The Case for Going Barefoot

Ditching the socks & shoes may be the simplest "health hack" there is

I’m here to pick a fight with the old adage “No Shoes, No Service.” Yes, that motto is probably appropriate for most restaurants and other public places, but it seems to have stuck in our collective minds as a way of life. Socks, boots, Crocs. Flip-flops, sandals, Birkenstocks. Constant footwear these days is rampant, as if our feet couldn’t possibly withstand exposure to the elements for more than a few moments. But in reality, keeping the feet guarded and constantly tucked-in is doing our health a major disservice.

The first thing I do when I return home from a work day is immediately take off my shoes and socks. My feet have been stuck inside those cotton coffins & tight-fitting shoes all day, and it always feels good to strip them down and set them free. But I do this not just because of the feel-good sense of relief, but because I know that going barefoot is one of the simplest “health hacks” one can do.

So many intricacies and moving parts in each foot

You see, there is much more to the feet and toes than the eye can see. Each foot is home to 26 bones, 35 joints, and more than 100 ligaments and muscles. That’s quite a lot of moving parts for such a small surface area. But not only that, the bottoms of our feet especially are loaded with proprioceptors, tiny little nerve receptors that are constantly taking in information from the external environment (the ground) and communicating that information all the way up to our brain. This is how we stay balanced and coordinate movement throughout space.

Each foot actually houses over 7,000(!) nerve endings, which is more than any other body part, even more than our hands, which are our primary means of interacting with the external world!

All of that is incredible, so it makes it all the more alarming when we realize we spend the majority of our time not going barefoot. As much as we like to think the contrary, our bodies are “use it or lose it” machines. Just like if we don’t workout or strength train our muscles will atrophy, so too will the proprioceptors of our feet if we don’t regularly exercise them by exposing them to various tactile stressors.

Our feet and brain are in constant communication via our CNS

Covering our feet suffocates those proprioceptors, not allowing them to read the external stimuli of the ground below us and effectively transmit that information to our brains as they were intended to. Socks and shoes also cramp and crowd our toes, which are supposed to naturally splay wide when pushing into the ground. This is essentially decreasing our capacity for coordination, balance, and overall athleticism day by day. Later on down the road, this degradation could manifest into nagging pain and injuries in other joints further up our bodies and set us up for falls, which can have devastating effects for the elderly.

So why would we choose to constantly have our feet covered up, depriving all of those precious proprioceptors from doing what they’re designed to do? You wouldn’t go about your day with layers of mittens on your hands, would you? That wouldn’t make much sense, because we wouldn’t be able to feel and interact with the world. Yet we’ve normalized always wearing something on our feet (shoes all day at work, socks and/or slippers at home), which we now know are even more vital to how we feel and interact with the world.

That is why I encourage everyone to ditch the shoes and socks whenever possible. Yes, you’ll most likely need to keep those feet covered while at work, but all other times should be considered barefoot mandatory. Why not make it a point to try and expose the bottoms of your feet to as many different stimuli as possible? The hardwood, carpet, and rug textures in the house. The concrete, grass, and gravel around the house. Sand, dirt, mud, mulch, you name it. This is exercise. Exercise that is keeping those proprioceptors sharp and communicating efficiently, strengthening the arches and other intrinsic muscles, as well as loosening up all the tissue around the numerous bones and ligaments that will keep our feet feeling good and moving well.

You’ll even get bonus health benefits from going barefoot outside, as you’ll be engaging with earthing or grounding, whereby your feet soak up the free electrons from the Earth’s surface. Doing so has been shown to decrease full-body inflammation and lower cortisol levels, which in turn boosts our immune system and physical recovery. Being without shoes will also encourage a more upright body position, improving posture and helping to alleviate joint and back pain.

So, show some love to your feet. Quit suffocating them. Quit guarding them from experiencing the world as they were designed to. Once you free them, you’ll experience a myriad of benefits and never go back to the old ways of shoving those beautifully designed structures into man-made toe tombs.