So We Went Forest Bathing...

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My mother-in-law asked me if there were other people around. I guess when you tell someone that you have been "forest bathing" they think you were taking an actual bath of some sort. But "forest bathing" is a Japanese term for getting out in the green landscape to soak up whatever hidden benefits exist out there.

There has always been the sense that being out in nature is good for you. The Japanese have done actual research in this direction finding it is good for a lot of maladies such as diabetes.

So we went forest bathing... and no there weren't any people about as if that mattered. We kept our clothes on anyway.

But I did decide to experiment with taking off my shoes and hiking barefoot as well. It was very interesting. Feet are smarter than you think.

For one thing it is very challenging but not beyond the capability of my feet. On one hand I walk around the house a lot barefooted. It is one of the advantages of a home office. But the forest floor has a lot more variety and challenge than a wood floor.

There are sharp areas of stone that is fragmented and sharp. There are soft areas of beaten down grass and layers of pine needles. And there are broken branches fallen from the trees above.

I didn't like the broken branches. They were pointed at times and too much for me. Also I was able to get sap all over my feet that was very difficult to remove.

Funny enough the sharp stones didn't bother me all that much as I soon learn how to manage them under foot. Your feet really do get smarter the more you do this. Even though I would hit something sharp my foot would reflexively react to soften the contact.

I read a scientific paper on this once. It seems with have a defensive reflex response in our feet to sharp objects.

We had our house re-stuccoed. What happens as they are pounding in the stucco nails is that the workmen occasionally miss and a stucco nail flies out into the yard.

A stucco nail has a flat head like a large washer. After a couple of years laying in the soil the nails become rusted and nasty.

I have step on several of them in my bare feet and never been punctured. My feet would kind of wrap around them cradling them and protecting me from a serious injury.

So hiking through a variety of surfaces there seem to be a constant adjustments. My feet were humming at the end of all this. And my mind and body felt great from all the great forest bathing.

Would I do it again? Most certainly but avoiding those sappy sticks next time.

Would you go "forest bathing'? How about barefooted hiking?


Kevin Kunz

http://www.reflexology-research.com 

http://www.dk.com/reflexology 

Tweet me @twitter.com/footreflexology

Facebook www.facebook.com/kevin.kunz 

Forest Bathing- Forest Medicine

Could forests cure cancer? I don't know but a 50% increase in white blood cells? WOW!!!

Imagine if they had done this experiment without their shoes. Or if they had added reflexology to the mix what would the outcome been?

I love the terms "forest bathing" and "forest medicine". 

Forest bathing enhances human natural killer activity and expression of anti-cancer proteins.

Li Q, Morimoto K, Nakadai A, Inagaki H, Katsumata M, Shimizu T, Hirata Y, Hirata K, Suzuki H, Miyazaki Y, Kagawa T, Koyama Y, Ohira T, Takayama N, Krensky AM, Kawada T.

Department of Hygiene and Public Health, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo. qing-li@nms.ac.jp

Abstract

In order to explore the effect of forest bathing on human immune function, we investigated natural killer (NK) activity; the number of NK cells, and perforin, granzymes and granulysin-expression in peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) during a visit to forest fields. Twelve healthy male subjects, age 37-55 years, were selected with informed consent from three large companies in Tokyo, Japan. The subjects experienced a three-day/two-night trip in three different forest fields. On the first day, subjects walked for two hours in the afternoon in a forest field; and on the second day, they walked for two hours in the morning and afternoon, respectively, in two different forest fields. Blood was sampled on the second and third days, and NK activity; proportions of NK, T cells, granulysin, perforin, and granzymes A/B-expressing cells in PBL were measured. Similar measurements were made before the trip on a normal working day as the control. Almost all of the subjects (11/12) showed higher NK activity after the trip (about 50 percent increased) compared with before. There are significant differences both before and after the trip and between days 1 and 2 in NK activity. The forest bathing trip also significantly increased the numbers of NK, perforin, granulysin, and granzymes A/B-expressing cells. Taken together, these findings indicate that a forest bathing trip can increase NK activity, and that this effect at least partially mediated by increasing the number of NK cells and by the induction of intracellular anti-cancer protein.

