Earthing, I started to do the Eeman method: https://altered-states.net/barry/newsletter525/ I made my own using copper wire, screen, and pipe (for handles) and cotton for backing the screens. The Eeman method is also very effective IMO, even "miraculous".

[dwhey]

Very interested in this. Can you describe the difference you experienced with and without the diode?

Makes me wonder why Earthing Institute strongly wrote against a certain commercial cord that has a diode:

https://earthinginstitute.net/pureground-emf-filte...

I honestly don’t fully understand all they are saying. I do note that they took measurements on the cord, but did not actually use the cord to be able to say what the effects were in actual use.

Earthing Institute was comparing the diode cord to Clint Ober's cord design without a diode. Any thoughts? For all I know Earthing Institute is mistaken, or perhaps they are right under certain circumstances or with a certain design. I’m clueless on this.

You said the diode does, or might, block EMF picked up by the wire. Is this your sole reason for using the diode, or does it provide some other benefit?

Earthing Institute says being grounded makes you like a faraday cage so EMF's from electrical wires don't affect you:

https://earthinginstitute.net/studies-confirm-indo...

—Thoughts?

Surely I may simply try earthing with a diode and also with no diode, but I want to know what truly is going on if I can. Maybe I would initially feel best with one option (diode or not), but fail to realize that option is mixing in a harmful effect, or maybe my preferred option would leave out a potential beneficial effect. Hoping to "see" what I am doing as much as possible before I simply try to "feel" what I think to be best.

[Phil B]

Thank you for your comment and for the links. I believe I connected electrical meters I own to my grounding wire, but decided any flow of electrons in the wire was too small to register on the meters. I read that Laura Konniver’s wire let current flow one direction only and decided that means it contains a diode. I assumed there was an advantage and the idea of wild electricity from various kinds of electronic noise made sense. I do remember that my wire broke one night at one of the leads coming out of the diode. I did not want to get out of bed and heat up a soldering iron, so I twisted it back together, bypassing the diode. I believed I noticed that my sleep was not as peaceful without the diode. My own subjective, non-scientific experience has found the diode a good addition. When I make up a wire I always test it with the diode check function on my meter to be sure I have the polarity the way I want it. Current flowing through the wire to my body encounters a resistance around 600 Ohms, not one million Ohms. My subjective experience indicates to me that my wire with a diode is bringing electrons into my body. When I use the wire, I have more dreams that are quite vivid. That is an experience reported by others from what I have read. I have also experienced healing more rapidly than expected following surgery. I may have mentioned that. I also have some minor arthritis in my hands and sleeping with the wire has been effective keeping sharp pains from the arthritis subdued. Some of those pains were developing before I learned about earthing. I believe the wire has helped quite a lot. I realize much of this is my own subjective experience, but that is all I can offer.

[k24tea]

Hi. Phil. I wonder if you're still grounding about 2 years after you first posted this Instructable? I find this very interesting, especially if it helps with sleep problems associated with pain. I'll read Ober's book and look for more recent articles on the effects of grounding on pain and anxiety. As an aside, other than the no-tech "barefoot-in-grass" method, I wish there were a wireless way to do this, especially while indoors. Thanks for this and all your other great Instructables.

[Phil B]

Yes, I am still grounding. I turned 75 last month. I believe it keeps some twinges of arthritis tamed down. And, I believe it has kept me from dizziness and vertigo that is not uncommon at that age. Since you read Clint Ober’s book you may remember sleeping grounded tends to make for very vivid dreams, and I usually have those. I have also noticed I am getting by on a bit less sleep than I used to think normal. There are some things I had hoped would be better, but are not yet. Thank you for your inquiry. As concerns something indoors without wires, walking barefoot on concrete is supposed to be a good way to ground, too. That would mean a garage floor. I do not have any experience with that.

[nickfank]

Planning to give this a try, but thought I'd first check back in with you 6 months after you started your personal experiment to see if you're still enthusiastic about the results. (I know I usually have a placebo effect for the first month every time I experiment on myself, but months later, I am able to be more objective.) How is it going?

[Phil B]

Rick,

Thank you for your inquiry. I am still grounding as much as possible and now have eight months experience with it. I now waken during the night after four or five hours of sleep. Then I am awake for a couple of hours. I do fall back asleep again later. I do sleep really well while I am asleep and get about seven and one-half hours per night. Some report fewer hours of sleep because their sleep is better and more effective.

The biggest noticeable benefit has been reduced effects of nascent arthritis in my right wrist. There may be other benefits of which I am not aware. I am scheduled for a gall bladder removal in about a month. The US cycling team has used grounding electrodes connected to injury areas to speed healing. I am curious to see if my wound from surgery heals more rapidly if I ground my skin in the area of the incision. I will have to judge by what the doctor tells me about anticipated recovery time compared to what I experience, and later when he checks my wound area. It would be nice if healing is more rapid than expected.

There are a couple of benefits I hoped would appear by now, but I am still waiting. One may be on the threshold of appearing. Time will tell.

Friends who have been willing to accept wires and try them have felt they benefit and are still grounding. Giving it a try does not cost you anything. If you notice any benefits you are ahead.

[WadeG11]

It would be interesting to bring a multimeter on a plane (although that may be difficult to explain...), just to check your theory.

