Search for grounding online and you will find confident lists of benefits, often followed by the phrase "studies show." Some studies do exist. But what they show, and how strongly, is a more careful story than most product pages tell.
Key points
- The most cited grounding sleep study, Ghaly and Teplitz (2004), had 12 participants and no control group.
- Key reviews came from a small network of researchers, several with disclosed ties to a company sponsoring earthing research.
- Newer sham-controlled trials (Müller 2019, Park 2025) are a step forward but remain small, with mixed results.
- Miller and Gupta conclude it isn't yet known whether grounding improves sleep, and found no evidence it harms sleep.
This is our attempt to tell it plainly. We looked at the studies most often cited for grounding, also called earthing, and asked the questions a good science editor would: What was measured? How many people took part? Was there a comparison group? Who paid for the work?
The early sleep study: Ghaly and Teplitz, 2004
The most widely cited grounding study on sleep was published in 2004 in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine by Maurice Ghaly and Dale Teplitz. Twelve adults who reported sleep problems, pain, and stress slept on a conductive mattress pad connected to the earth for eight weeks.
The researchers measured cortisol, a hormone that follows a daily rhythm, from saliva samples taken every four hours over 24 hours, once before grounding and again at week six. They reported lower nighttime cortisol and a trend toward a more typical daily pattern. Participants also kept daily symptom logs, and nearly all reported that sleep problems, pain, or stress eased.
The authors described it as a pilot study, and the limits are significant. There were only 12 participants and no control group, so there is no way to separate the effect of grounding from expectation, the attention of being studied, or ordinary changes over two months. The symptom findings were self-reported.
The reviews: Chevalier, Oschman and colleagues
Much of what is written about grounding traces back to two review papers by a small group of researchers.
In 2012, Gaétan Chevalier, Stephen Sinatra, James Oschman, Karol Sokal and Pawel Sokal published a review in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health. It gathered earlier work on sleep, pain, heart rate variability, and blood measures, and argued that disconnection from the earth's surface may be an overlooked factor in health. Among the studies it describes is an earlier blinded pilot by Clint Ober, in which 60 people with sleep problems and chronic pain slept for a month on either grounded or sham-grounded pads; most of the grounded group reported better sleep and less pain.
In 2015, Oschman, Chevalier and Richard Brown published a review in the Journal of Inflammation Research on grounding and inflammation. The publisher classes it as a hypothesis paper rather than a clinical trial. Its central example is a small study of delayed-onset muscle soreness with eight participants, four grounded and four not. The authors acknowledge that most of the pilot studies "involved relatively few subjects" and invite other researchers to verify or refute their interpretations.
Both reviews disclose that several authors were independent contractors for EarthFx Inc., which the papers describe as the company sponsoring earthing research, and that some held a small percentage of shares in it. Industry ties don't make findings wrong, and the authors were transparent about them. But they are a reason to want independent replication, and much of the research these reviews summarize came from the same small network.
Blood and recovery studies
A 2013 study in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine by Chevalier, Sinatra, Oschman and Richard Delany looked at blood. Ten healthy adults were grounded for two hours through patches on their hands and feet. Researchers measured the surface charge of red blood cells from fingertip samples and reported an increase in charge and less clumping of the cells afterward. The paper's title links this to blood viscosity, but viscosity itself was not measured directly; it was inferred from the cell measurements. The sample was very small, and the measurements were taken over a single session.
An independent study took a more rigorous approach. In 2019, Erich Müller and colleagues at the University of Salzburg published a trial in Frontiers in Physiology in which 22 sport science and physiotherapy students ran hard downhill to cause muscle damage, then slept for ten days on either grounded or sham-grounded sheets. The design was randomized and triple-blinded, meaning participants, testers and analysts did not know who was grounded. The grounded group lost less jump height and leg strength and showed a smaller rise in creatine kinase, a marker of muscle damage. Notably, there was no difference in how sore people said they felt, and the blood inflammation analysis included only four participants. The authors called those blood results preliminary.
Industry ties don't make findings wrong, and the authors were transparent about them.
