Shoeless Joy

Barefoot and Healthy

By Anna Lovelace

For those who live far from beaches, walking barefoot on sun-kissed sand in the tropics is one of the daydreams that fortifies people through cold winters and long workdays. Be it part of one’s daily routine or a vacation non-negotiable, walking barefoot on sand is pleasurable and can be scientifically explained. Shoeless walking stimulates the thousands of nerve endings found in the feet and, in turn, these benefits work their way back up the body to the brain. This communication between foot and cerebrum helps improve neural plasticity while maintaining a healthy mind-body connection. The meditative sensation of sand squeezing between toes while walking through ocean waves washes away anxious thoughts and is enough to lower the heart rate.  If you're on a salty beach, the water also contains a multitude of healthy minerals like magnesium, potassium and iodine, many of the minerals are used in topical anti-aging products. But could there be something more profound to long walks on the beach? What lies underneath the footprints left in the sand? 

"Grounding"

“Grounding” or “earthing” is the understanding that having direct contact with the earth’s surface has major health benefits to our well-being. The science is simple. Life as we know it operates on electricity. Our atmosphere metabolizes electrical currents received from the sun, turning it into usable energy. Our very heartbeat is the rhythmic exchange of electric impulses, and the cells making up our organism use ionic signaling to communicate and to function. All of this excess energy that circulates through our body on a daily basis exits our system through our feet where it is absorbed back into the ground. 

But what if our bare feet are not in direct contact with the ground?

The Earthing Movie is a free documentary on YouTube that uncovers the scientific phenomenon of how connecting bare feet to Earth’s plane can heal and regulate our bodies. Clint Ober, one of the leaders of the grounding movement makes a bold statement in the film, "take your shoes off, they [might] make you sick". Contrary to the modern-day human attire, bare feet used to be the norm. Now we are rediscovering that not only is it a return to our most natural state, but having direct contact to the ground also helps to maintain a balance in our bodies. As a society, we have circled back to this knowledge of grounding due to a rise in inflammation-related diseases. Grounding has proven itself as a powerful and non-invasive treatment in the reduction of inflammation within our body. 

Why are We So Inflamed?

But this begs question, why are we so inflamed? 

Part of the answer could be traced back to the 1960s when the shoe manufacturing industry stumbled upon a synthetic leather substitute that allowed shoes to be rapidly and massively produced. While this was good news for footwear businesses, the cost to the consumer was unforeseen. These new fabricated materials act as insulators, blocking the capacity for electrically charged particles to leave the body. 

To add fuel to fire, the current Information Age has heightened the use and production of computers and cell phones, which depend on and release electromagnetic fields as a byproduct of their usage. These EMFs can be absorbed by our bodies, leading to symptoms like fatigue, headache, decreased learning ability and, you guessed it, inflammation. So not only have we blocked off the natural process for our system to release excess ions, but we have amplified the electricity we encounter on a daily basis. We have constructed the perfect electrical storm inside our very own bodies.  

While having a singular thing to blame for all our problems may feel better, we wouldn’t be the intelligent beings we claim ourselves to be if we credited our illnesses to a pair of fake rubber soles. Rather, this current predicament of walking along Earth’s surface while remaining completely disconnected to Earth itself can be a wake-up call. A reminder of our humanity. A reckoning that no matter how much we revolutionize and digitalize the human experience, we are still flesh and bone. A remembering of the natural, and a returning to the simple. And it can all start by taking off our shoes and placing toes into tierra. 

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Anna Lovelace is writer, massage therapist, and photographer in the Manuel Antonio area. She writes short story science-fiction pieces, articles around wellness and awakening, and poetry. Her writing can be found by subscribing to her blog, Thoughts on Being, on Substacks.   

Her wellness practices and community events are posted on the Instagram, @wellness.ma.