Kevin Kunz

http://www.reflexology-research.com 

http://www.dk.com/reflexology 

Tweet me @twitter.com/footreflexology

Facebook www.facebook.com/kevin.kunz 

Are We Disconnected and No Longer Feel the Earth?

I know I am footcentric and see the world from the other end of the telescope. But there are a lot of other voices starting to say somewhat the same thing- we are disconnected from our soles of our feet. There are two books that talk about how we may be recking havoc with our health because of this disconnection with what is under our feet.

The first voice comes from a book a friend of mine insisted that I should check out. It is called Born to Run, A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World has ever seen by Christopher McDougall. (Here is a pretty good review.)

Well I didn't buy getting sidetracked by other things. But then there was a very interesting article in Parade Magazine about barefooted running and how it had grown by leaps and bounds (admit it- good pun). So I finally bought the book.

While this is an amazing book about ultra-athletes who can run for incredible distances it had some real insight into the human foot and it's impact on the body.

1) Feet are self correcting and will avoid injury if unencumbered by the modern running shoe.

2) "The feet are like a minnow bucket full of sensory neurons all wiggling around in search of sensation Stimulate those nerves just a little and the impulse rockets through out your entire nervous system..."

3) Shoes will block the pain but not the impact.

4) Pain will help you to run comfortably. You sense the ground underneath you and build ground awareness. Shoes that are meant to lessen impact may actually be creating less ground awareness.

5) Running shoes may be evil in that they make our feet weak and the rest of our body vulnerable to injury. Knees, hips. low backs and so forth are in the line of fire for repeated injury.

The second voice is about more than our physical disconnection. It is about our electrical disconnection with the earth. Called "Earthing- The Most Important Health Discovery?", it is a book about our electrical disconnection with the Mother Earth. This book has quickly gathered followers- barefooted followers.

 What is interesting to me is the question mark at the end of the title. Most publisher would steer you away from any uncertainty in regard to what is referred to in the book publishing industry as "the promise." But this truly a reflection of the sincerity of the authors. They are trying very hard to be as real as possible and not to mislead the public. They have research but it is not at a level that would please the scientific community and they admit it.

What really interests me is that we are again back to the question of insulation of the feet from their natural environment. but this time unlike Born to Run and the physical disconnect caused by the shoe but this is the electrical disconnect. We are meant to be plugged into the earth and to be stimulate by the energies coming up from the earth according to the authors.

Here is what I find interesting :

1) The authors point out that the foot has more nerve endings than any other part of the body.

2) The moment your foot touches the Earth our physiology changes. A normalization process begins that is triggered by us plugging back into the electrical grounding of the earth.

3) The authors theorize that the grounding effects are acting on inflammation, a hidden culprit in a lot of diseases such as cardiovascular disease.

4) The Earth is  charged and it's interaction electrically with our bodies is self- correcting to our health. Our bodies are meant to interact with energetically with these forces. However, we are insulated by shoes and modern surfaces from interacting with Earth and our nervous system suffers needlessly because of this.

I love walking around barefooted on the earth. It is soothing and some how comforting. Will it play out that the most important health discovery ever? May be that we need to spend at least part of the time reconnecting with Mother Earth, both for our physical selves and our energetic selves.


Kevin Kunz

http://www.reflexology-research.com 

http://www.dk.com/reflexology 

Tweet me @twitter.com/footreflexology

Facebook www.facebook.com/kevin.kunz 

Masai Barefoot Technology (MBT) shoe review roundup

Masai Barefoot Technology (MBT) shoe review roundup/ Aerobics and Fitness Daily

Here is a site about those shoes that are called Masai Barefoot technology. There is a whole discussion that seems to be pretty objective. Of course these shoes cost $200 for a pair. I do, however like the idea of physiological footwear.

Kevin Kunz

http://www.reflexology-research.com