Good morning! I hope you are well!
Many people suffer from hip, leg and foot pain which can be caused by too little movement in that area. Each muscle pulls blood from the heart as it needs it, while the muscle is in motion. However if the muscle is sedentary the heart has to push blood to the muscle. Being sedentary puts a severe strain on the heart muscle and increases your risk for heart attack, stroke and heart disease.
The easiest way to stimulate circulation is to go for a walk around the neighborhood or around the outside of your house. This will allow an increase in blood flow to your lower body due to the movement. However there is still one issue to discuss in terms of circulation. What movement is the foot getting if it is held inside of a shoe all day long? None.
My solution to this is going on barefoot walks around my house to stimulate circulation in the feet, this is called earthing. I go for a barefoot walk between 4 and 5 a.m. because the air at this time has higher negative ion content which increases the quality of the air. I also take a barefoot walk in the evening. Both of these walks are 20 minutes for me this week. I will increase to 25 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening next week. During this walk try to focus on your breathing, it helps with the uncomfortableness of walking barefoot for the first few times.
adult size feet isolated on white background
There are 200,000 nerve endings in the feet, 100 bones and 30 joints. While walking barefoot your feet are able to move all of these crucial pieces. The variability of terrain when walking on grass is great to get the parts of the foot moving. This stimulates blood flow throughout the entire body. Increased circulation gives you added energy, increased detoxifying power, increased mobility, decreased risk of heart problems and many other wonderful benefits.
When the foot is inside of a shoe or sock for 100% of the time the foot starts to form to the shape of the shoe/sock due to lack of mobility caused by the same terrain each and every single day. Just like in diet, moderation is a key in everything else too, including walking. You should try to walk on different surfaces other than flat concrete (this is unnatural for our DNA). We were equipped to walk on rugged terrain and now that we aren’t doing this, our bodies are trying to send us a message in the form of pain.
We were not designed to wear shoes; we were designed to be barefoot.
Thank you for reading!
Take care! God Bless!
Dirk
Mindfulmessenger 