When I pulled up to the Barefoot Trail, a “grounding park” outside Flagstaff, Arizona, at 9:30 a.m. on a sunny Sunday in August, the parking lot was already packed. A few groups of families were ahead of me in line to purchase a ticket. I cringed — nothing like attempting to connect with nature with hordes of people around. Luckily, the attentive staff at the front noticed I had already purchased a single adult ticket, so they gave me their spiel about using the park and encouraged me to go off on my own before the rush.
The park advertises itself as a “manicured, 1-mile trail through dirt, mud, water, sand, stone, and rocks.” The whole point is to walk it sans shoes, which allows you to take advantage of the supposed benefits of “grounding,” sometimes known as “earthing.” This growing health and wellness trend is based on the idea that touching bare skin to the soil, grass or sand beneath you can yield a wide array of health benefits, from decreased inflammation to better sleep to a reduction in pain.
As someone who regularly wears house slippers just to stroll around my own apartment, the concept of walking around barefoot in public, apart from a pool or beach, seemed odd to me. It’s not that I’m averse to the outdoors — I’m an avid hiker — but the sensation of my skin touching the dirty, uneven, pokey (did I mention dirty?) ground feels uncomfortable or annoying at best, or injury-inducing at worst.
But the park is in the same mountain town where I was born and raised, and I was intrigued by the whole idea — so I decided to see what the fuss was all about.
What is ‘grounding’?
First, I called up a couple of integrative medicine experts to get more information on this whole grounding thing. It’s relatively simple in terms of execution: Grounding refers to direct skin contact with the earth using either your feet or hands (for no specified amount of time). But the way it supposedly boosts your health is a bit more complex.
“Grounding is a practice based on the belief that energetically charged particles emitted from the earth may help improve one’s health through direct contact,” said Gary Soffer, associate professor of pediatric allergy and immunology at Yale School of Medicine and the director of the integrative medicine program at the university. Earth’s surface contains subatomic particles called electrons that produce a negative charge, and grounding proponents suggest that these electrons “act as antioxidants,” Soffer explained, allowing them to supposedly reduce inflammation, help normalize cortisol levels, improve sleep and reduce pain.
Importantly, these benefits are all proposed. “The data on grounding is interesting, but it’s not nearly as good as what it’s being touted as,” said Ann Marie Chiasson, director of the fellowship at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. There are some very small studies that suggest small benefits associated with using artificial grounding, Chiasson said, which refers to using products like mats, pads and mattresses that typically plug into a grounded wall outlet and supposedly transfer, or “conduct,” the charged particles from the earth to the user.
Some of the research — mostly funded by companies that make them — suggests that earthing mats could reduce stress, insomnia severity and daytime sleepiness. Chiasson, who co-authored a book on grounding, “Barefoot Wisdom: Better Health Through Grounding,” said there needs to be more studies dedicated to grounding (beyond company-sponsored ones), but that there is plenty of evidence to back up the basic idea that connecting physically to nature comes with wellness benefits.
“When animals get sick, they go to the ground. We know that people lie down on the ground and they feel better,” she said. Research suggests that being in nature can decrease your blood pressure, improve cognitive function and potentially lengthen and improve the quality of sleep.
My experience on the Barefoot Trail
Walk-up pricing is $15, but buying in advance online will save you a few bucks. After I entered, the briefing was short and to the point: I’d traverse the one-mile loop at my own pace, taking in the sights, sounds and sensations lining the trail. I dropped my shoes in a cubby and departed down the trail, with dirty, exposed toes out on full display, not a plan in place.
Speaking of no plan: There’s really no perceptible route to the walk. The trail is intersected with various (seemingly random) “adventure stations,” including ceramic and tile-lined walkways, pits with wood chips and wine corks, climbable ladders and tires, and the occasional water bucket to splash around in. As for exertion, this trail isn’t meant to get your heart rate up — it’s more of a manicured walking path rather than a rugged, strenuous hike.
There are two ziplines about a quarter-mile into the trail. Given that the majority of park-goers seemed to converge there, I decided to skip them. (For me, the mental health benefits that coincide with being outdoors tend to happen when I’m alone or with very few people.)
About halfway through the trail, I came upon some black tiles organized into a spiral, with an awning overhead blocking the intense Flagstaff sun. Whether it was the peace from (finally) achieving solitude or the dizzy trance from walking in a literal circle when I followed the tiles, my brain was quieter than when I started the trek. I circled that maze two, perhaps three, times before settling into a nearby hammock in the shade, of which there are several on the trail. There are also plenty of benches to sit and rest on.
From that point forward, I did, admittedly, feel a bit more at peace — despite the last half of the trail paralleling a busy highway. With about a quarter-mile left, I came upon a wooden “deck” station assembled with wind chime-like accessories for making noise. This station didn’t have anything to do with grounding, but it ended up being my favorite: I felt like a kid again, banging around my mom’s pots and pans in the sandbox.
Could I have, theoretically, reaped the benefits of barefoot walking on my own at a local park for free? Probably. However, I appreciated the park’s attention to detail, particularly when it came to manicuring the trail — at no point did anything dig into my feet. Out on a regular hiking path, and especially in a place as densely wooded as Flagstaff, you’re bound to get a few scrapes from sharp pine needles or jagged lava rocks. So if you’re interested in trying barefoot walking, this park would be a solid introduction to doing so safely.
As expected, my feet were filthy by the end of the walk. Luckily, the owners of the Barefoot Trail know sensory-sensitive people like me exist and provided a handy foot-washing station at the end. Of course, I gave my toes a more thorough double-scrub back at home, just for good measure.
And as for whether charged Earth electrons lowered my blood pressure and cortisol levels that day, there’s no way to tell.
“I think it will be difficult to dissect out the collective good that being in nature has on our bodies,” Soffer said. “Could it be these charged electrons running through our bodies? It is possible. Could it be the biogenic volatile organic compounds that plants release, we breathe in and interact with our immune system? Also possible! Could it just be being away from our phones, walking outside and breathing fresh air? Also possible. At the end of the day, I think it is all these things together.”
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