Go Barefoot and Live a Healthy Lifestyle
Picture this! One evening in early March, you go about the last few minutes before bed planning what you are going to do the next day. You have just pulled off your socks, and barefoot for the first time since the morning, you lay out next to your bed the attire you plan to wear the next day. Some hours later, that alarm on your nightstand goes off and craving those few minutes of extra sleep, you hit the snooze one or two times. Finally after battling with your subconscious, you roll out of bed. You pad over to your sink in your bare feet, and wash up, brush your teeth and proceed to get dressed for the day, putting on that jacket and tie, blouse or dress. The time seems to flash by and you realize that you’d better hit the road.
Forgot Your Shoes?
You rush out the door and while waiting for the bus or train, or waiting to receive a package at the UPS office, you casually glance around. Your eyes are drawn to the shmorgasborg of footwear that is surrounding you. A pair of running sneakers paired with ankle socks. Next to that a pair of worn out scuffed up work boots flanked by a pair of jeans. A lady wearing a pair of elegant high heel boots with stockings making her legs appear as they were dipped in a bottle of indian ink. As you shift your stance, you feel your toes bend and as soon as your heel lands softly but unimpeded on the cool pavement, you realize that something is quite not right, but at the same time, it is so right.
You finally force yourself to look down and much to your shock, that your toes are in plain view and between your bare soles and the ground exists nothing in between. Before you tell yourself to snap out of it – it is only your imagination, something brings you back to reality when the lady beside you asks matter-of-factly, “forgot your shoes?”
You look down again and tell yourself that it can’t be. But there are your toes staring back up at you. You feel the pavement underneath get colder as your foot feels the reality underneath. You lift up one foot and turn it in to notice your bare sole, now blackened from having not worn any footwear since the night before.
You put your bare foot back down and look around again to realize that all those looks of those around you – some chuckles, some in shock or slight smiles – are fixed on your bare feet – quite a rare sight!Not even a pair of socks or the most minimalist footwear like flip flops – your feet in the raw! You feel like you’re having one of those nightmares where you are naked in the company of everyone around you that is clothed.
Chances are you may react by clutching the side of your head in disbelief as you utter – “OMG! I can’t believe I forgot to put on my shoes and socks! How was I barefoot this whole time?!”
You are ready to panic and dash home if you are close enough to scramble into your shoes and socks. If you are far from home already, you resign yourself to the fact you’re somewhat naked – stuck in your bare feet while you toggle through your mind looking for first excuse you can find to tell them that you’re going be late for your job or interview – any way to avoid of being seen “GASP” barefoot!
Now rest assured, chances are that since putting on footwear before leaving your home is so routine, it is highly unlikely that this will ever happen to you.
Let’s say it did, however. Another feeling comes over you. You shrug and smile at those around you as if to say, “hey, look at that. I’m barefoot on a cool winter day!” It could actually be fun and you may relish in the fact that while others are bundled up, their feet separated from the outside world in their shoes and socks, here you are experiencing full freedom by feeling the cool ground underneath your bare feet.
I know I do. Many times I’m asked if I forgot my shoes. The question tends to be irrelevant since most of the time I don’t wear shoes or socks at all.
Barefoot as a Healthy Lifestyle
Guys, how many of you enjoy that feeling of getting home after a long day of work, and kicking off your shoes and peeling off those socks? And ladies in those uncomfortable heels, how great a relief is it to relieve your feet of that constraining feeling as well as peeling off those hose! As soon as your feet are breathing and your bare soles hit the floor or carpet, you feel like a new person, right?
Now how about those days when you go to the park or at the beach, you rush to be the first one to ditch your footwear and feel the cool grass under your soles or ocean waves brushing between your toes! Invigorating, right?
Now, just imagine experiencing that relief for an entire day. Your heels, arches, and toes are able happily stretch and breath without the constraints of anything on them. No waiting til you get home to bring your feet back to their natural state – bare – after almost ten nonstop hours in the office, or running around.
