Shoes and Socks Off: How Walking Barefoot in Nature Illuminates Your Frequency

By Carter Trent

Originally published by A Voice For Choice Advocacy on October 10, 2024.

EDITOR’S SUMMARY: Carefree and easygoing with the wind beneath your feet. If you’re “earthing,” underneath your soles you’ll be stepping on grass, dirt, sand, or pebbles. If you think “feeling the energy” of the Earth’s connectivity is “way out,” perhaps you’ll be intrigued by the scientific data that proves preventative health impacts, and benefits to your body’s structural alignment.

You may not think twice about walking barefoot inside your home. Nearly 90% of Americans do this, according to a YouGov poll. But it’s far less common to see someone walk in public without footwear. It’s so unusual in urban society, a movement has grown around the practice, called grounding or earthing. (The two terms are synonymous.) This trend is about more than just taking your shoes off in public. Grounding encompasses the idea that your bare skin touching the natural surface of the Earth, such as grass or sand, is beneficial to your health. And there’s science to back it up. Researchers discovered grounding can boost your immune system, prevent chronic inflammation, and improve your body’s ability to heal from wounds.

A study published in the Journal of Inflammation Research, “The effects of grounding (earthing) on inflammation, the immune response, wound healing, and prevention and treatment of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases,” used medical infrared imaging to confirm patients with chronic inflammation improved healing through earthing. The paper noted:

“Wounds heal very differently when the body is grounded. Healing is much faster, and the cardinal signs of inflammation are reduced or eliminated. The profiles of various inflammatory markers over time are very different in grounded individuals.” 

Earth to Human Connection

This is possible because the planet’s surface is bathed in electrons, which are negatively-charged atomic particles. Walking barefoot allows these electrons to flow from the environment into your body. By doing so, the hypothesis is that these electrons can neutralize the tissue-damaging free radicals that are released as part of your body’s normal cellular activity. Free radicals are molecules made up of an unbalanced number of electrons. They snatch these negatively-charged particles from healthy cells to restore balance, but doing this causes the cells that lost electrons to become out of balance, resulting in inflammation. 

Free radicals can multiply if you’re exposed to pollutants, for example cigarette smoke, pesticides, and car exhaust, as well as from processed meals, such as fast food. If too many free radicals build up in your body, the inflammation they create can lead to serious health conditions, including Parkinson’s disease and cancer. Through grounding, you take in the earth’s electrons to replenish the ones lost to free radicals, restoring balance to your body. As such, walking barefoot acts akin to antioxidants in food. Antioxidants are molecules that block the harmful effects of free radicals by donating electrons to them without becoming free radicals themselves. You can consume antioxidants from foods such as wild blueberries, sweet cherries, pecans, prunes, dark leafy greens, and more.

The planet’s store of electrons is continuously renewed because the Earth possesses an electromagnetic field that acts like an electrical current. This frequency can influence your body’s circadian rhythm, which controls a number of physiological functions. These include your sleep patterns, digestion, and hormone release. By touching the earth with bare feet, you are connecting to the planet’s global electrical current, since the human body is conductive. This has an impact on your brain and nervous system, shifting your brain waves to reduce stress. A paper published in the Biomedical Journal outlined the numerous health benefits of grounding: 

“Researchers have exhaustively looked at the human body while it is connected to the earth, and found that the body goes into a deeply healing state while grounded. We benefit from grounding with a boosted heart rate variability, increased blood perfusion of our tissues, and blood that flows more easily with decreased viscosity. Our immune system function (including immunoglobulins and white blood cells) get a boost, our muscles are more supported during exertion and are less sore afterwards, our brain gets much needed support immediately, with electroencephalogram (EEG) studies of brain activity show that grounding instantaneously shifts our brain wave patterns and reduces ambient stress levels along with supporting deeper, more restorative sleep at night, boosting sleep quality and improving our body's autonomic function through vagal tone support. Grounding even supports our metabolic function as a whole, boosting our basal metabolic rate.”

The same paper noted how earthing can assist with psychological wellness, helping to reduce anxiety and depression. It states: 

“Grounding is a wonderfully uplifting way to balance mood, support the central nervous system, and release chronic inflammation that puts wear and tear on the body and mind. Ongoing research is revealing the full extent that inflammation plays in depression, as higher levels of blood markers of inflammation have been found to be directly correlated with a variety of depressive symptoms, including sleep difficulty, decreased energy levels, decreased motivation and increased or decreased appetite.”

