On the feet rests the entire weight of our body and our walking pivots on them. They also play an important role on all our movements, since we pivot on them.

However, footwear, in addition to rarely being well shaped on the feet (the shape of which varies from person to person, and often from right to left in the same person), takes away their sensitivity, and based on what was said earlier, it is easy to imagine how much this can be reflected in a chain of delicate muscular and skeletal balances in our body.

The footprint of a normal foot should be roughly triangular in shape, with a vertex corresponding to the heel, whereas shoes usually have a tapered shape anteriorm

entity, that is, the opposite of the natural geometry of the foot. The compression resulting from this on the toes, the blocking of any movement of them, causes the muscles of the toes to weaken. This completely changes the correct balance of the whole body, whose center of gravity shifts forward, with negative effects on the bones of the entire skeleton. This situation is worsened with women’s high-heeled shoes, as the weight of the body, instead of bearing on the heel, which should normally carry most of the load, shifts to the much more delicate finger bones, resulting in fatigue, even to the point of causing forms of arthritis or arthrosis.

Walking barefoot, in addition to properly exercising the foot muscles and promoting proper load distribution, promotes perspiration (the sole of the foot

has among the highest concentrations of sweat glands in the entire body), produces a reflexological massage that positively stimulates the entire body, promotes blood circulation in the lower limbs and, consequently, that of the entire body.

A final but not insignificant aspect, in this case biophysical, of the barefoot is that in direct contact with the ground, there is an equalization of the body’s electrical potential with that of the ground: our body’s bioelectric mechanisms already naturally tend, particularly in pathological situations, to create imbalances of electrical charge. Further cause of accumulation of electrical charges is given by the insulating effect of the shoe that forms, in practice, an electrical capacitor, or rather, even an electrostatic machine of which our body is one of the poles. This phenomenon has also been noticed by shoe manufacturers who have tried to remedy it by inserting copper wires into the sole, which are supposed to discharge the accumulated electrostatic energy to the ground: with mediocre results, since, having consumed the thin copper straw going to the ground, the body remains insulated again. The effects of such electrostatic imbalances are manifold, first and foremost on the nervous system: closing the circuit to the ground may not be sufficient to completely eliminate all problems, but it can certainly improve the situation regarding states of anxiety, stress and depression.

Source: Wikipedia