Fruit infused waters are a wonderful and refreshing drink option for summer when the sun is out, the kids are bored and the bugs are biting. TB commercials will try to convince you that only soda and processed drinks are thirst-quenching enough for summer. Of course, you probably already know better, but sometimes it is...
Continue Reading...10 Refreshing Infused Water Recipes (With Fruit & Herbs!)
I’ve made my fair share of sugar scrubs before. They’re simple and easy, but the results are impressive. This recipe kicks it up a notch by making single use sugar scrub cubes that cleanse, exfoliate and soften skin all in one easy step. A Better Way to Use Sugar Scrubs Since these are in a...
Continue Reading...How to Make Sugar Scrub Cubes to Gently Exfoliate Skin
When I married my husband, he had horribly cracked heels. Apparently, he’d had these most of his life, but as we learned more about natural living, I set out to find natural remedies for his cracked heels. In the summertime especially, when our feet are more exposed (hopefully going barefoot or in minimalist shoes), cracked heels...
Continue Reading...Soothing DIY Salve for Cracked Heels
OraWellness has long been one of my favorite companies with a mission I really support. My guest today, Will Revak, started OraWellness along with his wife Susan after they found a way to reverse her gum disease naturally. (Most dentists say this is impossible!) Today, Will and Susan are self-taught experts in holistic oral health...
Continue Reading...86: The Science of the Oral Microbiome and Remineralization with Will of OraWellness
This turmeric tea recipe is a favorite staple in our home. I used to think only chamomile or green tea had health benefits, but this tea with its earthy golden spice is perhaps an even more powerful (and soothing) remedy. In fact, turmeric tea (or “golden milk” as it’s also called) has been revered since...
Continue Reading...5 Minute Turmeric Tea Recipe (Or How to Make Golden Milk)
Fermenting is an age-old way of preserving foods and increasing their nutritional value. Turning cabbage into sauerkraut is one of the easiest fermented foods to master. Why is this sauerkraut better for you? During fermentation, billions of beneficial bacteria are produced. Because it’s homemade (and not pasteurized like in the store), this bacteria is still present...
Continue Reading...Homemade Sauerkraut Recipe (Easy Countertop Method)
In the summer I always keep homemade natural bug spray at hand, but tiki torches are a lovely and practical way to light up the patio while keeping mosquitos at bay. (And where I live, that’s a tough feat!) Now as an adult I avoid plastic as much as possible and we use glass, stainless, or...
Continue Reading...How to Make Recycled Wine Bottle Tiki Torches
Ah, summer. Sunny days, grilling out, and fireflies at dusk. So why come up with a list of summer activities? Isn’t activity what we’re trying to take a break from?! The truth is, summer can make us parents a little anxious. Despite the abundance of great weather for being outdoors, the delicious seasonal produce, and...
Continue Reading...63 Fun Family Summer Activities to Try
I’ve been all about the barefoot shoes (or just being barefoot) for years. But there are some times and some places where barefoot shoes just won’t cut it. Thankfully, there are now many wonderful options for minimalist shoes that look like “regular shoes.” These shoes don’t offer quite as much foot freedom as true barefoot...
Continue Reading...How to Find the Best Minimalist Shoes (for Adults and Kids)
College? 9-5 job? In today’s internet-driven world it’s perhaps more possible than ever to skip these and become an entrepreneur. I interview many of them and as an accidental entrepreneur myself, it’s a topic that’s extremely personal to me. It can’t be denied that the rules for success have changed since our parents’ generation. So...
Continue Reading...85: How to Raise an Entrepreneur: Nurturing Risk Takers, Problem Solvers, & Change Makers
Every year as warmer weather approaches, I make several homemade products for summer including my homemade sunscreen and these homemade bug spray recipes. I don’t use sunscreen often because it limits Vitamin D production and I prefer to eat my sunscreen instead. This homemade bug spray recipe on the other hand, unfortunately gets daily use...
Continue Reading...All-Natural Homemade Bug Spray Recipes That Work!
Oh Kegels… these pelvic floor exercises certainly get a lot of press, but do they work? And are they actually helpful? I recently saw a specialist to get my pelvic floor evaluated after six pregnancies. One of those oh-so-fun things we get to do as women. The good news? Shockingly- no diastasis or pelvic floor...
