Invigorating Your Feet To Come Alive

How Walking Barefoot Affects Your Brain-Body Connection

admin | January 6, 2017 | Health | No Comments

Shoes change feet receptors , have an effect on your gait and block important feedback to reach your brain. It is good to keep your feet to natural state and walk on surfaces such as mud, grass, sand, asphalt and rocks. Here is a challenge: Walk without any shoos on 20ft of rocks or gravel for 30 days.

 

Nowadays almost no one walks barefoot. People often tell me how they walk barefoot while they are at home  but what I a thinking about is walking barefoot on rocks, different surfaces that are uneven and hiking with no shoes.

Footwear And Growing Foot Problems

It is sadly that  we protect our feet so from the world we live in so much that our feet receptors bring very little information to our brains. You may even feel more stable with shoes that give you support.  Orthotics are more and more used and foot issues are developed over time except in those who were born with them.
Parents often buy their babies the popular Nikes or any other brand and babies are cute. However at that age shoes start to change their receptors in feet and affect their posture.

Training Your Feet

Firstly you should introduce your feet to the nature and thus return them to their healthy condition. You should start walking on grass and then move to harsher surfaces. Trying different surfaces is the best solution.  So try walking on mud, sand, asphalt, grass and you will see how good feeling they will give to you when walking barefoot.
Shortly after that ( the 30 day challenge) your feet will renew their connection with brain  and you will feel safer. By every next step you will became more confident in yourself and your gait will become better naturally.
The Challenge
Step 1.  Find 20 feet of gravel or rocks (if you have super sensitive feet, try starting with sand, dirt, asphalt or sidewalks).
Step 2.  Walk 20 feet in rocks for 30 days straight. That’s it! If you have only 10 feet of gravel, then walk it twice.

Goals

There are 2 major goals of walking barefoot on rocks for 30 days:

Learning How to Walk Properly Again

Most of the people walk heavily with straight knees and do not pay attention of the surfaces. If you walk on pointy and sharp rocks you will develop a soft and light walking with a mid heel touch. At the beginning you will walk on your forefeet.

2.   Invigorating Your Feet To Come Alive

A slight pain in the bottom of your feet is normal at the beginning. As you are nearing the 30^th day, that pain will become unnoticeable. The pain can represent a piece of information.
Learn How to Walk
It may sound strange but clunky shoes lead to people and very young children walking unnaturally. Indeed, most people walk unnaturally. But, if you walk on surfaces such as those listed above you will train your feet to walk in a way that you might not used before.

Shoes

Although modern shoes are designed to make better motion of the feet they are actually not good for us. There are people who are reserved and such who don’t support this but only think about other joints like the neck that is supported with padding only when it is injured. On the other side, modern shoes are filled with such padding and have small forefoot form which makes changes to our inborn gait.
Toes need to widespread so that they can give a support to our body. In shoes that are confined our toes lose their ability to support the body. You may have a pair of clunky shoes that give you the feel of a small cast on your feet for a whole day.  People who used the clunky shoes report that their muscles have weakened due to the cast. After leaving the cast you need rehabilitation and the 30 day challenge is an excellent one.

Nerves

Nerves are everywhere in your feet as they are in your hands. Feet are the best connection that you have with the outer environment and send signals that support the body in its reaction to pressure, balance, touch and temperature. A foot that is naked gives the best receptive signals to the knees and the hips so that they stay away from injury.
When you do not train your feet and do not walk on new surfaces then they become less sensitive and less able to give your brain exact information. You may believe that walking on rocks causes pain.
But, walking on such surfaces actually supports signals that travel to the brain , it makes your nervous system more sustainable and helps in fighting conditions such as depression. It is due to the fact that brain needs to be stimulated, oxygen and proper blood flow in order to make you happy.

Haven’t you started your 30 day challenge yet? Go out in nature and connect your brain to your feet!!!