FEATURE|
Go Barefoot Nature gave us the perfect tools for walking. Shouldn’t we use them the way they were designed? Article & Illustration by Ian Strouse
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o ahead, take your shoes off. Put your feet up and take a look at them. How often do you really pay attention to your feet? Do they seem a little pale and shy, like they don’t get out much? If so, don’t worry. I know the feeling. One evening I was laying on the couch with my feet propped up on the arm, staring at them. I took note of their shape and the shape of the individual toes. I realized that the big toes were bent in toward the center of my foot. All those years of being crammed into climbing shoes had taken their toll. And the climbing shoes weren’t the only problem. The narrow fit of my hiking boots had cramped the sides of my feet, to the point of warping both pinky toes. One was scrunched up like an accordion; the other was tucked under the adjacent toe. I balked at the thought of spending any more time in my modern torture devices. I wanted to find a way to strengthen my toes, and free my feet to return to their natural shape. So the next day I bought a pair of five-finger shoes, which wrapped the soles of my feet in a thin layer of rubber and separated each toe. At first, they were almost impossible to pull on. But they gave me a strange and liberating feeling, almost like being barefoot. I wore them running, and it felt like I was using parts of my calves and ankles that had been
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neglected for years. Not only had my toes been adversely affected by other shoes, but my legs had, too. I started paying attention to the way my feet hit the ground, rolling off each step and springing onto the next. I noticed I was using my heels less. I wasn’t aware of this at the time, but my revelatory experience had a scientific basis. In a 2010 study published in Nature, Daniel Lieberman observed barefoot runners, comparing their foot strikes to those of runners who wore shoes. The study found that heel striking was the biggest difference between running in shoes and running without them. Barefoot runners landed on the front part of the foot, while runners in shoes landed on their heels. I found out that heel-striking generates a sudden impact that gets absorbed upward into the body, and that the force of each impact can be up to three times a person’s weight. After a thousand foot strikes in every mile, the legs see a lot of repetitive stress, especially the ankles and knees. Modern running shoes help by cushioning the heel, but they don’t eliminate the problem. In fact, they may have been part of the cause— by cushioning the heel and changing the natural position of the foot, they make it hard not to land on the heel. Since barefoot runners land on the front part
of the foot first, the force is usually absorbed softly with no sudden impact. The calf muscles ease the heel down gradually, and then spring onto the next step. While running in my five-finger shoes, I realized I was adjusting to a natural technique, unlearning habits that formed while wearing over-engineered shoes. Recently, products have been designed to bring runners closer to the Earth, letting the body run the way humans evolved to. Vibram FiveFingers and Vivobarefoot shoes are two entire lines of footwear dedicated to barefoot-style minimalism. Since it was started in 2003, Vivobarefoot has been producing footwear to mimic the barefoot experience. And an endorsement from Lee Saxby, one of the world’s premier running coaches—who recently joined forces to head up their training clinic—proves that they’re onto something. But there may be other arguments for not using any footwear at all and letting our feet out to recharge.
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It’s Electric
ur bodies are electrically conductive. Try rubbing a balloon against your hair and then pulling it away. It stands on end, right? That’s static electricity at work. In some
tech industries, electrostatic discharge from the body causes a big problem, so technicians wear anti-static wrist bands as a preventative measure. The surface of the Earth also conducts electricity. Over time, the free electrons in the ground float up into the air and accumulate in the ionosphere, about 50 miles above earth’s surface. When lightning strikes, the electrons are shot back into the ground, balancing out the system. The ground is always charged and ready to balance out a charged object—be it an electronic device or a human body. Are there consequences of electric buildup in the human body? Clint Ober, a retired cable TV repairman, thinks there are. In his book, “Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever?” Ober tells his story. One day back in 1998 while living in Sedona, Ariz., he was people-watching on a park bench and had a sudden epiphany. Ober realized that the thick rubber soles on people’s shoes likely created an electrical barrier between their bodies and the Earth. He began doing amateur experiments to test his hypothesis. First, he measured his body’s charge while moving around the house; he found that it increased when he approached unshielded electrical appliances. Then he went outside and found that he still carried a charge, so he investigated ways to dissipate it. One way was to sleep
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I practiced Tai Chi outside, standing barefoot in the grass and moving slowly at an intuitive rhythm. Was there a signal coming from the ground and the air, interacting with my body and directing my movements?
