I’m Katie, a women’s functional health coach sharing what I've learned about gut health, hormones, nutrition and the nervous system - without making wellness more complicated than it needs to be.

For more, come say hi at @harayahealth on Instagram & TikTok.

---

Everyone on my feed is grounding. So I read the research

I walked through Epping Forest in North London with my girlfriends last weekend. We've been doing a monthly "perfect day out" where we alternate doing everyone's ideal day. This month it was my friend Maggie's turn and she chose a long walk in the woods.

A lot of you might think that along walk in the woods would be quiet, peaceful, listening to the sounds of nature...but when you get our group of expats together (majority of whomst are American)...it's the complete opposite. I am fairly sure everyone in the woods heard all of our tea.

Ironically though, the best word I have for how I felt afterwards is quieter. Not "I did my breathing exercise" quiet. Quieter like someone had turned the volume down on my whole body. And unsurprisingly, a long walk through a forest got us talking about grounding.

Here's my confession. My Instagram feed is full of wellness influencers talking about grounding right now, and I jumped on the bandwagon without really knowing where it came from or why people do it. Cue me, a laptop and a rabbit hole. So this week's Letter is what I found: why being in nature does so much for us, what grounding actually is, what the research says, and where I've landed.

Let's make that make sense

So, why does being in nature help us?

Your nervous system has two main settings. "Go" is the sympathetic side: faster heart rate, tense muscles, ready for a threat (or, in 2026, a diary invite titled "Quick sync?"). "Rest and digest" is the parasympathetic side: your heart rate slows and your body gets on with digesting, repairing and recovering.

Both are normal. The trouble is that a busy working day can park you in "go" for hours, and when you're in "go" digestion isn't the priority. Your gut can speed up (hello, urgency before a big meeting) or slow down (hello, bloating). It's one reason a calm lunch tends to go better than the same lunch eaten over a keyboard.

Does time in a forest nudge you towards "rest and digest"? The research suggests it probably does. In a large Japanese study (Park and colleagues, 2010), 280 young adults walked in and viewed forest and city areas, on separate days, across 24 forests. After the forest days they had lower cortisol (the stress hormone), a lower pulse and blood pressure, and more parasympathetic activity.

A later meta-analysis (a study that pools many studies) of 29 trials, most of them randomised, found forest time may lower blood pressure and cortisol compared with urban settings. The effect looked bigger with sessions of 20 minutes or more.

Now the honest bit. Results aren't uniform: some studies found no change in some measures, and some researchers think part of the effect could be down to expectation. A woodland walk also comes with movement, daylight, fresh air and, in my case, friends. So, was it the trees? Probably the trees, plus the walking, plus the company, plus no Outlook. I'll take all four.

Now, what is grounding?

Which brings us to the thing that got us talking. Grounding (also called earthing) is skin contact with the ground: bare feet on grass, sand or soil, or a conductive mat or sheet wired to the earth. The idea is that the Earth's surface is rich in free electrons, and that these can flow into your body and act like antioxidants. The modern movement is usually traced to Clint Ober, a former cable installer whose book Earthing popularised it, and whose company sells grounding products.

Why are people doing it? What I found on the health benefits

Three claims come up again and again: better sleep and less stress, less pain and inflammation, and a calmer nervous system. Here's what the research says about each.

Sleep and stress. The claim is that grounding lowers cortisol (the stress hormone that should dip at night) and helps you sleep. An early study (Ghaly and Teplitz, 2004) had 12 people sleep on a grounded mattress pad for eight weeks. They reported better sleep and less pain and stress, and their night-time cortisol was lower. It was tiny, and the results were mostly self-reported. A 2025 trial in Korea was better designed: 60 adults, an identical-looking sham mat, 31 days. Recorded sleep time was longer in the grounded group, but most questionnaire scores didn't differ between the groups, and the mat's maker helped fund it.

Pain, inflammation and free radicals. This is where the free-radical idea comes in. Every time your cells turn food and oxygen into energy, they throw off tiny, unstable by-products called free radicals (reactive oxygen species, or ROS), and your immune cells release them on purpose during inflammation. Think of sparks from a campfire: you need the fire, a few sparks are useful signals, and too many start scorching things nearby. Your body keeps antioxidants on hand as a fire-blanket team, and an antioxidant calms a free radical by handing over an electron. The grounding theory is that electrons from the Earth might top up the team, so inflammation settles faster. (Free radicals aren't villains, by the way. Exercise makes them, and that's part of how training makes you stronger.)

