That first step out of bed in the morning — the stabbing heel pain that makes you gasp before the coffee's even brewed — is the signature of plantar fasciitis, one of the most common foot complaints on the planet. Roughly 2 million Americans seek treatment for it every year, and about 1 in 10 people will deal with it at some point in their lives. So a website called Shoes Are Bad gets this question a lot: can grounding help?
Here's the honest answer up front: there are no clinical trials of grounding for plantar fasciitis. None. What exists online is mostly testimonials on advocacy sites — real stories, but not evidence. This article is about everything around that gap: what science actually says about feet, shoes, and inflammation, and how to experiment with grounding safely if your heels hurt.
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Send me the free guideThe evidence gap, stated plainly
We looked for it. Peer-reviewed trials testing grounding or earthing specifically for plantar fasciitis simply don't exist right now — no randomized trials, no pilot studies, nothing on PubMed. What you'll find instead are anecdotal reports on earthing advocacy sites: people who say their heel pain eased after sleeping grounded or walking barefoot. Those stories may be genuine, but anecdotes can't separate a real effect from rest, time, the natural course of the condition, or placebo — and plantar fasciitis is famously a condition that often improves with time and load management anyway.
The grounding research that does exist on pain and inflammation is small-scale and general, not foot-specific: a 2010 pilot study on delayed-onset muscle soreness (Brown, Chevalier & Hill, Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine) found differences in pain reports and inflammatory markers between grounded and ungrounded participants, and a 2015 review of grounding and inflammation (Oschman, Chevalier & Brown, Journal of Inflammation Research) reported effects on white blood cell counts, cytokines, and other inflammatory markers. Promising, but a long way from 'grounding treats plantar fasciitis.' Anyone telling you otherwise is ahead of the evidence.
What plantar fasciitis actually is (and why the name misleads)
The plantar fascia is a thick band of tissue running from your heel bone to your toes, acting like a bowstring that supports your arch with every step. Here's the twist: despite the '-itis' ending, chronic cases usually show degeneration of the collagen fibers — researchers increasingly call it plantar fasciopathy — rather than active inflammation. That matters, because it shifts the story from 'calm the inflammation' to 'manage the load and rebuild the tissue.'
Classic risk factors read like a list of modern life: tight calves, sudden increases in activity, long hours standing on hard floors, extra body weight — and footwear that does your foot's job for it. Which brings us to the part of this story that has genuinely solid evidence.
The part with real evidence: your feet got weak because your shoes do the work
This is where the science gets interesting — and where it lands squarely on this site's thesis.
A landmark randomized trial by Rathleff and colleagues (2015, Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, with 12-month follow-up) found that high-load strength training improved outcomes in plantar fasciitis patients more than stretching alone. A 2017 systematic review (Huffer et al., Physical Therapy in Sport) supported strength training for the condition and the intrinsic foot musculature. The takeaway: rehabbing plantar fasciitis is mostly a strengthening problem, not a stretching problem.
And here's the footwear connection. A 2019 study by Ridge and colleagues (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise) found that walking in minimalist shoes strengthened foot muscles as effectively as a dedicated foot-exercise program. A 2021 University of Liverpool study (Curtis et al., Scientific Reports) found that everyday activity in minimal footwear increased foot strength. And researchers comparing habitually barefoot and minimally-shod populations with conventional shoe-wearers found larger intrinsic foot muscles in the less-shod groups. The pattern is consistent: cushioned, supportive shoes let your foot muscles go quiet; using your feet wakes them up.
The logic for plantar fasciitis: weak intrinsic foot muscles force the fascia to absorb more load than it's built for. Strengthen the foot's 'core,' and the fascia's burden drops. Grounding enters the picture here not as magic, but as the free delivery mechanism — barefoot time on the Earth both grounds you and trains your feet. Two birds, zero cost. Our barefoot walking guide covers how to start, and our beginner barefoot shoe guide covers the transition — because going minimal too fast is exactly how people get hurt.
Where grounding plausibly fits
So if the direct evidence doesn't exist, is there any reason to think grounding could help a sore heel at all? A cautious case can be made:
- Inflammation and pain signals. The 2015 Oschman, Chevalier & Brown review (Journal of Inflammation Research) concluded that grounding affects markers involved in the inflammatory response — white blood cell counts, cytokines — and proposed that contact with the Earth's surface may help neutralize the reactive molecules driving the inflammatory cascade. A 2012 review (Chevalier, Sinatra, Oschman, Sokal & Sokal, Journal of Environmental and Public Health) found consistent associations between grounding and lower inflammation, better sleep, and reduced stress across the small trials available, while flagging the need for larger studies. Fascia recovery depends on blood flow and resolving inflammation — both things grounding might nudge.
