Walking Barefoot Improves Your Brain, Balance, Soul And Reduces Running Injuries

Not to mention the earthing benefits of bare feet

Photo by Angelo Pantazis on Unsplash

We take our feet for granted until they're injured. I persisted in running too many extra kilometres in my favourite running shoes until my feet told me to grade-up to new shoes. 

As well as bringing out my new shoes, I decided to walk barefooted every day as a way of reconditioning my feet. That turned out to be a fortuitous decision, as I have now found out. You might like to give it a try.

When I decided to walk barefooted, I had no specific theory in mind. I just figured that having the bones, tendons and muscles of my feet moving across a natural surface - road, trail, and the beach in my case - would activate neuromuscular pathways that shoes don't.

I like the push up through my body from walking on sand

I've always liked the feeling of my feet working when pushing along the sand on the beach. That mild struggle that you feel when taking each step forward. You can feel that extra effort right up through your calves, quads and glutes. 

Scientists say that it takes more than 2X the energy to walk on sand than a hard surface.

That difference between walking on shifty sand or hard cement is comparable to the difference between walking barefoot or in shoes. Barefoot walking activates more muscle groups from your toes right up to your head than walking in shoes.

Six benefits from walking barefooted

Healthline lists six benefits of walking barefoot as:

1. Better control of your foot position when it strikes the ground.
2. Improvements in balance, proprioception, and body awareness, which can help with pain relief.
3. Better foot mechanics, which can lead to improved mechanics of the hips, knees, and core
4. Maintaining an appropriate range of motion in your foot and ankle joints as well as adequate strength and stability within the associated muscles and ligaments.
5. Relief from improperly fitting shoes, which may cause bunions, hammertoes, or other foot deformities.
6. Stronger leg muscles, which support your lower back region.

That is an impressive list - benefits gained by simply walking without shoes.

​What really caught my attention was #2—maintaining good balance and body awareness is essential if we are to live actively for as long as possible.

Apparently, the barefoot running community know all about this. "Proprioception" is a favourite term among barefoot runners and fans of minimal shoes.

Sensing and balancing is improved - proprioception

Proprioception is the sensing of position, motion, and equilibrium - providing our brain with the inputs needed to maintain our balance. Good walking proprioception means your mind is in touch with the stimuli coming from your feet.

When we are barefoot regularly, the sensory feedback from the foot becomes more detailed and refined, allowing the foot and brain to fine-tune the chain of neuromuscular command. This is beneficial for our health for what is perhaps an obscure reason. 

The obscure reason is this one. The more we use our nervous system, from our peripheral nerves right up through our central nervous system and into our brain, the healthier it stays.

​This usage can stimulate the growth of nerves, and also have beneficial impacts on associated circulation and sensitivity.

RELATED: Keep Your Tendons Healthy And Your Balance Will Look After Itself

Bare feet and earthing benefits

I was blissfully unaware, until now, that there is a branch of environmental medicine which includes the effect of direct physical contact with the earth.

This direct physical contact, called "earthing", has revealed surprisingly positive outcomes, including these (Research 2012):

• Grounding the body at night during sleep appears to improve morning fatigue levels, daytime energy, and nighttime pain levels.
• Cardiovascular readings suggest reductions in overall stress levels and tensions and a shift in ANS balance from earthing during sleep.
• The results suggest that Earthing for a single night reduces primary indicators of osteoporosis. (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
• Earthing continually during rest and physical activity over a 72-hour period decreased fasting glucose among patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. 
• Earthing is the first intervention known to speed recovery from sore muscles after exercise, namely delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).
• A controlled experiment reported grounding improved sleep - yielding "symptomatic improvements".

The scientists concluded thus: The research done to date supports the concept that grounding or earthing the human body may be an essential element in the health equation along with sunshine, clean air and water, nutritious food, and physical activity. - Earthing: Health Implications of Reconnecting the Human Body to the Earth's Surface Electrons

The bottom line - hat's off to going barefooted

Little did I know that my old running shoes reaching their use-by date would lead me into the barefoot world, with a myriad of benefits.

While the most direct benefit from barefoot walking is that in theory, it more closely restores our 'natural' walking pattern, that benefit seems to be the lesser of the many others.

For me, the potential improvements in balance, body awareness are key, along with improvements in foot mechanics, strength and stability. As a runner, that list sounds fantastic.

My daily barefoot routine

I now walk barefooted daily:

• 1km to the beach (across a busy road and down a running trail).
• 1km out, and 1km back along the beach, 90% walking in the softest sand.
• Half-way on the back leg on the beach, there is a steep 100-stair challenge up the cliff-face. I tackle that once, 2-steps at a time, at maximum effort.
• Then head back down to the beach, walk the remaining 500m and head home to wash my feet!

​If you have safe areas to walk barefooted give it a try. Start slowly if your feet are sensitive, and see if you like it. 

Barefoot 100-step sprint 2-stairs per step | Image Credit: The Author

I'm hooked.

Good luck.

> More posts to help you with EXERCISES
> More posts to help you with DIABETES
> If you are a @MEDIUM reader my publication Body Age Buster has hundreds of categorised posts which I have written especially for men and women over 50.

Follow me on Quora for more health and fitness tips.
If you valued this article >> Follow me
​​Leave a comment >> Share it >> Stay healthy
If you have any questions email me and I will get back to you.