Does it work in people? The best-controlled study I found (Austria, 2019) had 22 healthy students, a sham-grounded control group and triple blinding. After a punishing downhill treadmill run, they slept on a conductive sheet for ten days. The grounded group lost less jump and strength performance and had a smaller rise in creatine kinase, a blood marker of muscle damage. Blood tests on just four people hinted at lower inflammation markers. But none of the human studies I found measured free radicals directly. A 2025 lab study reported less ROS production in mitochondria (the energy factories inside cells) under grounded conditions, and that's cells in a lab, not women at a desk.

A calmer nervous system. The claim is that grounding nudges you towards "rest and digest". A small exploratory trial in massage therapists (double-blind, sham-controlled, four weeks) reported signs of lower stress when grounded: heart rate, breathing rate and heart rate variability (the beat-to-beat changes in your heart rate, a rough marker of that calmer side). It's one small group of workers, so it's a clue, not an answer.

So, does it work?

The evidence is too sparse and mixed to tell. For sleep and stress the signals are a bit more encouraging than on the inflammation side, but the studies are small, short, and some are funded by people who sell the kit. It is not established.

I suspect plenty of the felt benefit lives in the bits that have nothing to do with electrons: being outside, in daylight, shoes off, phone away, at a slower pace. Morning daylight also helps set your body clock. That's the part that overlaps with the forest research above.

One more thing. The studies use bare skin or conductive mats. So unless you're barefoot, a woodland walk isn't grounding by the lab definition. I did not walk barefoot this weekend but I still felt good :)

My take

Here's where I've landed. In my own view, grounding sits in the "interesting, not proven" pile.

• If you like standing barefoot on grass: It's free and a few minutes outdoors is a lovely break. Much cheaper way to reduce your stress than a breath work class.
• Mats, sheets and socks: I wouldn't buy any on the strength of the free-radical claim or the sleep studies so far, which are small, short and in some cases funded by the kit's makers. The evidence isn't there yet.
• What I'd keep: the walk. Daylight, movement, friends and a break from the screen all have better evidence behind them, and none of them need electrons.
• Where it sits: sleep, regular meals and how you handle stress come first, in the right order. Grounding, if you enjoy it, is a nice extra on top, not a foundation.

Try this:

Twenty minutes outside, somewhere green, at the pace of your slowest friend, with your phone in your pocket. That's it.

Not a workout. Not a step-count mission. Not a punishment for your lunch. No forest near your office? A park, a square with one decent tree or the long way back from the sandwich shop all count.

---

FOR REGULAR GIRLS 💩

Because good digestion deserves good food.

Lemon-blueberry ricotta pancakes

You'll need (serves 2):

• 200g ricotta or cottage cheese
• 2 eggs
• 150ml egg whites
• 60g oat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt
• 100g blueberries, plus extra for serving if you like
• 100g Greek yoghurt, for serving
• A little butter or olive oil for cooking
• Optional (but highly recommended): cinnamon and a small drizzle of maple syrup

To make it:

• Blend the ricotta or cottage cheese, eggs, egg whites, oat flour, baking powder, lemon zest, vanilla and salt until mostly smooth.
• Fold the blueberries gently into the batter.
• Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium-low heat and lightly grease it.
• Spoon in small pancakes. Smaller ones are easier to flip because this batter is soft.
• Cook for about 2 to 3 minutes, until the edges look set and bubbles begin appearing. Flip carefully and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes.
• Divide between two plates and serve each with 50g Greek yoghurt, extra blueberries and an optional drizzle of maple syrup.

Why your gut will thank you

Oat flour and blueberries bring fibre and plant compounds called polyphenols, which your gut bacteria tend to like feeding on. The protein from the ricotta, eggs and Greek yoghurt keeps breakfast going well past the 3pm crisps, and the lemon brings vitamin C, one of the antioxidants from the free-radical bit above (no single food does that job alone, variety across the week is what counts).

Until next time,

Katie x

Big thank you from me for joining my little corner of the internet for women who want to understand their bodies better - from gut health and hormones to nutrition, stress and everything in between.

General information only. Not medical advice.