You know that exhausted, tired feeling after a long day of standing on your feet? You come home and immediately kick your shoes off and peel off your tired old socks. Ahhh, now that’s relief. You even feel a little bit lighter and brighter in spirit once you have shed these articles of clothing.
I’m taking a short detour from forensics and the criminal mind because I’ve received some funny comments recently about the quirky fact that I like to write barefooted. It’s true and I never thought too much about it until it was pointed out numerous times to me recently. When I’m writing in my home office, I do so without shoes or socks. Why you ask? The only answer I can convey is that I like it. I feel more relaxed and ideas seem to flow easier.
Once something grabs hold of my curious mind, I can’t seem to let it go until I’m satisfied with the answer. I began to think about the “barefoot syndrome” and here are a few things that I found out that I wanted to share.
There’s actually a society called Society for Barefoot Living founded 1994 with over 1,400 members from around the world. Here’s a quote from their homepage, “Set your feet free and your mind will follow…”
According to an article written in the New York Magazine, we walk wrong and we’re hurting our feet by wearing shoes. This immediately caught my attention and I probed a little bit further in this phenomenon to find out exactly why.
“Natural gait is biomechanically impossible for any shoe-wearing person,” wrote Dr. William A. Rossi in a 1999 article in Podiatry Management. “It took 4 million years to develop our unique human foot and our consequent distinctive form of gait, a remarkable feat of bioengineering. Yet, in only a few thousand years, and with one carelessly designed instrument, our shoes, we have warped the pure anatomical form of human gait, obstructing its engineering efficiency, afflicting it with strains and stresses and denying it its natural grace of form and ease of movement head to foot.”
There are definite health benefits to going barefoot. I was amazed to find out that my quirky habit when I write actually has some scientific merit to it. Think about all of the cultures and martial arts disciplines that involve being barefoot.
Kicking off your shoes can actually:
- Keep your feet properly exercised, agile, and in shape. Stronger feet help to make a stronger body. Wearing shoes can actually make your feet lazy and potentially increase the risk of injury.
- Fight varicose veins by improving circulation.
- Relax the body and mind. It changes the mindset that we associate when we’re wearing shoes.
I don’t know if I’m ready to toss all my shoes for the barefoot lifestyle, but I know that when I’m writing I feel more relaxed and ready to take on any challenge with ease.
What do you think? Are you going to go barefoot more often?
* * *
Author Jennifer Chase 
I love going barefoot, inside. I live in the deep south and between the centipede grass, cow ants and red ants you just don’t go barefoot around here. First thing I do when I get home if kick the shoes off. 🙂
LikeLike
I agree with Neeks on this one. I live in Tennessee and it doesn’t pay to run the proverbial streets barefoot. Now with that said, I enjoy the feeling of being sans footware and wouldn’t wear anything on my feet while at home. 🙂
LikeLike
Ha! Right on, sister! I allllllways write barefoot. If I have shoes on, my brain goes into hibernation. About halfway through the day, the bra goes as well. Ahhhh…freedom!! Nothin’ like it! Great write, as always!
LikeLike
If you live in a climate where bare feet start to ice up, I’ve found Indian moccasins, the real ones, the next best thing to bare.
LikeLike
Jennifer, it’s Saturday morning and I am sitting down to write, with my shoes on. I am thinking about being barefoot, though. Fun blog.
LikeLike
While I don’t recommend going barefoot for walks or for elliptical workouts, I love doing circuit training without my shoes! I feel so much more balanced doing squats, etc. and my personal trainer cousin says that it works additional muscles. I loved learning that the Society for Barefoot Living exists; what an interesting post!
LikeLike
Barefoot is great, and I often do it. Did it a lot as a child (I grew up in Egypt and that’s a hot climate!) but I have to say that for children at least there is a definite shortcoming: it spreads out the sole of your feet (since it’s not contained by shoes). As a result, I tend to have feet that are wide like a duck’s, ha ha!
LikeLike
Many moons ago I played the drums in a working rock band. I always played barefoot. (But I kept my shoes close by the stage…it was very unwise to walk around the dives we used to play in sans footwear.
Like Christina mentioned, I am also in a climate where the toes freeze in the winter, but in the summer, I will take the laptop out on the back patio and get some words down.
LikeLike
Pingback: 5 Interesting Links for 3-2-2012 | Tales to Tide You Over
Pingback: 5 Interesting Links for 3-2-2012 | Tales to Tide You Over