Short attention span, or only got a minute? This first paragraph is for you:
For stress-busting from the ground up, take your shoes off and get your feet in direct contact with any surface they can tolerate. Grass, dirt, sand, pavement, hey even your living room or hallway if that’s all you’ve got or if there’s inclement weather. If you are unable to walk, go sit with your feet on the ground or floor. Go!
Inflammation and pain are forms of stress, as well as responses to stress. In 2010/2014, the American Podiatric Medical Association (APMA) commissioned a study in which they found that nearly 80% of people in the U.S. had foot problems, 50% of them experienced quality of life impact, and most also experienced a host of other health problems. Meanwhile, since WWII the rate of knee arthritis has doubled.
This short blog could easily turn into a mighty tome, so let’s hit the high points and get on with it. The main culprit is what a teacher of mine likes to call “foot coffins”- shoes, 99+% of which completely undermine foot health and the natural gait cycle. We have 28 foot bones and 31 joints that are designed for movement, force dispersion, and/or stability. None were designed to be immobilized by our footwear. Restriction of the foot puts extra stress on the knees, hips, and on up the chain.
However, nothing about “normal” shoes was designed with human biomechanics in mind. The most-used shoe “last” (think form or base) dates back to the early 1900’s, dropping the ball of the foot (where there is a natural transverse arch, btw) down into a void to make the foot look petite. And those lasts are not even on a straight axis, as feet are, they are curved inward. They are rigid, as are the layers on top of them, with only maybe a little movement behind the ball of the foot, where it does more harm than good.
~ heel elevation, which pitches the weight forward over those poor metatarsals, strains posterior leg muscles, and completely alters joint angles and organ positions all the way through top of head.
~ toe spring, which furthers the drop of the metatarsal heads and angles the toes up off the ground, minimizing our base of support and preventing pushoff.
~ a narrow toe box, which leads to responses like bunions, crossed toes, hammer toes, and Morton’s neuroma. This also assures that we will not be able to set down and grasp/push off with the toes, thus eliminating 1/4-1/2 of the natural gait cycle.
The combination of all these tweaks leaves only about 40% of the surface of the foot on the ground, leading to poor balance because we’ve lost a good bit of our foundation.
And then there are orthotics, which most people have been brainwashed to think are helping, when in fact these are crutches that weaken and further immobilize the feet, especially when rigid.
Most shoes are also far too heavy, weighing 1-4 lbs; lifting that load over and over far from the center of gravity is a huge energy drain and further alters gait.
Because biomechanics are intimately intertwined with neurological function, all this biomechanical distortion comes with a heavy neurological price. Just at a sensory level, we have over 200,000 sensory nerves in the soles of the feet and the toes, feeding information to our brains about our relation to the earth. The compression of a narrow toe box, the inability to feel the ground, the pitched-forward 40% loss of earth contact -all create a constant noxious sensory input that acts as a form of “threat” (think stress) to your brain.
One other shoe design deserves mention – those softy cushiony sports shoes (originated by a company whose name rhymes with ”likey”) that have have made plantar fascitis common*, in part because our Vestibular system, which is dependent on knowing where the ground is, is suddenly lost at sea, or lost in fluff, and we have no proprioceptive (think sensors in joints that let us know where we are) awareness of the ground. And you can check out the work of evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman on the increased impact of ground force through cushioned soles.
Luckily, “barefoot” or “minimalist” shoes have come along (though beware, some still include throwbacks like the toe spring or odd foot angle). They are a huge step forward, or maybe backward, (moccasins, still the best, have been around for about 14,000 years), but we literally have to retrain our feet to be able to benefit from these shoes. If we’ve never set the center of the heel down and rolled through the undulating wave of the foot to pushoff, we’ll take our old habits to the new shoes. If our weak foot muscles are suddenly asked to perform heroic feats all day long, they will rebel, usually with pain. If our arches have been heading south for years, they won’t have what it takes to suddenly arc up toward the heavens.
So how do we start making change? One of the easiest, best, completely free ways is to simply take off those coffins and go for a barefoot walk. Books have been written, studies have been done about the multitude of benefits experienced when getting your puppies in direct contact with terra-mostly-firma (I live in earthquake territory).
Following is a quick run-through of those benefits, so you feel extra-good about every barefoot earthy moment:
There is evidence of improvements in balance, proprioception,foot and leg strength, foot bone mass (!), and of course mobility – from the feet all the way up through the spine and organs to the tippy top of your head. A whole lot of your foot will have contact with the ground. You will have access to pushoff with the toes, which will activate extensor muscles and related parts of your brain. Walking barefoot will allow you to actually move/retrain your feet (duh!), moving their many joints.
Will this take a long time? Depends how much you do it, of course, but a 2021 study suggests not: “minimally shod” (not barefoot, but wearing completely flexible shoes) walking for six months was sufficient to “rehabilitate” the feet, increasing the aforementioned muscular strength, bone mass, and balance: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-98070-0 Though it is generally best to start with a few minutes a day and build up from there.
Finally, a bonus stress-busting barefoot effect! Being barefoot on the earth may have a neuromodulatory (brain-changing) effect related to the earth’s electromagnetic field. This contact may improve sleep, reduce pain, reduce stress, decrease sympathetic nervous system activity, and more.We’re going to have to pay attention to our subjective experiences, though, as we wait for more and better research, because much of it to date unfortunately involves some conflict of interest and a mishmash of terms and applications. (I took a break in writing this for a barefoot walk on the beach, and my sensory awareness improved, mood improved, stress decreased).
Hopefully all this has convinced – or reminded – you to free your feet and let them feel the ground, thus reducing all kinds of stress.
For lots more brain-changing, life-enhancing practices, check out my NeuroCentric Fitness and Better Brain, Better Body classes here: https:/current-classes-at-a-glance/
And to learn a simple big toe stretch and strength exercise that will help build better balance and counter the years of big toe weakening and squishing, watch this YouTube video from Dr. Cobb, creator of ZHealth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuxHCQYSvdM
Nothing in this blog constitutes medical advice. Consult your health provider before you make a move.:)
*check out the book “Born to Run,” by Christopher McDougall
~ Much gratitude to Dr. Willam Rossi,DPM, for his 1999 article, “Why Shoes Make Normal Gait Impossible” – truly revolutionary
~ I stumbled upon this well-written piece that goes into more detail on all of the above, apparently a “guest post” by Dr. Todd Thistle: https://wolfandiron.com/blogs/feedthewolf/free-your-feet-part-1-your-shoes-are-making-you-soft
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