Continue Reading...Kegel Exercises (+ Better Exercises for Pelvic Floor Health)
I once had a friend who had to use natural lotion on her entire body every time she showered or else her skin would get so dry it flaked. This was a very foreign concept to me, as I have naturally oily skin and almost never need lotion. When I was younger, my skin was...
Continue Reading...Soothing Sea Buckthorn Face Cream Recipe (For Oily Skin)
Sometimes “getting healthy” seems complicated. Conflicting advice to sort through, new recipes to learn, special ingredients to buy—and the list can go on. But some health hacks have been around for ages … and are probably already in our kitchens! Have some cinnamon around? Or some cayenne pepper? These ancient spices can turn simple food...
Continue Reading...84: How to Use Ancient Spices to Make Weight Loss Easier
Let me guess, you are one of two kinds of people when it comes to sardines: You love them and eat them regularly or you can’t stand them and don’t even know why you are reading a post about them Statistically, it’s likely you are in the latter group, as 73% of people claim to...
Continue Reading...8 Benefits of Sardines (& How to Make Them Taste Great)
What do you do for gifts when the guy in your life is hard to shop for? I’ve been trying to answer for years as it seems toughest to find good gift ideas for men. My husband is a perfectionist who insists that anything he buys is of the utmost quality. He doesn’t like things that sit...
Continue Reading...Top Gift Ideas for Men (for Father’s Day, Birthday, Etc)
Gardening can be a great way to save money and eat the freshest food available, but it can also come with its fair share of frustrations. From pests to proper watering… there are a lot of factors involved, especially if you are using organic methods to avoid chemicals. Fortunately, the healthiest approach can be the...
Continue Reading...Garden Pest Control & Prevention (Natural Options)
Growing some of the food that your family consumes is a great way to save money and eat organically on a budget. As food prices continue to go up, more families turn to backyard farming as a way to access high quality food without breaking the bank. The Rise of Backyard Farming Food cost concerns...
Continue Reading...Backyard Farming: How to Homestead in the City
If you’re a mom (and if you’re listening to this podcast, chances are you are!), it will be no surprise to hear that 1 in 7 mothers struggle with postpartum depression and anxiety after birth.
1 in 7!
No wonder it seems like we all know a friend … or many friends … who have gone through this deeply personal crisis after having a baby. No wonder so many of us have gone through it personally, maybe even multiple times.
Those 1 in 7 are just the women we know about. So many more hide their symptoms or don’t know to how to reach out for help … ashamed of their negative feelings during a time that’s “supposed to be” precious and joyful.
But why does postpartum depression (also known as PPD) happen so often? Is it on the rise? And most importantly, what is the cure?
The truth is many doctors just don’t understand women’s hormones enough to answer these questions. Thank goodness for Jolene Brighten, a licensed Naturopathic doctor and women’s health expert, here with me today talking about this epidemic among modern moms.
Truly the “hormone doula” for helping women recover postpartum, Dr. Brighten specializes in helping women have a healthy postpartum period by addressing the real root causes of PPD. And she is convinced today’s mothers need an advocate more than ever.
Dr. Brighten is so right when she argues that today’s Western medical care shortchanges postpartum women. In most cases, Mom gets little more than a night of “rest” in the hospital (while being poked and prodded), a pack of Tucks, and a quick pelvic check six weeks later. What’s more, rest and recovery ends too soon at home with extended families living further apart and too-short maternity leave policies.
You just might stand up and applaud when you hear Dr. Brighten’s prescription for PPD, one that calls for:
And so much more!
Dr. Jolene Brighten’s website and practice
Rubus Pelvic Floor Care System
Book: Dr. Jolene Brighten, Healing Your Body Naturally After Childbirth: The New Mom’s Guide to Navigating the 4th Trimester, 2016.
Katy Bowman, “4 Fast Fixes for Pelvic Floor Disorder”
Clare Lundberg, “The French Government Wants to Tone My Vagina,” Slate.
