Barefoot is Best: Why Taking Off Your Shoes Can Improve Your Life (PART 1)
Can you imagine going to a sandy beach and NOT wanting to take off your shoes?
For most people and myself, the answer is no. Sand between your toes, ocean water splashing your ankles, and the sun warming the top of your feet feels GOOD. It feels good to take off your shoes and let your feet breathe and move how they were meant. My hope for everyone reading this is to get back some of the excitement and freedom you felt when you were able to run around and explore barefoot as a child.
Our feet have an amazing ability to feel, sense our position, and provide feedback to our brains, and without shoes, our feet are able to do all of these things.
So, let’s learn some more about feet!
A lot of people know that fingers, the lips, and tongue are incredibly sensitive body parts, but most people aren’t aware that we have almost as many sensory receptors in our feet as in our hands. Our feet were designed to feel! This sensitivity goes beyond just feeling the texture of the ground on your soles; our feet (and other body parts) also have sensory receptors that tell our brains where our bodies are in space. These receptors are critical for maintaining balance and avoiding injuries. Each foot has 26 bones, which means a lot of ligaments and muscles and tendons, and, you guessed it, sensory receptors! Lots of joints allow feet to have a lot of natural motion, which allows for lots of feedback to the brain.
Unfortunately, a lot of the sensory feedback is lost when our feet aren’t able to move or naturally interact with the ground. It’s intuitive that you wouldn’t be able to use your hands very effectively wearing thick oven mitts, because we know that hands, like feet, work best when the can move and spread out and help us learn about our environment. Hands that are unaltered and uncovered, left to do their thing, can move the best, feel the best, and provide the most information to the brain. It makes sense to most of us that bare hands do the best job at being good hands. Thick rigid shoe soles, restrictive toe boxes, and lots of padding prevent your feet from doing their job. When feet aren’t communicating well with the brain, then the brain can’t properly turn on and control muscles in the feet, knees, and hips. Long-term use of stiff, restrictive, and padded shoes can lead to problems in areas beyond just the feet, which we’ll cover next week as we continue in our barefoot blog series. Stay tuned for the next segment in the barefoot series: Part 2, biomechanical nightmare!
At Midwest Movement, we believe human bodies are strong, resilient, and made for movement.
Our goal is to help all of our patients achieve optimal movement and function of all body systems, including their feet! We take a natural approach to healthcare and work to get patients out of pain and back to active lifestyles without medications, surgeries, or unnecessary bracing. Just like proper motion in your feet provides optimal sensory feedback to your brain, proper spinal biomechanics offers the same benefit.