Your Feet Are Giant Sensors (And You’ve Been Ignoring Them!)

Hello and welcome. Adam Thomas from Balancing Touch Reflexology. So good to see you and thanks for joining me today. Today I want to share how our feet are forgotten and the importance of the feet and at the end I want to share a little exercise with you. So come along and I'll share the importance of our feet. So, I'm a little bit biased on this, but our feet are one of the most remarkable parts of our body, packed with thousands of nerve endings, and they act as sensors, continually sending messages from our feet to our brain and then back again to the ground below. There's this messaging that keeps going on and we forget that they are sensors. They let us know if we didn't have our eyes, our feet would still be able to sense the world as we go, right? And that's what they're doing. They're feeling the ground because we're not looking down directly at the ground when we're walking. So our feet, we don't realize this too much cuz we just walk and we look with our eyes or if we're even doing that nowadays now, we're looking at our cell phones as we're walking. But um we don't stare down at our feet and our feet somehow we are able to walk and navigate as we go. The modern foot dilemma though is that we these sensors on our feet and you know the communication between the brain and the feet is getting a little bit dulled because we put things like shoes. We put layers of rubber and foam between our feet and the ground. And so this creates an issue. And another issue too is that we're walking on like surfaces that are all flat, even stairs, right? They look like they're, you know, a hill or whatever, but if you think about it, it's just flat land that's moved perfectly up and down. And the the spacing is all completely even. And that doesn't exist in nature. if we didn't have, you know, the modern uh world that we're living in, right? So, our feet are we have all these joints and and you know, bones in our feet like we and they're meant for movement, but yet we're not stimulating them and moving them like we should be because we've created this really comfortable world that we live in, right? Our shoes are so comfortable and, you know, everything's all, you know, cuddly and cozy and stuff like that, but it does create some problems. So, just to show you how important our feet really are, like as babies, our feet are carefully monitored by medical professionals to see if the senses are are working properly, right? There's a thing called the Babinsky reflex test. For example, they'll take the baby's foot and they'll push in um sort of the the K1 area here and the toes will curl and then they'll go over on the pinky side and push here right here. I'll show you like that. And then the toes will open and spread again. So they'll do this to close and they'll push over here to expand. And if this is working properly, that gives the medical professional Oh, okay. check their nervous system is working as it should. Doctors are looking at this. They know the feet are so important and you know it's just a little simple test but it really gives so much information as to how related the nervous system is to our feet. So then we grow up and we stuff our feet into shoes and we go walking around and on even surfaces and then some of the surfaces are a little bit, you know, maybe moved up from a tree route or something and it's just a little bit off, but we catch our foot and we trip and we may fall and, you know, break a hip or something like that. But those little examples are not that uncommon where we're so used to an even walking on surfaces that don't challenge our feet at all that when there's a little bit of a challenge, it's can be a big disaster for some of us, right? And so having exercises and working our feet is just really really important. And as a reflexologist, it's I think it's great to be to understand a bunch of foot exercises and to have the basic concept that our feet are sensors, right? We forget about this. We just think our feet are a whole bunch of anatomy and and all these things. But on a fundamental level, our feet are sensors. They give us information about what is what we're walking and moving through, right? So to have this basic concept and to pass this on to clients I think is unbelievable. So having exercises or things that you can do to give to clients to enhance your reflexology um is going to be a great benefit because in reflexology reflexology doesn't fix every problem out there. It helps relax. It helps you know stress relief. It helps a whole bunch of stuff but it doesn't fix all of our problems. But having things like exercises on the side and understanding what these exercises do or methods to expand uh foot health is going to be really really um a benefit for you there. So, how can we reaw awaken these um our foot sensors that have basically gone blind, right? Um and the good news is not with a lot of effort, we can regain a lot of um these sensors and this the movement and these little tiny things that have gone um asleep basically, right? So, just to wake them up again. One um tip here is to go barefoot. So spending time walking barefoot in your house is