Jason Van Blerk: What Happens to Your Body When You Walk Barefoot on Grass

0:01This is a Be Well Moment, the most replayed moments from my latest conversation. It's a glimpse into the wider episode, which you can find linked in the show notes below. Because sometimes one small moment is enough to reconnect to living well and being well.

0:21So I'm seeing today, I've just noticed as you're talking that you don't have any shoes on. Yes. Opposite to me. Got my like ones that you're probably thinking are going to be awful for my body. I've learned a lot from barefoot shoes on the importance of wearing good footwear. How often do you wear barefoot? Like I find it really fascinating people that are barefoot runners and the recalibration it does to their bodies and their bones. I think I can't leave this conversation without asking about this. I love that you asked this because So I've worn barefoot shoes for about two years. Not even shoes, sandals.

0:56Okay. And the reason why I did that was because when you compress your foot, it literally changes, one, the structure of your foot, but it doesn't allow your foot to expand. If your foot can't expand, the rest of your body can't expand. And so what we want to do is if your foot can expand fully, you would actually get taller. But we're wearing shoes which restrict us. We're wearing elastic bands. Which means you get taller. Yes. Because if your bones can't expand past the environment that you put them in, then you're not going to get bigger. So if we wear clothing that's very tight or we wear shoes that are very tight, it's like putting yourself in a cage and you can't grow past the cage.

1:35So what we're doing is if you take off a shoe, your foot is going to splay more. It's going to spread out. It's actually going to change structure. And as a result of that, your entire movement patterns will change. Your entire body will change shape. So about two years ago, I went to Barefoot Sandals. I didn't even go to shoes. I don't wear socks. I don't like anything that makes my foot feel like it's in a cage. And I noticed a big difference in the shape of my foot and the way that my foot was moving. But I'd always wanted to go fully barefoot. And I was a little hesitant because, you know, there's chemicals on the ground, there's dirt, there's social constructs.

2:13Did you arrive here without any shoes on? Yes. In London? How? Did you walk here? Yes. Where from? So, I don't know. We're like 10 minutes from here. Did anyone look at you as you were walking? Oh, people look at me very, very funny. So let me tell you something. So we were just in Switzerland at an event and we were speaking and I decided to go full on. I'm going to go fully barefoot. So I started to walk barefoot through the city of Switzerland, which is beautiful and it's super clean and great. It's a great place to start fully barefoot. And I'm walking and, you know, people kind of look at me in disgust or confused or like, what happened?

2:50Did that guy's shoes get stolen or something? When I got to London, it's a little bit different because people are very posh or professional here, especially in the area that we're staying in. And I feel, I feel that people are looking at me like I'm a homeless person or like looking down at me. I had a guy ask if someone stole my shoes. So let me tell you why I went fully. Okay. Barefoot shoes and sandals have minimal support, which is great. Because if you have a cushion between you and the ground, what happens is your foot's not getting the sensory information that it needs for you to walk efficiently.

3:29You also have all organ pathways go through your feet. So if you walk barefoot, you're massaging literally your organs, which are connected to your emotions. We won't get into that. So when you walk barefoot on the ground, you're grounding, you're moving every joint in your toe and your foot properly because they're actually bending. If you're in a flat surface like this, they don't bend. So your foot becomes like this rigid, straight system. You need... What do you think of this? Yeah, no comment. So when you... But when your toe... If your foot can't rotate, then your knees, your hips, your shoulders, your jaw, and your head will not rotate.

4:09remember what i said earlier we're a rotational system so when we walk we're not meant to walk on flat surfaces we're meant to walk in nature that it's uneven and when it's uneven your foot actually has to force itself into angles that it normally doesn't go into in today's world and so you get the range of motion back in your foot your foot changes shape because you're getting the range of motion in your foot you get more range of motion in your joints the other element of it that the the main reason why i did it is is i i really didn't want that support but the grounding effect. I've spoke about this a lot on the show, actually, about the electrons that can transfer from the ground and into your body.

4:47And I guess you also have a connect, you know, if I do feel overwhelmed, I do take my shoes and socks off and go and stand on some grass in the park, because I only have a small decking in the back of my garden, to feel connected to the earth. And it does help you go into that parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest really, really quickly you know i guess we're talking about this from the whole body you know we're looking at the whole person sat in front of us and it was just interesting i hadn't i hadn't even noticed that you weren't barefoot until i guess you were talking about the nba players and i just looked down at your feet and thought wow he hasn't got any shoes on i hadn't noticed it let me talk about something about the electricity and the grounding because i think that that's an important aspect is a healthy cell is around minus 20 to minus 25 millivolts.

5:39A new regenerating cell is minus 50. So it needs a lot of electricity to get there. Cancerous cells live around plus 30 millivolts. And this is all Dr. Jerry Tennant's work. It's fantastic if you want to look more into him. But he's basically taken the electrical voltage in the body and it's correlated to pH. So your pH is actually a measurement of voltage. And the measurement of voltage is a measurement of disease. So every cell in your body is electrical system. The earth is an electrical system. It's electromagnetic. And so when we walk barefoot on the ground, you're literally recharging every cell in your body.

6:14It's like plugging our iPhone charger into our iPhone. When you walk barefoot in the grass, that's what you're doing with your human body. There are certain things that actually recharge your human battery. and there's certain things that take away that energy. When you are in wind, still water, when you drink tap water, when you drink caffeine, when you don't move your body, those all drain electricity from your cells. And then they start to get to that plus 50 millivolt or plus 30 millivolt cancerous cell. When you move, when you take a shower, that's why you feel so good when you take a shower, you feel creative in all these thoughts because you're actually recharging your battery when you hug a tree the tree huggers had it right when you hug a tree when you put your feet on the ground you're actually recharging your batteries and this is measurable it's been measured in science um dr jerry tennant has a lot of work on healing is voltage or voltage is connected to the healing process and i think it's you know putting your feet on the ground is a very important component of healing thank you for listening to this be well moment if it resonated the full conversation is linked in the show notes and I hope it gave you a small pause to take a moment for you and to reconnect to living well and being well if you loved it please do leave a review follow the show or share this maybe with someone you love