40,000 years ago, humans made an elective decision that would change the course of humanity forever.

They started wearing shoes.

Although scientific theories differ as to why we started wearing shoes, several ideologies prevail. For example, the time that we started wearing shoes corresponds with certain social changes humans were making.

Labor Was divided, Industrial agriculture started to replace hunting as the main source of food. More advanced tools were invented. So it became less about shoes and their protective useage and more to do with the fact that we had the time and resources to consider covering our feet.

After all, warming your feet helps to regulate your entire body’s temperature and 40,000 years ago, we were able to think less about where our next meal was coming from, and more about how to make ourselves more comfortable.

We live in a modern world, there are much better reasons to wear shoes. More than half of the world lives in urban environments. What have we lost by severing the connection between our feet and the earth? As with most human inventions, shoes have altered our biology significantly, since we’ve adapted to a new mechanism that the human body wasn’t designed to use.

There are surprising health benefits to kicking off our shoes and letting our feet connect with the ground.

Let’s evaluate this…

Posture

Walking barefoot restores the body to its natural walking position. The shoes of the modern world are laced with technology that supports the heels, provides cushioning, and elevates and depresses the step at varying levels.

Conclusively,

We’re not regulating our steps ourselves. The muscle groups we would have used to keep our spines erect and our gaits strong aren’t being used and thus aren’t as strong as they would have been.

When the small control muscles in the feet have a barrier between them and the ground they’re walking on, it dilutes the information that they send to the larger muscles in the legs, and the messages that are being delivered to the spine.

Walking barefoot improves our natural posture and balance.

Reflex Points

The science of reflexology is simple. There are reflex points on your hands and feet that are able to stimulate nerve and organ functions to help you have more energy, better circulation, to reduce headaches, provide a more restful sleep, and reduced depressive symptoms.

When you walk barefoot, you’re stimulating the reflex points in your feet. Walking barefoot helps to strengthen the muscles in your feet, and is beneficial in activating the foots reflex points.

Negative Ion Charge

The earth has a negative ionic charge. Our bodies are made up mostly of water, around 80% which is an efficient electrical conductor.

Walking barefoot is a great way to connect to the earth’s negative ionic charge. How can this benefit?

Research shows that exposing your body to negative ions, from either the air, sunlight, or the earth, can reduce the symptoms of depression, improve cognitive performance, increase metabolism, regulate circadian rhythms, increase immune function, and promote antimicrobial activity.

Since it isn’t considered safe to walk barefoot in the corporate, urban universe humans have designed, being barefoot often is imperative. Shoes serve to keep our feet warm and to prevent injury, So, whenever possible - in the woods, in your home, on bare grass, at the beach - take off your shoes and connect with the earth.

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