Though they are far away from our head, where we all live in the most of our time because we are thinkers, our feet need our full attention, daily, to keep our head in balance with our own self, with earth. Care for our feet is care for health and wellness, via the so many sensitive reflex zones.

 

These zones are a mirror in which our total body is reflected: all organs, blood vessels, nerve systems, digestion system, all what is in the body is connected with points and zones in and on our feet. Stimulating these zones via acupressure, or a simple massage, are very much contributing to a healthy life. Special zone therapists know exactly how to do it, but also just simple massaging your own feet is enough to create wellness. In your own house.

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Check:

Before starting check your feet for athlete’s foot, or tinea pedis, a skin infection caused by fungus.

This needs to be treated because it is infectious, what means that your feet will infect the feet of all who share the same bathroom with you, everywhere where you go barefooted. Take your responsibilities. There are natural remedies for it.

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Needed:

• a not too big plastic tub
• lukewarm water with some drips (per liter) tea tree oil or oregano oil
• three clean towels (1. under the tub, 2. next to it for the ready foot to rest on and 3. one to dry)
• clean pair of cotton socks
• a pair of open shoes
• massage oil: 2 soup spoons olive kitchen oil, warmed up in a casserole (for massage) and completed with ten drips essential oregano oil or tea tree oil. It is allowed to use the oregano oil pure on the infected spots on skin or nails.

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Make everything ready, put everything close to where you are going to sit with the bath, and do not walk with your infected feet over the floor. Keep on your socks and shoes till you sit. Time needed for the foot bath: ten minutes. Then dry your feet carefully eventually with a hairdryer: wet feet create fungus. You can finish the treatment with using the lukewarm olive kitchen oil with essential oil, add the oil via your hands to your feet; massage the feet with it.

Put on a pair of clean dry cotton socks, and use open shoes in the house. This natural breathing of the skin helps to heal the affected skin. Wash your hands carefully and disinfect the tub.  Wash the used towels in 90 degrees in the washing machine and dry them carefully. After a week the skin must have recovered, healed, or show improvements, when repeating this treatment daily. If not, please visit a doctor. 

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For a foot bath and basic foot care are needed:

• a plastic storage box, or small tub as a mini bath, filled with lukewarm water
• three clean dry towels
• clean dry socks, eventually warmed up
• a little box with cheap vaselin*
• a little bottle essential oil, for instance Lavender
• *callus remover tools, a special strong nail cutter , nail file and nail brush.

*Vaselin is an excellent cheap product with incomparable good effects on a dry skin. The skin of feet is mostly dry, especially in winter. It has also great effects on callus. Callus can be so strong that one needs a special tool (with a blade, it is utterly sharp, be careful when using it) to take it away. Several special tools, available in a drug store, could be helpful to create good looking feet. The use of vaselin is necessary anyway, for after the pedicure care, and also for after any footbath. Use much, an overload, because all will disappear in the skin. Therefore the best time to use it just before to go to sleep. The next morning all is gone. Use socks, to cover the feet. You can mix the vaselin in your hands with some drips of lavender essential oil.

*Callus is easier to remove after a foot bath of at least ten minutes. During the foot bath you can massage your feet with the hands in the water. In fact it is a constant washing. Also possible is to massage the feet with each other. Just going over the skin of the entire foot, ankles included. The smell of the lavender is beautiful, and at the same time essential oil works anti septic.

*The best is to wear open sandals with a good footbed in the house. They are creating warm feet when you suffer from cold feet, strange but true. They prevent sweating. Use woolen socks in winter, in summer cotton socks, and when it is too warm just keep the socks out.

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Shoes

Choosing for a really healthy shoe (yes a healthy shoe) means it must have been created by a good shoemaker, and a good footbed belongs to a healthy shoe. Shoes have to support the feet, because the feet have to carry the whole weight of the body. It is not only important how shoes look, how nice they are to look at, or to walk with, shoes must have also enough space inside to create comfort. A “feeling-comfortable-foot” creates a good energy, and we need this energy to go through the day with a good mood, to shine. Yes, when all is okay our feet contribute to our inner beauty. The material must be able to breathe because the foot can become sweaty in plastic or rubber, in artificial leather. In fact it is cheaper to buy once in a while a more expensive pair of shoes that offer all that shoes have to offer, than to buy cheap ones that offer you bad moods, sweaty feet, and make you tired. My choice is always ECCO. It is world’s number one in really high quality comfortable fashion shoes, all kinds of shoes, from sport shoes to high heels.

Investing in a good pair of shoes is investing in yourself, is contributing to your daily health and wellness, and for the long term keeping a strong back, a strong spine, strong knees, ankles, hips, neck, and a healthy mind. Our entire body will be a strong building with good foundations.