A newer randomized sleep trial
In 2025, Hyun Jung Park and colleagues in Korea published a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in Advances in Integrative Medicine. Sixty participants used either a grounding mat or a non-grounding mat that looked the same for six hours a day over 31 days, wearing activity trackers to estimate sleep.
The grounded group's total sleep time increased more than the control group's, and the authors reported improvements in questionnaires on insomnia, sleepiness and stress. But in a 2025 article for The Conversation, sleep researchers Dean J. Miller and Charlotte Gupta of CQUniversity Australia pointed out that both groups improved on those questionnaires, with no difference between groups on sleep quality, daytime sleepiness or stress, and that a difference in insomnia severity was already present at the start. The authors themselves describe the study as a pilot.
The studies at a glance
| Study | Participants | Comparison group | Main measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ghaly & Teplitz, 2004 | 12 | None | Saliva cortisol, self-reported sleep, pain, stress |
| Chevalier et al., 2013 | 10 | None described in abstract | Red blood cell surface charge and clumping |
| Müller et al., 2019 | 22 | Sham-grounded, triple-blind | Jump, strength, creatine kinase, soreness |
| Park et al., 2025 | 60 | Look-alike mat, double-blind | Tracker sleep time, sleep and stress questionnaires |
What's plausible, what's unproven
It is reasonable to say that the human body can be electrically connected to the earth, and that researchers have measured some physiological differences when it is. A few recent studies have used sham controls and blinding, which is a real step forward.
What hasn't been shown is that grounding reliably improves sleep, stress, pain or inflammation in the general population. The studies are small, often short, and frequently rely on self-reported outcomes. Several early studies had no control group, and much of the literature comes from researchers with commercial ties. Miller and Gupta summed it up simply: whether grounding improves sleep, we don't know yet. They also found no evidence that it harms sleep or recovery.
How to read a grounding health claim
- Look for the number. "A study found" means little until you know whether it involved 10 people or 1,000.
- Check for a comparison group. Without a sham or placebo group, improvement may come from expectation or routine.
- Separate measured from reported. A blood test and a questionnaire answer different questions.
- Read the disclosures. Funding and financial ties are usually listed near the end of a paper.
- Watch the leap. A change in a lab marker is not the same as preventing or treating a disease.
We make grounding bedding, including the Equilibrium Grounding Fitted Sheet, and we think the honest position is the one above: an interesting idea, early research, and plenty still unknown. If you want to try it, our guide What Is Grounding? covers how it works and how to set it up safely. People with implanted medical devices, who are pregnant, or who take blood thinners should talk to their doctor first.
Last reviewed October 2026.
From the Equilibrium collectionEquilibrium Grounding Fitted SheetGOTS certified organic cotton with conductive silver fiber woven in, and a single 15-foot cord to the ground port.View productSources
- Ghaly M, Teplitz D. The biologic effects of grounding the human body during sleep as measured by cortisol levels and subjective reporting of sleep, pain, and stress. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 2004.
- Chevalier G, Sinatra ST, Oschman JL, Sokal K, Sokal P. Earthing: health implications of reconnecting the human body to the Earth's surface electrons. Journal of Environmental and Public Health, 2012.
- Chevalier G, Sinatra ST, Oschman JL, Delany RM. Earthing (grounding) the human body reduces blood viscosity: a major factor in cardiovascular disease. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 2013.
- Oschman JL, Chevalier G, Brown R. The effects of grounding (earthing) on inflammation, the immune response, wound healing, and prevention and treatment of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Journal of Inflammation Research, 2015.
- Müller E, Pröller P, Ferreira-Briza F, Aglas L, Stöggl T. Effectiveness of grounded sleeping on recovery after intensive eccentric muscle loading. Frontiers in Physiology, 2019.
- Park HJ, Lee GR, Kim Y, et al. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study on the improvement of sleep quality with Earthing mat. Advances in Integrative Medicine, 2025.
- Miller DJ, Gupta C. What is grounding and could it improve my sleep? Here's the science behind this TikTok trend. The Conversation, republished by Sleep Review, 2025.
This article is for general information and isn't medical advice. Individual results vary.
