Bob Malone, Boulder, Colorado, financial adviser: “In 1996, after experiencing chest pain, rapid heartbeat, and flutter, I was diagnosed with a-fib. It’s very scary. You don’t know when the next episode is coming and whether you will survive. In my case, it was brought on by business stress.
My work involves advice and decisions that affect people’s lives.
“Medication kept the symptoms under control most of the time. When the meds were unable to control the wildness in my heart, I would have to get electroshock and jolt the heart back into a normal rhythm. I needed treatment like that every nine months or so. The meds were horrible. They took my energy down to zero. I’ve always been an active, creative guy, and I love the ourdoors, and now this stopped me in my tracks.
“I started sleeping grounded in 2000. I went from not getting sleep and waking up frequently at night to getting good, solid sleep pretty much all the time. I later added a grounded floor mat while I was reading or watching TV, and even used one at the office where the stress level is pretty high.
“The incidents slowly started to stretch out. They went from days to weeks to months apart. I was slowly able to wean myself off medication.
I had a flare-up in 2006, which I believe was related to the stress over the death of my brother. I had to take medication, but I haven’t taken any
since.
“In 2007, I went to the mountains for some fresh air and took an hour-and-a-half hike. My pulse was ranging between 115 to 130 beats per minute. In the process I got chest pain (angina), which happens whenever I exercise aggressively. Then it normally goes away at night when I sleep
grounded. But I wasn’t grounded that time, and the chest pain continued for the following two days when I took two small hikes. I came back home the next day with the pain still there. So I lay down on a grounded bed mat and napped for about a half hour. When I got up, the chest pain was gone completely. I even took a one-hour moderate bike ride afterward without any chest pain. So after chest pain for three days straight, I was greatly relieved.
“I haven’t had chest pain since that time or any sign of a-fib since October of 2008, about the time that the financial markets went sour. Anytime I feel anxiety, or periodic fast or irregular heartbeats, I ground myself and thirty minutes later, everything is back to normal. Obviously I’m thrilled to have gone through the tough and anxious times without incident.”