I have always been a shoe
person. As far back as I can remember, I’ve had some kind of shoe on my tender
tootsies, whether it’s the comfortable shoe to walk in, the sexy shoe to go out
in, or the at-home slipper to laze around in. I have liked the sense of
comfort, the seeming strength, the inherent safety of a shod foot. Also, living
in Canada with our cold winters, a cozy slipper is almost imperative.
I remember being shocked
years ago when I read an article written by a dedicated jogger who had taken to
the new trend of running in “barefoot sneakers”, thin runners that are made of
skin-like plastic that are so much like bare feet they sometimes sport
individual toes. These shoes are designed to mimic the actual barefoot
experience without the inherent risks of running with no protection. This was
the first I’d ever read about the supposed advantages of running barefoot—the article
cited all the studies that have proven that the human body is safer when it
does what it was designed to do—ie, running naturally—rather than being
misdirected by all the arch supports and heel adjusters and weight calibrators
of our famous running shoes. The writer waxed on about her own amazing experience
running in these barefoot sneakers: her chronic knee pain had disappeared, she
enjoyed the experience of running so much more, and she was running faster too.
For some reason, this new piece of information lodged itself in my mind and
held my curious, if still shoe-obsessed, attention.
Then a few months ago, as I
mentioned here, I read a fascinating book called The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge. Among his many
other collected bits of neuron-facts, he also mentioned the neural advantages
of the bare foot. Believe it or not, there is an important brain-map in our
feet (for anyone who has ever had reflexology or massage of the foot, this is
probably no surprise), and this brain-map is linked to our gross motor skills.
There is a whole chapter in the book (thanks to intense studies by
neuroscientists like Michael Merzenich) that describes the importance of this
map and how we can redesign the brain, in both good ways and bad, depending on
the kind of stimulation (or lack thereof) that this map gets.
I recalled that old article
about the benefits of barefoot running when I read how Merzenich blamed the
loss of gross motor skills as we age to a decrease in sensory feedback … from
our feet. And why? Because we wear shoes—all the time! Shoes interfere with the
stimuli to our brains that keep us agile and mentally “on our toes”. The
artificial flat surface inside our shoes literally dumbs down the challenges that
uneven, imperfect, unusual surfaces would normally stimulate in these
brain-maps. To add to this, as we get older, we often start using walkers,
canes or crutches, and these further dull any messages our feet might send to
our brains. Then to make it worse, we begin to watch where our feet our going
(ie down stairs or across the room), further dulling this important neural
activity.
The good news is that the
more time we spend barefoot and not watching where our feet are going, the more
we will maintain—and even develop—the brain-map in our feet!
How could I resist this call
to de-shod??? Now I pull off my shoes the moment I get home, and yes, I have even
given up my at-home slipper. And, yes, yes, I do notice a difference. Maybe not
in my gross motor skills, but definitely in the sensual pleasure of feeling the
ground beneath my bare feet. The texture of my smooth kitchen tiles, the grain
of the backyard deck, the warm nubbly-ness of the driveway asphalt. It is
divinely pleasurable. And maybe even a way to get—and stay—smarter and more
agile. I don’t know what will happen when it gets cold again, but I am hoping I
can get used to a be-socked foot and avoid the always be-slippered one. We’ll
see. In the meantime, this is foot for thought.
Deb: Oh how I loved the foot for thought, Barb. Again, you with the
hitting the nail on my head. Or dropping the other shoe. I have always always
been a shoe girl. My friends have teased me about it, my not wanting to be
barefoot. We are right now, up at our beach house rental as we did last year.
And last year at this beach house, my shoe wearing ways were turned on their
ear. I was walking along the beach with sandals on, natch, and suddenly I took
them off and found myself barefoot for the rest of the trip. When I returned
home I found myself barefoot and happy about it. But not all day. At night and
first thing in the morning my moccasins must be worn. I also have a weird thing
that my feet cannot feel too DRY. It gives me the creeps. And if one foot gets
wet and the other is dry, I must get the other one wet or it creeps me out ...
uh oh, I’ve said too much.