 

Keep your feet warm 

Reason for getting cold feet is sweat. Therefore it is better to change shoes when coming home. A special “shoe” for in the house is the woolen felt slipper. If you have really very easy overheated feet it is better to wear open sandals in the house. It avoids bad smelling sweat, and your shoes get the possibility to dry during the time you are home. You avoid athlete’s feet by keeping your feet dry. A good brand for woolen felt indoor shoes is Glerups. I wear my Glerups every day.

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Improving the blood circulation in the feet

Walk – A good blood circulation in the feet, but also the legs and the whole body, can be achieved by a daily walk. Wear comfortable walking shoes, sport shoes to make it possible that all muscles in the feet can move, and expand by becoming warm. The shoes must breathe. By stimulating the feet, the body, by simple relaxing exercising like taking a walk in the fresh open air, our energy field becomes dynamical, and will release negativity and absorb positivity, positive energy. When walking we stimulate, massage, also the sensitive zones (1st photo in this post). When walking we empty the overload in our brains, because of the circulation of blood- and lymphatic vessels. When we inhale, bring air with lots of oxygen (O2) in the body and when we exhale, we blow air that is rich in carbon dioxide (CO2) out.

Hot and cold foot baths – When using two tubs, one with hot water and the other with very cold water, we can go from the one tub to the other, taking time for each tub to be in, and repeating this several times. This is stimulating the blood circulation, and healthy for the immune system, because it also stimulates the lymph in the lymph vessels. These vessels are not working with a pump, as is the case in the blood vessels: the heart pumps the blood through the entire body, constantly, and therefore this “shocking” boost is very helpful for the lymph circulation. In fact it is a real existing therapy.

How to make your own contrast bath
Since there is relatively little research on the practical applications of contrast therapy, there are not clear guidelines on what a “proper” contrast setup consists of. Here is what I found on this website:
“Most studies alternate between water temperatures of 7-20° C for the cold water and 34-41° C for the hot water.
Each immersion lasts between 3-5 minutes and the total immersion time is between 20 and 30 minutes.
Some studies end with heat, and others end with cold. The prevailing opinion now seems to be that it’s best to end on the cold bath, since that should retard inflammation.”

On this website the temperature for the hot bath is 44° C and for the cold bath 18° C

Chose for yourself what is the best. If you use it before running, as a sportive activity, end with cold to avoid inflammation, if you are going to sleep after end with warm. If you are experiencing pain because of arthritis (inflammation of the joints) then end with cold. Because an inflammation is “fire” as the element, and yes, fire is hot, it needs cold.

 

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An introduction to foot massage

A video can show a lot, but cannot compete with a massage course. In a course you learn all important details, that not any video shows, and I watched a lot of videos. Not one is really excellent. For me the course of about a year with weekly lessons was a start of discovering myself again, in a completely different way, in a so much deeper level. Nobody could have explained to me the sensitivity of the feet, and the healing effect of real attention with words, but the course could and did. One of the first lessons to be learned was to tune with the one who is going to have a massage, also to tune on the self: to be ready for the massage, by emptying my own mind, to be relaxed, to avoid that my stress would be taken over by the one who was going to be massaged, and finally to wash the hands before starting. Also the calmness in the house, to “off” mode of mobiles, the doorbell, all that is part of the success. A clean room, relaxing music, the smell of for instance the lavender essential oil….., a good atmosphere is very important already before starting. A massage opens all subtle layers, the vulnerability, the defenselessness, which has to be taken care for and to be respected.

This is the real space for a wonderful massage. Cover the person with a fleece blanket, and use a pillow under the head and under the knees, and under the ankles.  The feet must be free to be massaged with a relaxed feeling of letting go. When you massage the one foot, cover the other foot with a soft dry towel.

Without working at reflex zones it is possible to offer a deep relaxing foot massage, by just following your own intuition, being calm, avoiding speed, doing it or soft or strong, it depends on too much to give you any exact advice here. Keep it simple. Enjoy yourself what you do. Be aware of the sensations in your own hands. This is essential: you sense in fact what is good by enjoying it yourself. Stay at the same time on the right inner distance. Observe. Use self made massage oil: two soup spoons warmed up olive oil, mixed with ten drips essential oil. Lavender is always an excellent choice.

The massage can be finished by putting on socks that could be warmed up, and cover the feet both also with the blanket. Offer the other at least five minutes to create space for the energies that are awakened. This streaming of energy is a self healing energy, it is life energy, and not offering this space and time will be the cause of the loss of the good effects.

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Additional information:

• Wiki: Reflexology
• Website : ECCO shoes
• Website: Glerup Indoor Shoes
• Wiki: Contrast Bath Therapy

 

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