Walking barefoot without wearing any shoes not only feels soothing and relaxing but also has a lot of benefits for your heart health, blood pressure. This is also known as grounding as this practice believes that it helps us connect to the Earth’s surface and restore a natural electrical balance in the body. Walking or working out barefoot has numerous benefits like reduced pain and inflammation, improved sleep, immunity, decreased stress levels and enhances overall well-being of a person.
Walking barefoot provides you better control of the foot position and reduces the pressure of heel strike on the ground by your feet. This help to improve the foot arch, strengthen the muscles and ligaments of the feet and leg.
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Here are few health benefits of walking barefoot:
- Prevents plantar fasciitis
The direct touch of our foot to the surface improves foot arch and lessens the chances of developing flat feet by improving the strength of the muscles and ligaments that prevents from a condition called plantar fasciitis. Plantar fasciitis is an inflammation of the fibrous tissue along the bottom of your foot that connects your heel bone to your toes. It causes intense heel pain.
- Improves sensory feedback
Another benefit of walking barefoot is that helps to improve sensory feedback as there are a number of nerve endings on the feet that are directly exposed to the stimuli. This increases body awareness, proprioception, and balance.
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- Improves circadian rhythm
Circadian rhythm is the 24-hour internal clock in our brain that regulates cycles of alertness and sleepiness and behavioural changes like sleep, hormones, body temperature, emotions, etc. Walking barefoot improves the circadian rhythm.
- Improves sensory-motor development
Walking barefoot on different surfaces like grass, sand, soil, and hard surface like floors improves our sensory-motor development.
- Decreases stress on the ankle
Another benefit of walking barefoot is it helps to maintain the normal range of motion of the ankle and feet. This decreases stress on the ankle, knee, and hip.