Barefoot Medicine
Friday May 20 2005 15:30 IST
“People do better when they're free,
and the foot does better when it’s free.’’
— Dr Lynn Staheli, Director of Orthopedics, Children’s Medical Center, Seattle
Have you noticed how the floor in some homes, humble mosaic though it may be, always feels wonderfully clean and satiny when you walk barefoot on it? Well, you can bet almost anything that the reason for this is because its residents mostly go barefoot inside the house and have been doing so for a long, long time. Which is also why the simple red oxide floors in so many traditional South Indian homes are like maroon silk, so beautifully smooth that no modern day tile can match it. You can sleep, live, even eat off that floor. Now, while this might be a good reason for me to propound the practice of walking barefoot, it's not the most important one. Which is that walking barefoot is a simple but very effective way to keep healthy.
Sounds ridiculous? Okay, hang on and let me prove it to you.
For most of us, our feet are not things that we pay much attention to. Women do when they paint and pamper and bejewel them, because pretty feet are a measure of feminine beauty. But healthwise, the only time we pay attention to our feet — as with many other parts of our body — is when they begin to hurt. The fact of the matter is that the human foot is such a complex and vital part of the human body that it has been called an organ. According to Chinese medicine, each organ in the body is represented — through around 300 nerves — to a specific point on each foot. Massaging these reflex points — a system of therapy called reflexology — is used to help stimulate vital functions, eliminate toxins, activate blood circulation and ease nervousness. In Ayurveda, the padabhyanga or foot massage is used to relieve insomnia, improve circulation and fertility, and energise the belly, pelvis and colon.
However, modern medicine also acknowledges the role of the feet in good health. Anatomically, the indications are many. Twenty five per cent of all bones, 52 to be precise, are in the feet, not to mention 33 muscles, 31 joints and over 100 ligaments, along with 250,000 sweat glands, more per square inch than anywhere else in the body. These release nearly a cup of moisture every day to keep the skin moist and supple. All coming together to make two delicately complex, sophisticated bits of mechanical engineering, which will probably carry you across some 45,000 miles by the time you are 35! That’s a lot of wear and tear, but what we don’t realise is that if your feet aren’t in good condition, many other parts of your body are going to start packing up.
And all you have to keep your feet, and much else of you, in great shape is to walk barefoot!
But first, a true story. Karl Mueller, a Swiss engineer, suffered from chronic and acute pain because of a bad back, bad knees and weak Achilles tendons. He tried everything in the book. Needless to say, nothing worked. Except that he noticed that the pain eased when he walked barefoot on uneven ground around the paddy fields in South Korea, where he was at the time. When the pain lessened, he decided to design a shoe that would mimic the effect of walking barefoot. Mueller named the shoes after the Masai tribe in Kenya, the magnificently tall, elegantly gaited warrior herdsmen who are known to walk distances of over 100 kms barefoot, because of which they suffer no back or joint problems. Ironically, the name is ‘‘Masai Barefoot Technology’’.
Today, almost 10 years later, the MBT shoes are almost a cult in the West. The European Union has declared them a Grade 1 medical device, doctors recommend them to treat and prevent back, hip, leg and foot problems. Sports therapists and body trainers use it improve posture, strengthen the back, tone and slim legs, stomach and buttocks, even knock off offending cellulite! One claim even goes so far to say that one hour of walking in a pair of MBTs is equivalent to three hours of hard exercise at the gym.
The thing is, we are designed to walk barefoot, and for millions of years we did.Then we decided to wear footwear, which was okay with open sandals and slippers, but then shoes came along. Again, this was not a bad thing, until they changed to fashion accessories and symbols of power, wealth and fashion, because of which the ill-fitting shoe was born.
Today, millions of us squash our feet into ill-fitting, poorly ventilated shoes or high-heeled footwear. Worse still, we make our children wear them. To top that, we walk less and mostly on hard, smooth surfaces like urban concrete. This means that many critical parts of our musculo-skeletal system — the feet, ankles, spine, pelvis — which should be flexible and supple, become painfully rigid and prone to displacement.