great. Um if you have a yard that you feel comfortable or anywhere outside uh where you can get a little bit more stimulation, going to the beach is fantastic. You also notice too um I noticed this when I was on the beach. I right away took off my um socks and shoes and I was just like, "Oh yeah, let's get my feet working." And if you walk for a while on the beach, you're going to notice like, oh yeah, I need to work my muscles on my feet because it's a good workout, right? So getting out there, moving your feet into um surfaces that they're not used to is going to be really great. Uneven surfaces, right? Um different textures and all that is going to reawaken our sensors. So if you can go barefoot, um that would be really awesome. Vary your terrain is another thing that we can do when we're walking going to catch a bus or go to the, you know, um, subway or something like that. When we're on our way to work or going somewhere, uh, we tend to always walk on the sidewalks and stuff like that, but just go off the beaten path a little bit will be a big benefit, right? Um when you're going for a little hike, go off the path a little bit and just, you know, even on the edge of the path just to give that your foot a little bit more of like some work to adjust. Give it some more challenges. Give, you know, they're bored. Our feet are bored. So give something for our feet to um stimulate is going to be really great. So just getting off the beaten path. Um strengthening your feet. So some simple exercises. I'm going to show you one exercise that I think is amazing later on, so stay tuned for that. Strengthen your feet. Simple exercises like toe stretches, uh, balance training, rolling a ball under the foot, things that can keep your nerves of your foot and the muscles engaged and working and excited is what your feet need to be healthy. So, another thing that can be a really great benefit is getting something that is more of a minimal or natural um footwear. So, what this means is if you look at a lot of shoes, you'll notice that the heel is I'm going to exaggerate a little bit, but let's say the heel's like this and then your toe part is down like this. So, you're kind of walking on slants all day. Uh there are shoe companies out there, major shoe companies that make more of a even playing field, but then the soles sometimes are a little bit uh weird where they're squishing your toes. Um so they might have, you know, no raised heel, for example, so you're not walking around on wedges all day, but um the toe box will be really squishy in that. So, I have um experimented with cuz I'm a bit of a foot geek um using more minimalist um natural shoes that allow my toes to move around and get more sensation to the ground so they don't have as many layers of rubbers, foams, and whatever else they use in in shoes these days, right? So, that allows you to be able to sense a bit more. Um, if you've never experimented with minimal shoes and you're kind of interested in doing it, then I would, yeah, go for it. Um, the thing to know is that your feet are used to being on a fluffy cloud walking around. So, when you go to that, it's going to feel like you're sleeping on the floor. And so, my advice would be to just work up to it. you know, do a little bit, you know, half an hour in them one day and then, you know, maybe uh 35 minutes the next day and 40 minutes the next day, you know, like work your way up slowly to allow your feet to adjust. It's like going to the gym and suddenly like doing a whole bunch of weights is you're going to be really sore. So, the same concept there. So, just take it easy working into the shoes and then I've found that I can wear them all day and they're totally fine. But it did take me a little bit uh for my muscles to stop screaming at me after I'd wear wore them for too long. So that's just something to know as well. Um so yeah, those are a couple of things. I want to show you one simple um exercise here. Okay, so we need the lacrosse ball here and we're going to be doing each foot for one minute. And then you want to do this two times a day for two weeks. So I'll show you the first little point here. We're going to be working horizontally across our foot. A ball of our foot is the first minute we're going to do. And then we're going to work the ball up and down like so for the next minute. Okay? So it's really simple. Um but I'll just show you some pointers here. So, one actually one pointer here is that you want to find a wall that you can kind of be close to just for balance because you're going to be standing on one leg until you get used to doing this exercise. And I'm just going to put the camera down low so we can see what we're working on here. Okay. So, there we go. There. You should be able to see there. So with this we're going to do the first part which is for one minute we're gonna roll across this way. So if you notice I have put my heel down right so that's I'm going to pivot on that as I work across the ball of the foot here. Okay the next point that you want to work on as well is how much um pressure you put. So, if I lean my whole body into it, you can see like, well, you can see how white my knuckles are there cuz I'm