This connection to the earth’s frequency also improves blood flow, making grounding a good practice when eating, since the increased blood flow aids in digestion. Holistic medical practitioner Dr. Laura Koniver described the importance of eating outside while grounded. From Intuition Physician, “Grounding While You Eat, A Game Changer For Your Digestion (+ Freebies)”:

“Grounding has a profound impact on your digestion,” she said, “Boosting your vagal tone (which supports the function of your entire digestive tract, from your esophagus to your colon and everything in between!) while meanwhile directly impacting your ability to feel full and satiated, even enhancing absorption by decreasing inflammation, which also helps with recovery after a meal. From every single angle, eating grounded helps: putting you more deeply in touch with your hunger and satiation, helping you digest and absorb your nutrients better, boosting your metabolism and keeping weight gain at bay, even decreasing discomfort after eating. Even if you eat completely organic, fresh, dairy-free, gluten-free, best-diet-in-the-world you can easily still have irritable bowel issues, or indigestion, or bloating, or pain. That’s because you can’t fully resolve bowel inflammation without being grounded.”

The positive effects of earthing excludes walking on man-made materials, for example, asphalt and vinyl flooring. It also means, ideally, nothing should come between your skin and the earth. As a result, you can’t get the benefits of earthing when you’re barefoot inside a building, or walking in socks outdoors, although there are exceptions. Footwear made of natural materials, such as leather sandals or cotton socks, can enable the benefits of grounding when you are outdoors. This is because these materials can conduct the earth’s electrons and pass them into your body. However, footgear built from man-made materials, such as shoes with plastic in the midsoles, or polyester socks, are not conductive, and block the process of grounding.

Musculoskeletal Impact

Aside from the effects of absorbing electrons through earthing, another important outcome of walking barefoot is its impact on your body’s posture, movement, and balance. Your feet are complex structures composed of 26 bones, 33 joints, and over 100 muscles, tendons, and ligaments working together to bear your weight and move your body. Being barefoot allows all of these parts a natural range of motion that is difficult to replicate inside the confines of shoes. For example, a research study comparing people who habitually walk barefoot against those who are regularly shod (wearing shoes), showed that “Walking barefoot enables increased forefoot spreading under load, and habitual barefoot walkers have anatomically wider feet.” Because the foot structure for those who walk without shoes is different, the study from ScienceDirect, “Barefoot vs common footwear: A systematic review of the kinematic, kinetic and muscle activity differences during walking” noted: 

“Habitual barefoot walkers exhibit lower peak plantar pressures and pressure impulses, whereas peak plantar pressures are increased in the habitually shod wearer walking barefoot. Footwear particularly affects the kinematics and kinetics of gait acutely and chronically.”

The study makes an important point regarding the higher pressure on the plantar fascia in those who wear shoes regularly. The plantar fascia is the tissue at the bottom of your feet that creates the arch. It can become swollen or inflamed from increased pressure, inducing pain or discomfort in your feet. The barefoot walker strikes the ground in a way that leads to reducing the harsh impact of the foot hitting the floor, compared to when walking in shoes. This was identified in the scientific journal, Nature, examining how humans ran for centuries before the arrival of the modern running shoe in the 1970s:

"Habitually barefoot endurance runners often land on the fore-foot (fore-foot strike) before bringing down the heel... In contrast, habitually shod runners mostly rear-foot strike, facilitated by the elevated and cushioned heel of the modern running shoe. Kinematic and kinetic analyses show that even on hard surfaces, barefoot runners who fore-foot strike generate smaller collision forces than shod rear-foot strikers. This difference results primarily from a more plantar-flexed foot at landing and more ankle compliance during impact, decreasing the effective mass of the body that collides with the ground. Fore-foot- and mid-foot-strike gaits were probably more common when humans ran barefoot or in minimal shoes, and may protect the feet and lower limbs from some of the impact-related injuries now experienced by a high percentage of runners." 

Walking barefoot provides the sensory feedback your feet can relay to the brain. The bottom of your feet holds thousands of nerve endings collecting information about the ground you’re walking on. This allows your body to constantly make adjustments to your gait while helping with spatial awareness and balance, providing information to your brain about how to move over the terrain you’re crossing. A study published in Footwear Science validated that the sensory feedback received in the soles of your feet affected how you walked. The paper declared, “Deficits in motor control can be observed with a decrease in plantar sensation.” 

Being barefoot also impacts proprioception, which is your ability to perceive the position, movement, and action of your body, such as the location of joints, muscle force, and the effort required when moving. By going shoeless, your brain receives sensory information that improves proprioception. This in turn affects your ability to maintain balance. Research published in the journal, Age and Ageing, examined proprioception and stability related to feet: 

“Footwear impairs foot position awareness in both young and old. Loss of foot position awareness may contribute to the frequency of falls in later life.”

By moving without shoes, your feet can relay sensory feedback to your body that informs the mechanics of walking. This leads to strengthening both your leg muscles and lower spine. The combination of stronger muscles, and better balance, mobility, and coordination produced by barefoot walking can reduce foot and leg injuries, sprains, and cramps. For example, barefoot movement strengthens your ankles and calves, places where injuries and cramps can occur. This also includes helping you with your body alignment, since poor posture occurs when muscles in your body weaken due to sedentary habits. Walking barefoot is particularly important for children. Not only are their feet developing, research identified basic motor skills are dependent on physical activity performed while barefoot. Children who routinely walked shoeless were found to have better balance than kids who usually wore shoes. 