- Sleep is when healing happens. Tissue repair runs hardest overnight, and grounded sleep is the most-studied grounding setup (see our sleep deep-dive). If grounding improves sleep quality, that's a plausible indirect route to better recovery — not of the fascia specifically, but of everything.
- The no-load route. Unlike barefoot walking, a grounding mat under your desk works your zero hours of fascia loading: you sit, your bare feet rest on the mat, and you're grounded for hours. For someone in a flare-up, that's the appealing part — contact with the Earth without a single step of impact.
All of this is indirect. Treat it as a hypothesis worth testing on yourself, not a treatment.
How to try it without making things worse
If your heels hurt and you want to experiment, do it in this order:
1. Respect the flare
In acute pain, do not 'tough it out' barefoot on hard floors — that's how a grumpy fascia becomes an angry one. While symptoms are active, wear whatever shoes you can actually walk in, even if they're cushioned and supportive. The thinnest sole can wait until walking is easy again. (And skip concrete for your first barefoot sessions — here's why concrete is a bad starter surface.)
2. Ground without loading: the desk mat route
This is the foot-pain-friendly way to ground. Rest your bare feet on a conductive mat under your desk while you work — hours of Earth contact, zero impact on the fascia. A universal mat kit works here; Earthing's Universal Mat Kit is the standard option. See our mat buyer's guide and the desk-worker setup guide for the full rundown.
3. Add gentle barefoot time on soft ground
Once walking is tolerable, short barefoot sessions on grass or soil do double duty: grounding contact plus the foot-strengthening stimulus the research supports. Start with five to ten minutes, a few times a week, and build slowly — our timing guide has sensible progressions. If fully barefoot is still too much, conductive sandals are a middle ground: Earthing's grounding slides keep you connected to the Earth with something between you and the ground.
4. Sleep grounded
Night is the longest passive grounding window you've got, and it's when tissue repair peaks. A conductive sleep setup — the Earthing Elite Sleep Mat or Groundology's grounding sheets — gives you a full night of contact with zero effort. We compared the options in grounding sheets vs. mats.
5. Do the rehab that actually has trials behind it
Grounding is the side quest; strengthening is the main quest. The Rathleff trial's message was clear: progressive strength training beats stretching alone for plantar fasciitis. That means exercises targeting the foot and calf under load — ideally designed with a physical therapist who can dose it to your stage of healing. Barefoot time supports this; it doesn't replace it.
See a doctor when…
Grounding is complementary, never a substitute for care. Get a proper diagnosis — ideally from a podiatrist or sports-medicine doctor — if:
- Heel pain persists more than a few weeks despite rest and sensible load management
- You can't bear weight on the foot, or pain came on suddenly after a 'pop' (a possible fascia rupture)
- There's swelling that doesn't ease, redness, or numbness/tingling in the foot
- You have diabetes, especially with neuropathy: do not walk barefoot outdoors. Reduced sensation means you can injure your feet without feeling it. Indoor grounding products are the safer route, and your doctor should know you're using them.
One more standard caution: grounding research has reported effects on blood viscosity and circulation, so if you take blood thinners or have a cardiovascular condition, check with your doctor before starting — the same advice we give in our inflammation article.
🌱 Get the free 7-Day Grounding Starter Guide
Most people feel the difference within a week of going barefoot. Get the free 7-Day Grounding Starter Guide — one short plan per day, no gear required.
Send me the free guideThe honest bottom line
Can grounding help plantar fasciitis? We don't know — nobody has run the trial. What we do know: weak feet and over-supportive shoes contribute to the problem, strength training helps fix it (Rathleff 2015), barefoot-style activity rebuilds foot strength (Ridge 2019; Curtis 2021), and small grounding studies suggest it nudges inflammation and pain in the right direction (Oschman, Chevalier & Brown 2015; Brown, Chevalier & Hill 2010).
So the reasonable experiment looks like this: ground passively (desk mat, grounded sleep) for the possible inflammation benefit, add gentle barefoot time on soft ground for the proven strengthening benefit, and do real rehab under professional guidance for the actual condition. Judge it over weeks, not days — fascia remodels slowly.
And the part this site will never stop saying: your feet were built to work. Shoes that do all the work for them come with a bill, and plantar fasciitis is one of the ways it gets paid. Want the full evidence picture? Does earthing actually work? is our no-hype review of every major claim.