pretty much putting my entire well, I'm putting my entire body weight on it now. Um, do not do this if there's any type of pain. Okay. Um, a good, you know, you you want to work so it's a a good workout. pain, not pain, but a good workout feeling. Um, but you do not want pain, any sharp pain, stuff like that. So, just ease up. And that's where the wall comes in to play where you can really balance so that you don't have to put much pressure on your foot. But note that you do want a good stretch feeling. So, as you can see, I'm just working back and forth, trying to isolate each of the toes as well. So, I want to move along and hit each of these. Right? So, I'm moving across like that. Right? And then you can try and go the other way. So, you just really work that for a good one minute. And you just work the whole ball of the foot. And you come down a little bit. Right. So now I'm working a little bit lower here. I'll get down. I'll show you what I'm doing. So I can work like across here. Move it up to around here. Work the toes. And that's what we're going to do is try and work all the way across. It's really hard to work down here, but we'll get that when we do the next one. But you try and work all the way across like that. I'll just show you really quickly again. So, here's more of the toe tips, right? And you move in and you can move down, right? And that's the basic concept there from the side. Looks like that. And you just do this for about a good minute. Good. So, that's step one. And step two is now you're going to roll all the way back and forth. So I'll call this like up and down the foot. So we can say like vertically. I guess this would be horizontally. This would be vertically just as just to keep it simple. So, what I'm going to do on this one now is maybe focus more on I'll call it zone one, which is the big toe zone all the way down. And then move over to maybe zone two. Focus on that. And then maybe zone zone three, zone four, zone five. And you just keep working this back and forth as much as you can. The other thing that this is good for is just your balance. because when I'm finding I'm doing this, it's hard to I got to engage a bunch of other muscles in my other leg to work on this. So, having a wall close to you is really great, but at the same time, it's good to work off the wall so that the your um balancing leg, the one that's not doing the work, actually has to do some work as well. So I can feel that in my leg as well that's not working. So that's also a benefit to this. So you do that for one minute. So 1 minute working across the ball of the foot and toes and whatever else you can work much as you can and then one minute working back and forth vertically. So there you go. You can try that exercise and you will notice a huge difference. That's one of my favorite exercises. is it's one of the simplest ones to do on yourself and to pass on to clients. Just make sure that you do it properly so that you don't um you know there's a good kind of hurt like I mentioned and then there's ouch stop hurt. So make sure know your clients, know yourself um to know that you know some people just really they want to fix everything right now in 10 minutes and then they end up you know hurting their feet. that's counterproductive to what we're trying to do here. So, a little bit every day, well, twice a day, um, is going to be more of a benefit than, you know, slamming your foot down onto the ball and trying to fix it in one session. Doesn't work that way over time is going to be the best. Understanding that the feet are sensors, I think, is the main takeaway from this video and my main point. um because we tend to forget that we might even notice that as we work our feet, the rest of our body has more of a foundation to sit on and we may notice that our shoulder pain, neck pain, knee pain, um and other things uh sort of fade away because the rest of the body isn't compensating for our weakness in our feet. um as we saw in the Babinsky um reflex, you know, the one with the baby thing that our nervous system is so attached to our feet and it's one of the first things they check as uh when they're born, right? Is it's just showing uh so clearly how we're connected. So anyway, um hopefully this helps. If you have any suggestions on how to awaken our sensors and our feet, leave a comment below. And if you've tried this um ball exercise for a while, um come back to the video and comment and and let us know your results. That would be very helpful to encourage other everybody else out there. So, in the meantime, remember to keep those feet happy and I will catch you in the next video. Take care. Bye-bye. Ball. If you're interested in learning more about reflexology, you could subscribe to the channel below. It's also very helpful to hit that like button and feel free to share it with anybody who you think might be interested in it. You can find my online courses, reflexology charts, and other reflexology goodies over on my website, which is balancingtouch.ca. Thank you so much for watching today, and if you have some more time, you can check out some other videos. Till next time, this is Adam Thomas from balancingtouch.ca. See you later.