Living Barefoot in the UK

Thousands live barefoot in the UK, but millions don't understand. Welcome to barefoot.uk

Barefoot is great. Senses feed the mind, and fire emotions of appreciation and joy. Feeling should be part of the experience of being where you are; doing what you're doing. Being trapped in a non-stimulating environment causes anxiety, agitation, frustration and claustrophobia; to say nothing of the serious ailments in the "Health" article. Which of the other four senses would you be willing to give up? How much of life would you be missing? Touching and feeling stimulates the mind to enjoy the wider world. Just being where you are becomes a far more enjoyable experience when you're barefoot.

The human body is perfectly engineered for life without shoes, either in the city or countryside. Obviously shoes rob us of our ability to enjoy our environment, but these immobile casts slowly cause more subtle damage. They distort the foot into unnatural shapes, bending tendons and causing bunions. They limit blood flow, causing everything from cold feet to plantar fasciitis. Muscle wastage is the primary cause of fallen arches.

Wearing leather gloves all day every day would make our hands hypersensitive, smelly, soft & wrinkled; surely no-one sensible would do that? But most people wear shoes, mistakenly thinking they are natural, simply because they have become our fashionable social norm.

Social norms are not all good!

For eight hundred years, the Chinese practice of foot binding inflicted discomfort and life-long disabilities on two billion girls, from the wealthiest to the poorest. It's easy for us, in our distant culture, to condemn their cultural norm; without seeing the crime our own culture commits.

• Healthy feet have tough flexible soles that are both sensitive and protective.
• An enormous number of nerves end in our soles to inform our minds.
• Daily gentle abrasion maintains our soles as the toughest material in the human body.
• Our arches are a magnificent suspension system that absorbs shock, protecting joints.
• Our toes are straight, with tendons pointing towards the centre of the heel.
• Urea prevents heel cracks and softens hard skin (a tube as Flexitol Heel Balm!)
• Natural feet are perfectly equipped for everyday life, without shoddy modifications.

Shoes are a physical addiction

Footwear is not just a compulsion for shopaholics. Shoe-use physically modifies the body, such that the habitual user experiences withdrawal pain and blisters after walking just a few miles. These symptoms of physical dependency render regular users unable to operate normally without using them. Users are less aware of their surroundings, and are at high risk of the health related issues described in the "Health" article below. Users need shoes to survive because they have used shoes.

This website contains articles on how to escape from shoes, what it's like to live without them, answers to common questions and newsworthy items of general interest to barefooters. Please feel free to look around.