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on a conductive bed pad, which was wired to the ground. But an easier way was simply to stand on the ground outside, barefoot. So what health effects does this have on the human body? Researchers Maurice Ghaly and Dale Teplitz conducted a sleep study and published the results in NIH’s National Center for Biotechnology Information. Twelve test subjects agreed to participate, all of whom had problems with sleep, pain and stress. First, their saliva was tested for levels of cortisol, a stress hormone. They had a wide range of cortisol profiles, with some well above the normal level. Six weeks later, after sleeping on grounded bed pads, their saliva was checked again. In every case, cortisol levels had fallen close to the normal level. What’s more, nearly all of the test subjects reported sleeping better and feeling less stressed, especially the females. Ultimately, physical health did appear to be linked to grounding of the body. Still another effect of grounding may be even more vital to our wellbeing. Every day, people are exposed to electromagnetic interference from cell phones and other wireless signals. Even wired appliances create interference. When we put on shoes or go into a building, we are more vulnerable to this interference. But when grounded, our bodies are better insulated, like a grounded TV that is protected from static noise. There is another signal, a natural series of frequencies in the atmosphere that humans may depend on for our ability to think, feel and remember. These frequencies are called the Schumann resonances—and they are all around us. They come from all of the thunderstorms on the planet at any given time, and they bounce around continuously between the Earth’s surface and the ionosphere. However, electromagnetic pollution may be interfering with our bodies’ ability to interact with them. According to Neil Cherry, late professor at the Human Sciences Department of Lincoln University in New Zealand, the human brain evolved in sync with the fundamental Schumann frequency, which vibrates at approximately 7.83 Hz. In a text published in NCBI in 2003, Cherry hypothesized that the brain’s synchronization to this frequency is vital to our health. He explained that the neurons in the brain contain electromagnet-
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ic receivers similar to an FM radio, which allow us to interact with the frequency. He added that we need it to balance melatonin-serotonin cycles and to maintain healthy sleep patterns, as well as heart, brain and reproductive health. If this is true, the 7.83 Hz frequency is as vital to human life as the sun. After discovering these theories, I invited my friend Jessica on a walk in the park to test them out. Jess was stressed at her new job and having trouble sleeping, and I wanted to see if I could help. We agreed to walk barefoot, for half an hour at a time, over the course of several days. The first day, she went from being “stressed” to “relaxed” by the end of our walk, and the next day she told me that her sleep had improved. After the second walk, she said she felt “full of life.” Though this was a subjective study, it seemed to have a positive effect on her health. Was it the grounding? Or were simple things like exercise and fresh air the real remedy? If the former, then there may be one more link between the body’s connection to the ground and the ability to sleep or relax. The fundamental Schumann frequency of 7.83 Hz vibrates in the range of Theta waves, the state of the brain during meditation. If it’s true that grounding enables us to synchronize with the Schumann resonance, perhaps it also helps us to meditate. This reminds me of times I’ve practiced Tai Chi outside, standing barefoot in the grass and moving slowly at an intuitive rhythm. Was there a signal coming from the ground and the air, interacting with my body and directing my movements? Let’s return to Sedona for one more perspective. Author and mind-body trainer Ilchi Lee describes the feeling of walking meditation in his book, “The Call of Sedona,” a recent New York Times bestseller. He talks about focusing on the feet and weighting them, so that there seems to be no space between the body and the ground. “You will notice the weight of your body being delivered to the ground and the strength of the Earth that supports that weight,” he writes. “You can feel the vivid feeling of existence, of being alive, as you develop a heart of humble gratitude toward the Earth that nurtures your body and supports your life.” Yeah. That sounds about right. b