Why you should walk barefoot: It's not only pleasant, it can be healthy too!

Walking barefoot helps exercise your foot muscles, and even helps your neck, back and spine. — dpa

Walking barefoot on a sandy beach or grass feels great, doesn’t it?

It isn’t only pleasant, it’s healthy too.

The reason is that “you train your foot muscles when you go barefoot,” says orthopaedist Dr Matthias Manke.

Particularly, the muscles in the soles of your feet are activated.

This is important because “if you don’t train them, they atrophy,” he points out.

What’s more, your feet have many free nerve endings that provide sensory feedback to your body.

This, together with stronger foot muscles, improves foot mechanics, which can improve the mechanics of your knees, hips and core, and balance and posture, as well as reduce pain in your lumbar spine region, back and neck.

And not only that: Heel spurs – the often-painful bony growths where the heel bone connects to the plantar fascia – frequently result from untrained foot muscles.

So walking barefoot can help prevent them.

For these reasons, Dr Manke says, young children should preferably walk around without first-walker shoes and socks, helping their feet to develop naturally.

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While walking barefoot is generally recommended for everyone, there are some exceptions.

One is for people with polyneuropathy – the simultaneous malfunction of many peripheral nerves in which feeling in your feet is reduced or lost.

“The injury risk is then high, since you don’t feel damage to your feet,” Dr Manke says.

Diabetics need be careful as well.

And if you’re not used to going barefoot, you shouldn’t go all out straight away and shun shoes all day.

“You should approach it gradually,” he says, for instance, by confining it at first to sandy beaches and grass.

You don’t have to graduate to total shoelessness, of course.

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But your feet need a mix of going barefoot and wearing shoes, according to Dr Manke, which he says is why he doesn’t put on slippers when he’s at home.

There’s also a middle ground, namely, “barefoot shoes”.

They have a very thin and flexible sole, no heel drop, and a wide toe box that you can wiggle your toes in.

As Dr Manke explains, “barefoot shoes are meant to protect your feet on rough ground, but make your feet work at the same time”. – dpa