This podcast is brought to you by Kids Cook Real Food e-Course. You’ve probably heard me talk about this before because I love it so much. It’s made by one of my good friends, Katie of Kitchen Stewardship, and it’s one of my favorite bonding activities I’ve ever done with my kids. Katie is a teacher by trade and she teaches kids basic to advanced kitchen skills, which is such valuable life-long knowledge to have. Every friend that I’ve either given it to or encouraged to get it has absolutely loved this course and all of my kids love it too.
Check it out at this link. There will be a special offer for Wellness Mama listeners, so keep an eye out for that.
This episode is sponsored by Mama Natural. My good friend Genevieve, also known as Mama Natural, has just come out with a game-changing pregnancy book called “The Mama Natural Week To Week Guide to Pregnancy and Child Birth.” If you or anyone you know is pregnant, I can’t recommend this books enough. It is definitely one of the best resources I’ve seen for new moms.
Genevieve also has a wonderful free week-to-week email series for pregnancy. You’ve seen these on other websites but this one is from a natural point of view. It tells you how your baby’s growing, what milestones he or she’s hitting, and all that cool stuff, and it’s free. Check it out at this link.
Continue Reading...83: Beating Postpartum Depression & Pelvic Floor Care with Dr. Jolene Brighten
Now that warm weather is here, our family is spending a lot of time outside in the sun… and barefoot.
The benefits of getting outside are well-documented, but the barefoot part is often met with more skepticism. In a world where people are being diagnosed with “text neck syndrome” for spending too much time looking at a phone, it is funny to realize that many of us think that going *without* shoes is unnatural.
Walking barefoot benefits the body in various ways. Think about it logically- feet weren’t designed to be in shoes, especially not the stiff and highly-restraining shoes we have today. Walking around barefoot (or as close as possible) may have quite a few impressive benefits:
Biomechanist Katy Bowman (and upcoming Healthy Moms Podcast guest) from Nutritious Movement claims that our modern shoes are contributing to a lot of problems including osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, knee-hip-back pain, and bunions. This is partially because most shoes block full motion of the foot joints and nerve feedback from the feet.
She explains:
There are nerves that interpret the shape of the ground by how the bones in the feet bend at 33 different points (joints). This creates a mental image in the brain (similar to how a dolphin uses sonar to avoid obstacles). Wearing shoes prevents any motion in these joints (except the ankle) and leaves the shoe-wearer “blind” to the environment. This is what makes stiff shoes the worst when it comes to natural development.
This is a large part of the reason that some neurologists recommend flat shoes, like swim shoes, for children with certain neurological delays. Wearing shoes with less padding improves the feedback from the feet and helps improve walking in these children.
Most of us wear cushioned, supportive shoes with a positive heel. A positive heel means that the heel of the shoe is higher than the toe. Typically, the dressier the shoe, the more noticeable the positive heel (especially for women) and the more “athletic” the shoe, the more cushioned.
Heels and supportive running shoes are the norm, but some experts speculate that they may cause more harm that good!
Cushioned running shoes, which date back only to the 1970s, may seem comfortable but may actually contribute to foot injuries, say Daniel Lieberman, PhD, professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University, and colleagues.
Supportive and cushioned shoes encourage the wearer to land on the heel of the foot when walking or running, as the shoe absorbs the impact. This alters the natural step and posture and creates a different walking pattern. Watch babies who have just learned how to walk to see the difference!
It also limits our natural movement patterns and causes our muscles and range of motion to atrophy over time. Watch a baby or small child squat down and try to imitate it. Children can squat with butt to heels while maintaining a neutral spine. Most adults can’t.
Many factors contribute to this (sitting too much, not moving enough, etc.), but shoes play a big role.
The book Born to Run popularized the idea of barefoot running as the author, Christopher McDougall, chronicles his search for pain free running and how he found a primitive tribe that ran great distances barefoot or in minimalist sandals.
As The Art of Manliness explains:
The publication of the book coincided with a Harvard study by Prof. Dan Lieberman, which showed that people who grow up running without shoes run differently than those of us who run shod. Though the study did not speculate as to whether barefoot running was better or worse than running in shoes, it did demonstrate that making the switch resulted in softer landings and reduced impact force.
In other words, running/walking barefoot or in barefoot-type shoes may be an easy way to improve walking posture. It may even help avoid joint problems.