Grounding’s health benefits sound appealing, but walking barefoot isn’t a matter of simply abandoning your shoes. Valid reasons exist as to why wearing shoes make sense in an urban setting. For example, many stores and restaurants require you to wear shoes. More importantly, the unrelenting hard surfaces of urban environments, such as concrete sidewalks and asphalt streets, can be hard on your body. Walking barefoot on concrete increases the pressure on your plantar fascia compared to walking on grass or carpet. In fact, walking on concrete is the equivalent of adding an extra 12 pounds to your body. This can result in foot problems such as bunions. 

This effect also applies to walking barefoot indoors on a hard surface, such as tile on the kitchen floor of your home. Whether you are walking or standing, your body’s weight is exerting a force on the floor. According to physics, an equal and opposite force pushes back against you, called the ground reaction force. Your bare feet must absorb the impact of the ground reaction force when standing on these hard surfaces, which can increase the stress on your limbs over time. This is why some podiatrists recommend wearing any sort of cushioned footwear indoors. Aleena Kanner, a leading expert on human posture, talked about how a shift to walking barefoot requires some considerations in society’s urbanized surroundings. From “How Postural Restoration Can Help Restore Your Health”:

“It’s been a huge [trend] lately, in the last, I'd say 10 years, to be wearing barefoot minimalist shoes, or no shoes. No shoes is fine if you are out in nature. I love grounding. We all know that there's an exchange of frequency from the earth into our bodies, and that's great if you are outside ... in sand, in grass. However, our society is not built like that. We are not walking outside in grass and sand all the time. We are walking on flat surfaces, and the problem with that is, our feet have arches, and we need to be able to give [them] the proper contact with the ground. It ends up actually just slapping the ground and not creating that proper movement, range of motion in the foot, where we should have pronation, supination, pronation, supination. When we're missing that range and that flow, it can lock up your neck. It can lock up your rib cage.” 

Convene With Nature

The key to grounding is to walk barefoot in nature, as human evolution intended. Walking in natural settings such as grassy fields, or on the sand at the beach, is where you can obtain the benefits of earthing. But if you live in an urban environment without easy access to natural outdoor spaces, what can be done to gain the effects of earthing? Grounding equipment exists, such as grounding mats to sit on, or to use with bed sheets and blankets. These devices are made of a conductive material, such as carbon fiber, woven into the fabric to allow the earth’s electrons to readily pass into your body. They plug into a wall outlet to access the earth’s electrons, and transfer them into your body when you’re indoors. The devices can do this because the electrical wiring in a building includes grounding wires that send excess electricity from your appliances outside, and into the ground as a safety feature to prevent electrical shocks and fires. A device such as a grounding mat uses these wires to pick up the earth’s electrons from outside and bring them to you inside. And in case you were wondering, they don’t use electricity.

These grounding devices can replicate the health benefits from walking barefoot outside. A publication in the Journal of Cosmetics, Dermatological Sciences and Applications found grounding mats, pillows, and patches improved blood flow to the face over patients who did not use such devices. One study published in the Open Journal of Preventive Medicine showed test subjects using grounding mats for yoga saw improved blood viscosity over those who employed a typical yoga mat. Blood viscosity is a measure of how well your blood flows through your veins. It’s seen as a predictor of whether you’re at risk of developing a chronic disease because blood carries oxygen and nutrients throughout your body.

If you prefer a natural alternative to grounding mats, at this time, scientific studies verifying the effectiveness of a natural substitute are lacking. So check any claims that using an alternate substance, such as diatomaceous earth, can provide grounding benefits for research-backed verification before believing such claims. Another consideration to keep in mind is that your feet take time to become accustomed to walking barefoot, particularly if you’ve spent a lifetime in shoes. Start by walking barefoot for short sessions of about 15 minutes, and on a lawn to help your feet get accustomed to the wave of sensory input you’re now experiencing.

If you still harbor doubts about going barefoot, just look at Abebe Bikila as an example of its effectiveness. He ran barefoot in the 1960 Olympic marathon, and won the gold medal. This demonstrates your connection to the earth can fortify you, like in the Greek myth of Antaeus the giant who was invincible so long as he remained in contact with the ground. Kick off your shoes and bare your sole to feel the difference a barefoot walk in nature can make. And if you’re wondering about grounding in nature through your hands or body, in addition or instead of your bare feet only, yes that is a viable choice for grounding. Push your hands into the rich soil while gardening, or dig a hole, scoop out sand crabs, and build sand castles at the beach with your kids. Lay on fresh grass in your shorts, or roll up your pants to expose skin. Go for a cold plunge (no, it doesn’t have to be cold water, but you’ll get added therapeutic benefits if it is) in a river, lake, or ocean. 

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