For many, the feet are still a neglected part of the body. We wash the feet, make sure the nails are neat, perhaps remove some calluses and often that’s it. But the feet reflect the entire body and also carry us throughout life. Although they often don’t get it, they deserve much more.

Anatomical

The foot normally has 26 bones and 33 joints. These are held together by 107 ligaments and 19 muscles and tendons. The foot has 250,000 sweat glands, which together secrete just under 3 dl of fluid. That may put the well-known sweaty foot into perspective.The feet take an average of 9,000 to 10,000 steps per day, which means we take an average of 185,000 to 190,000 steps, which means you walk around the earth almost 4 times.

To feel

We find feeling difficult by definition, because feeling involves emotion and we find emotion difficult. Especially when we don’t have our emotions completely under control. Moreover, the foot is hardly trained anymore, because we wear shoes all day long. Yet it is good for the feet if they immediately feel all the different surfaces and it is absolutely good for children’s feet.

Forefoot

Most complaints are attributed to the forefoot. This often has to do with shoes that are too small or narrow in which we wrap our feet. We ignore the fact that the Italian narrow last is not suitable for the average Dutch foot. We like the shoe, the size is right (and we often barely look at the last) and so we buy the shoe. The size is more than the number in the shoe, the width is also very important and yet we often ignore that, with all the consequences that entails.In addition to sweaty feet, everyday complaints about the feet often also involve corns, ingrown toenails and heavy feet, which can be related to fatigue but also to sagging feet.

No casing

So take off that shoe and walk with your bare feet. In some wellness resorts you already have special pebble or shell paths and that takes some getting used to for most people, because our feet are absolutely not adapted to that. But you can also do it closer to home, take off your shoes at home and walk barefoot in the house (wood, fabric, plastic, concrete, etc.) and outside (stones, gravel, grass, earth, etc.). This will definitely take some getting used to at first, but your feet will get used to it soon enough.Besides the fact that it will feel good for the feet for a while, it also improves posture. Your back is relieved and the muscles in your feet become more flexible and can ultimately withstand more .

Seek out nature at your feet

If you go one step further, you can also follow one of the various barefoot paths. These are routes that deliberately have all kinds of surfaces and in addition to moss, grass, forest floor and leaves, you also walk through mud, you walk on different types of sand or heath. Search the internet for barefoot path and many will appear, there is one in everyone’s neighborhood.

Finally

There are even experts who say that running barefoot is better than wearing sneakers. When running in shoes, you do not use your entire foot, because you land on your heel. On bare feet you use your forefoot more, but you often use the entire foot.Whatever you do, using the foot more, allowing it to feel more and varying it, is simply better for the foot. Once you’ve done it a few times, you often don’t want to do anything else. Addictive according to several barefoot runners.