I am an aviation electrician. I have recieved allot of training and electrostatic and electricity are kinda a big thing for me. I agree with steve to hookit up to your wall. With the way electricity works there is absolutaly no way the electricity in your house will harm you unless the ground of the house itself is faulty. E;etricity always follows the path of least resistance which is why things short out. If you have a circuit set up to where it goes from the source to a ground it is shorting itself, and if you decided to place a lightbulb in the circuit after the ground the current would still go to the ground and the lightbulb would not get any power. Also if you have the circuit where it goes from source to load, or lightbulb in this case, and then to a ground, the light blb will light. Remove the ground and there is no light, there is no current. but if you simply add a ground before the lightbulb then it will short and you will have no light. With the way an esd mat is made and allong with the strap, they have resistance, especially the wrist strap because it has a resister in it that should measure around 1 mega ohm, anyway with the amount of resistance at hand electricity follows the path of least resistance and you will be safe.
I am an aviation electrician. I have recieved allot of training and electrostatic and electricity are kinda a big thing for me. I agree with steve to hookit up to your wall. With the way electricity works there is absolutaly no way the electricity in your house will harm you unless the ground of the house itself is faulty. E;etricity always follows the path of least resistance which is why things short out. If you have a circuit set up to where it goes from the source to a ground it is shorting itself, and if you decided to place a lightbulb in the circuit after the ground the current would still go to the ground and the lightbulb would not get any power. Also if you have the circuit where it goes from source to load, or lightbulb in this case, and then to a ground, the light blb will light. Remove the ground and there is no light, there is no current. but if you simply add a ground before the lightbulb then it will short and you will have no light. With the way an esd mat is made and allong with the strap, they have resistance, especially the wrist strap because it has a resister in it that should measure around 1 mega ohm, anyway with the amount of resistance at hand electricity follows the path of least resistance and you will be safe.