But the good news is that what costs Westerners an exorbitant Rs 6,000-7,000 a pair is free for us. You see, barefoot walking is an old Indian tradition, and we’ve all done it at some time or another. It’s time to do it again. Because walking barefoot, preferably on uneven ground, is equivalent to having your entire spine, pelvis and legs gently and constantly massaged, keeping it well irrigated with blood, flexible and supple—everything that the MBT shoe claims to do.
Specifically, walking barefoot helps prevent or alleviate:
(a) Back ache — One of the most common and probably the most disabling disease. According to one estimate, between 50 to 75 per cent of adults suffer from it;
(b) Flat feet — When the arch of the foot falls, it becomes the main root of many chronic and painful leg, pelvis and back problems;
(c) Varicose veins; (d) Damaged or slipped spinal discs; (e) Athlete’s foot — A fungal infection causing itching scaling, inflammation, pain and blisters, usually caused by closed, poorly ventilated footwear. (f) Achilles tendonitis — Inflammation of the tendon that attaches to the back of the heel bone, an ailment Karl Mueller suffered from. (g) Corns, hammer toes, calluses, blisters, ingrown toenails and bunions.
And believe it or not, many barefoot enthusiasts claim that it improves your resistance against cold and similar infections, recommending that 15 minutes of barefoot walking on a cool, moist lawn is sufficient to the keep your feet wonderfully warm all night long!
The wonderful bonus of barefoot walking is that you will have great looking feet and legs! And your walk will be naturally graceful and elegant — like a Masai warrior! Not to mention a general feeling of well-being and fitness evident in the spring in your step.
In many cultures, like our own, the feet have social and religious significance. To bare the feet is a sign of respect and courtesy. We do so before entering a place of worship or, as is still the tradition in much of India, a home. We touch the feet to pay obeisance, even to beg for forgiveness. In Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism, the feet of the Divine are worshipped as the lotus feet, where the devotee craves and seeks Divine bliss.
So after you read this article, take off your footwear and look at your feet. These are the seat of a vibrant, healthy and active life. These are your constant connection with Mother Earth. Would you not want to touch that beautiful bountiful Mother with your bare skin every now and then? But I put it badly. In the words of a barefoot bhakt, John M Harder: ‘‘Why hike barefoot? Because it is an exercise in reverence, vulnerability and respect in which we humbly admit to our dependence on the earth for our very existence. It symbolises our willingness to open up instead of being closed to the natural world around us. Maybe in this exercise, we will begin to realise our interconnectedness to the whole of life and to each other.’’
Abebe Bikila was an Ethiopian shepherd who ran the marathon in the 1960 Rome Olympics — barefoot. Not only did he win the gold medal, he shattered the world record.
Zola Budd was only 16 when, in 1984, she shattered the 5000 m world record, more than six seconds faster than Mary Decker's existing record. She did it barefoot.
At the Olympic Training Center in California, America’s fastest runners always warm up and cool down barefoot, for many reasons. Firstly, it’s been found that shoes over time desensitise the tiny sensors in the feet, which eventually grow lazy and weak, affecting the entire leg and leading to serious, chronic injuries and strains. ‘‘You see a lot of athletes with great engines but flat tires,’’ says an Olympic coach, Brooks Johnson. ‘‘Barefoot running quickly pumps the tires back up.’’ Secondly, research shows that the fastest runners move in a way very similar to that of a person running without shoes. So it might just help you to crack that gold medal!
Even if you don’t, let your children go barefoot for at least some part of each day, because they’re the ones that benefit the most. Here’s an extract from a 1992 study by Udaya Bhaskara Rao and Benjamin Joseph in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. ‘‘The incidence of flat feet among children (4-13 years old) who used footwear was three times as much as among those who didn’t. In Europe and America, flat feet are a common reason for attendance at children’s orthopaedic clinics. In India, children are seldom treated for flat feet. The few children who are come from affluent urban families and wear shoes. In our clinic, we have never seen a child from the farming community or from the family of a manual labourer who complained of flat feet. We suggest that children should be encouraged to play unshod and that slippers and sandals are less harmful than closed-toe shoes.’’
