Take Off Your Shoes to Waken Sensory Awareness Outdoors

To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug. . . Helen Keller

Remember the days when you were a kid and enjoyed the feel of grass or mud between your toes? Interestingly, barefoot walks awaken new thinking and sensory awareness. "The longer you practice walking with this connection," Thich Nhat Hanh advises, "the more your heart will be softened and opened and the more you will feel nurtured and taken care of by the earth." Taking off your shoes promises to heighten the pleasure you may already find in nature...

And, there's added benefit for folks who run in the fast lane and bear heavy stress. Stealing a few minutes to amble through grass, without confinement of shoes, seems a perfect strategy to bring more serotonin into your day. Serotonin floods through your brain when you take just of few minutes to kick back and relax.

Some of you might enjoy walking barefoot with others. You can find out more by checking out Barefoot Hikers, a national organization with many local chapters.

Intriguingly, New York Times Travel Editor, Ethan Todras-Whitehill describes his first barefoot hike with a group...

Hikers of the barefoot world tramp not only through mud and dust, but also over rocks, tree roots and the frosty ground of autumn (though they usually draw the line at snow). Although they may bring to mind tales of fakirs or extreme-sports enthusiasts, barefoot hikers are neither ascetics nor thrill seekers. Almost universally, they say they go shoeless for a sense of communion with the earth and for the sheer pleasure of feeling more of the world with their feet.

The Minnesota hikers compared the sensory experience of barefooting to wine tasting. Fresh fall leaves, Mr. Guttmann said, are “crunchy and cool,” and mud is “black dough that squishes up between your toes.” Dennis Slattengren, a 60-year-old nudist who owns a vending machine route and who was at least wearing shorts for this trek, savored the texture of silt that has run onto concrete and partially dried — “like warm velvet,” he said. On the hike at Oxbow, the pace was languid, and although the path was wide enough for two or three to walk abreast, the barefooters frequently walked single file to enjoy the spongy earth or a strip of moss underfoot. “So many people have very little or no connection with our beautiful earth and all of nature,” Ms. Palan later lamented.

Whether you go outside to meditate, think or simply enjoy nature, barefoot walks enhance these experiences. And, if you shut your eyes, I sense it would heighten the sensation as it did for Helen Keller... Ideas?