[Phil B]

I wrote to the people at earthinginstitute (dot) net and asked about surplus electrons on the outer skin and metal parts of a commercial airplane. They indicated data they have to this point is not conclusive. In some videos on grounding Clint Ober speaks about using a meter to detect a voltage difference between his body and the earth. His meter may be a lot better than mine, but I have never been able to notice more than a very quick blip on the digital readout. At the same time, Ober’s book “Earthing” mentions an experiment with truckers. Random truckers at a truck stop were given a grounding pad on which to sit while driving. The pad was connected to metal in the truck cab. Those grounded this way reported some of the same benefits as someone connected to a grounded wire while sleeping, etc. My meager experience with electricity can understand that the large metal truck is a larger storage device for electrons than a human body and there could be an exchange to equalize electrical potential. But, it hardly seems like a true on going ground because of the rubber tires. Also, I have a hard time understanding how electrons can transfer between a mat and human skin when both are separated by a couple of layers of non-conductive cloth, unless someone is very sweaty.

[Cekpi7]

This doesn't make sense to me but i'm gonna try it, i have grounding bracelet and i'm gonna bridge that 1M resistor in it.
Can't really get good sleep recently so i got nothing to lose :).

[Phil B]

I have read Clint Ober’s book, “Earthing.” An anti-static strap for working on computers has a 1M resistor in-line. The book says do not use an anti-static strap because the resistance is too high to allow electron flow from the earth to your body. If by “bridge” you mean shunt so as to nullify the 1M resistor it should work. If you are worried about some some adverse electrical event, the book advised an in-line 2 milliamp fuse. If you read carefully what I wrote about inflammation and positively charged free radicals, it makes very good sense. You will sleep better, although you may also be awake during the night, if you have been experiencing that.

[iceng]

Let me compliment you on pursuing an unlikely concept and then testing it on Yourself !!
I will be trying it myself tonight.. I'm using a magnetic metal band, a holey magnet with a silver solder puddle ball for affixing the wire and easy disconnect / re_connect at night.. That wire is one used for meter probes which is the closest to Litz wire with lots of small wires to provide maximum flexibility without breaking..

As a along time electronic engineer this ible is completely safe with or without a diode and or inductor in series.. I do wander what you understand about the diode direction which will make your body assume a negative charge.. That diode will pass any positive charge as a current to ground, leaving a zero or negative body charge..

[Phil B]

Thank you for looking at this. Today I talked to a man probably about 80. I had made a wire for his daughter (chronic back pain from a fall 20 years ago) and he finally decided to try it before giving it to her in another state. He was surprised to discover he did not need to get up during the night either night to use the bathroom. But, it is different for different people. I did not experience that until after four weeks.
I mentioned Clint Ober. His first try with this was with a strip of metallic duck tape stuck the length of his bed on the sheet. He crumpled the foil around the end of the wire and ran it out of the window and pushed a rod into the ground. He slept very well without his usual Advil for falling asleep and his back pain was better in the morning. I gave a wire to my son and his back pain was better after the first night.
An earthing or grounding wire is used to address inflammations in our bodies. Inflammations are caused by free radicals, which are positively charged because they are missing an electron. The earth is a source of free electrons. Providing a free electron to a free radical destroys the free radical and reduces the inflammation. It is a form of an anti-oxidant anyone can take everyday by simply walking barefoot on grass and dirt. Connecting to a grounded wire at night allows receiving free electrons while one is sleeping when the body is doing its restorative work.
I am not an electronics engineer, but did some thinking about electron current flow (- to +) rather than conventional current flow (+ to -) in a diode and decided I want the silver band on the wall outlet side of the diode rather than on the side of my body. That appears to be the proper decision. I attached a graphic from a site at allaboutcircuits (dot) com on conventional versus electron current flow in a diode. The location of the bulb corresponds with the connection to earth. The plus end of the battery corresponds with the location of my body.
Thank you for commenting. Please let me know what happens. Some results you experience may not appear for a few weeks or a few months. Others may appear right away. Deeper sleep with a greater feeling of being rested in the morning is very common.
It is good to hear from you again.

[DanC312]

This seems like it could be incredibly dangerous. If there was some fault in your wiring, that "earth" prong could become live at 120v (or 240 in some countries) or more in some situations (lightning, an upstream transfomer fault, etc).

If you were to insist on doing this, I would recommend a large (like 2W) 10M resistor in line. This way, it will still dissipate any static charge but will limit current in the event something goes wrong.

A better solution might be to put a seperate ground in place by installing a long, copper plated rod into the earth, far from the electrical safety ground, and use that for grounding beds, yourself, etc.

[Phil B]

I hope you carefully read steps 2 and 3. Most of your concerns are addressed there. Clint Ober’s book “Earthing” discusses grounding in a lightning storm. He lays out reasons why it is probably not a problem, but then finishes by saying it might be good to err on the side of caution and not ground in a storm. A static protective wrist band for working on computers has a high resistance like you suggest, but folks are told not to have an inline resistance high in Ohms because it stops the electron flow that is beneficial. As concerns grounding to a dedicated ground rod, that can be a good option unless you are several floors above the ground or the windows cannot be opened. Such would be the case in many hotels and office buildings.