Why Your Feet Matter More Than You Think in Midlife Health

Your feet are more than just what gets you from place to place—they are the foundation of your entire body.

In this episode of Moving Through Midlife, we’re diving into why foot health plays a critical role in how you move, balance, and feel every single day. From improving communication with your brain to supporting your pelvic floor and overall strength, your feet are constantly working behind the scenes.

You’ll hear a personal story that highlights just how important sensory feedback from the feet really is, plus simple, practical ways to start reconnecting with your foundation—like going barefoot, improving toe mobility, and testing your balance.

If you’ve been dealing with foot pain, plantar fasciitis, balance issues, or even pelvic floor concerns, this episode will open your eyes to a powerful (and often overlooked) starting point.

Because when you support your body from the ground up, everything changes.

Head to www.movingthroughmidlife.com for more information. 

Transcript

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Welcome to Moving Through Midlife, the podcast for women navigating midlife changes with tactical movement, nervous system support, and a gentler approach to health to help you on your midlife wellness journey. Today I want to talk to you about your foot health. And if you're squeamish about the feet, I get it. Like I do, I really do. So just hang with me because we aren't going to talk about anything squeamish. But um I have over the years, with the education that I have done for myself that I've been learning, I have begun to understand the importance of our feet. Uh, it started when I started working with those with multiple sclerosis and learning more about foot drop. But then as I started to learn, I realized how important it is for all of our overall health in regards to just being a mom, children, all of us, how important our feet are. And today I wanted to share that with you. Because if you, I mean, really, they're your foundation, right? If you think about it, if you think about a house, the bottom, what the house, what the walls sit on, is the most important part. That foundation is the most important part. Yet we shove our feet into shoes and think nothing of them. They're just a source that gets us around. And then the minute they start to hurt, then they become everything. But they really are everything in regards to our overall health. And if you've ever watched any of my videos or worked with me, you know that I talk about the feet a lot and the importance because they affect everything up the line. Not even just from a physical standpoint, but the ankle and the way it communicates to the brain can I read this the other day that if you do not move your ankles properly, you are affecting the joint receptors that communicate directly to the brain. So our feet are a sensory organ, just like your hands, your nose, all of your sensory organs, your feet are as well. They communicate with the ground, or maybe that's not how I want to say it. They are in constant communication with your brain as to where the foot is on the ground. So they are telling your body where it is in space. It is a proprioceptor telling your body where it is in space based on the communication of our foot. Yet most of us spend very little time barefoot. Today I want to ask that you take some time and take your shoes off. And this includes socks, because socks will do the exact same thing. They, especially depending on the type of sock. One, if they're tight-fitting socks, they will pull the toes in so that they can't expand on the floor like they're supposed to. And they also will affect how, you know, if you think about wearing gloves, how that affects how your fingers feel. The same thing with your feet. If you're wearing socks, it's going to change how your feet feel the floor. And I want to tell you a story about my son, my oldest, when he was little. And this should have been that opportunity. It's one of those things, now that I look back on it, I'm like, that was a key indicator to me how important the feet are and why they need to be barefoot. Your children need to be barefoot for a period of time. Obviously, safety is important. You know, that doesn't mean go take them out and run around all the time barefoot, you know, be cognizant of where you are. Their feet are communicating to their brain. So the story is this when my son, he obviously at that time was walking, um, but he had always been in these little soft-solded shoes. So they, as they still make them because I looked them up the other day. They're called Robies, and they have their leather, little leather-soled shoes. And that is what he wore uh probably the first, I mean, I would say two to three years as he was growing up. He and his little brother, they both wore these when they were little. So one day my mother brought down some these cute little shoes. They were like, they were like slippers. And they had a little teddy bear, like they were little bear slippers. And she put them, and they had a hard sole on them. So she put them on him. First, he was freaking out that she was putting these things on his shoe, on his feet. He did not like it one bit. But once he stood up, like he was in this crawling position, and he kept putting his foot down and trying to step, like he was like, What is this? He kept putting his foot on the floor. And looking back, I know now, like he was he was missing that communication. He'd always been able to communicate, supposed, not supposedly, but communicate through his feet to the floor. He was sensing it with those little leather-sole shoes, but with these, he could not sense it. And it was it was honestly a disrupt for him. And he he did not like it. He stood up, he was crying, he was like walking very awkwardly, like lifting his feet up, trying to feel the floor as he brought his foot down. And like I mentioned, looking back, now I can understand where he was coming from. His feet were in constant communication with the floor, and therefore, now that they weren't, he was confused as to how he should be moving. He did not grasp it as well. So I thought that was a great story for you to hear the importance of why you need to be barefoot. Also, very important for you to reconnect with your feet. Uh, if you have been in shoes a lot, then I would encourage you a few hours a day to take off your shoes, take off your socks, and start to feel the floor underneath you. Floor or ground if you're able to go outside at all, and start feeling the floor and ground underneath you. The other thing that I would recommend is start spreading your toes apart. You would not want your foundation, a house, to be put on these little floors, right? We want our foot to be able to support us well. So we need to work on lengthening or uh widening our foot out. So thinking about separating those toes out as much as possible. And for those of you, if you deal with bunions, um, I would encourage you to, I'd love for you to reach out to me, but you could even research information on foot strengthening because many people who start to expand their toes, meaning get those toes to lengthen back out into the natural position where they're where if you were to place your foot on the floor, you should be able to see the floor in between each toe. Once people are able to start doing that, many times they're able to self-correct the bunions or keep them from getting worse. So there are different exercises you can do to help with this, strengthening exercises for your feet that you can do as well. And I would encourage you to do that. I do have videos that you can watch, um, and I even have a course in which you can take and start working on strengthening your feet. Same thing with planter fascia. If you deal with that, um, you need to work on strengthening the foot, uh, you need to work on stretching the calves, and you will start to see that when you do this, a lot of times there is a direct correlation between the feet and the pelvic floor as well. So if you are dealing with incontinence, prolapse, or pelvic tightness, you may want to instead of just looking at the pelvic floor and trying to find exercises that will help with diastasis recti, you might want to look down at your foot and start there and seeing where is it lacking mobility? How is it not moving the way that it needs to move? Because that could be affecting your pelvic floor. Another thing that I would recommend in regards to working with our feet is making sure that you can balance on one foot. If you are standing, make sure that you are doing this without shoes on, because sometimes your shoes will help to provide you stability that your feet may not have on their own. But try to balance on one foot for 30 seconds. If you struggle with that, that's something you need to work on. Because honestly, if you are not able to stand on one foot for 30 seconds, then you shouldn't be jumping and running and doing all of those things. Your foot can't support those movements yet. So that's another thing you might want to just check yourself for to see that will help provide you with information in regards to your foot. So hopefully this information just kind of gives you that aha, like, hmm, that's interesting. I never really thought about my feet that way. And if you'd like to learn more, I'd love for you to join me over in my community. Uh, I will not say that we talk about the feet all the time, but I do I do tend to talk about the feet in my everyday programming because it is so important. It is a part of us, it is a huge communication part for us. So if you are interested in learning more, feel free to join me over in the community. But I'm always there able to answer questions for you along the way. I'd love for it to be a little bit more interactive than what it is. Um, so you know, if you have questions for me, feel free to join me over there. You are welcome. And that is pretty much it. I just wanted to let you know about the feet, the importance of the feet, making sure that you are getting barefoot and letting your feet sense and feel the floor because it really does affect not only the health of the rest of your body, but also the health of your brain.