It is important to note that barefoot and barefoot shoes showed different results when studied. The feet don’t get the same feedback while wearing any shoes. This is why experts don’t recommend running on hard pavement with barefoot style shoes.
Katy Bowman also explains that nerves in the feet are designed to sense temperature and terrain. This feedback helps us develop a proper gait and stabilization. When all our feet get to sense is the inside of these shoes, this process is put on auto-pilot.
Bowman explains that the body then moves this information to a part of the nervous system called the inter-neuron. Here’s how she explains it:
More about the inter-neuron: You know how when you walk into a room with a fresh baked pie, it smells delicious, but after a few minutes you don’t smell it anymore? Your brain moves information that is constant into a different part of your brain to free it up for other things, so the more similar your environment, the less your nerves work to perceive. And the less they work, the less healthy they are.
There are two main concerns with going barefoot:
I don’t worry about these personally, because:
This is a touchy subject, especially as rates of foot pain increase. Many people now wear orthotics and extra support for the feet. Movement specialists like Bowman feel that this could be making the problem worse.
The reasoning is that the feet weren’t designed to have as much support as modern shoes provide. Our feet are so supported in most shoes that we don’t have to use the muscles of the feet in the same way. Over time, the muscles weaken which may cause the problem.
As with any muscle, we have to actually use it to strengthen it. Foot pain without arch support may just be a sign of weak foot muscles that need to get stronger. Incorporating more barefoot movement (or wearing barefoot style shoes) may help strengthen the feet over time.
A podiatrist friend cautioned that they often see injuries when a person makes too fast of a switch from highly supportive shoes to barefoot or barefoot shoes. Like any type of exercise, we should start slowly and work up. Running in mini-mattresses of shoes one day and in zero-drop shoes the next is a recipe for disaster.
When I mention that my kids don’t wear shoes in our yard, I typically get at least a few responses along the lines of: “I’d prefer not to let my kids get parasites from being barefoot, thank you very much.”
A quick search for the risks of parasites from going barefoot will have you convinced that we will all die from horrible parasites and diseases if any of us go barefoot. Except that the data doesn’t back this up.
If you are reading this, you likely live in a first-world country. You likely have indoor plumbing and bathe once in a while. Hookworms and other parasites were common when the majority of us didn’t have indoor plumbing. Human feces were often disposed of in yards, gardens, etc. Since hookworms can be easily transmitted through human excrement, they were much more common.
Improved hygiene and laws/codes prohibiting the open disposal of human feces has greatly reduced this problem. Even Dr. Lauren Ploch, a dermatologist who is very anti-barefoot admits that she has never treated a case of hookworm in the US.
Then again, some researchers are looking at purposefully ingesting hookworms to help reduce allergies and asthma. Interested to see where the research ends up on this one!
Walking barefoot also exposes feet to potential viruses and bacteria. I don’t worry about the potential small risks for these minor and treatable problems. But then, I also think regular dirt exposure is important! Our family has never experienced any problems from spending time barefoot in our yard and other safe areas.
I consider the potential problems from wearing over-supportive shoes much more worrisome. Of course, with anything, do your own research and make sure you feel comfortable with whatever option you choose!
For those who aren’t comfortable with being completely barefoot, new minimalist and barefoot shoes are the best of both worlds. These are also great for everyday use in places where shoes are needed.
In my opinion, being barefoot is the best when possible. When that isn’t an option, there are some great barefoot shoes that provide almost the same benefits. In general, shoes can be considered “barefoot shoes” if they:
In other words, barefoot shoes provide a basic protective barrier between the foot and the ground and not much else. Barefoot shoes also qualify as minimalist shoes, though not all minimalist shoes are technically barefoot shoes.
There aren’t many shoes that qualify as true barefoot shoes. Minimalist shoes are another great alternative in cooler weather or for occasions that require them. Here are the barefoot shoes that our family uses:
One of my favorite brands. They also make a lot of great minimalist shoe options including sneakers, water shoes and dress shoes. For a true barefoot shoe, their Eclipse model is great. I’ve found them on Amazon here, or also on the Vivo Barefoot website.
Most shoe stores don’t carry barefoot style shoes so often we have to buy without knowing if the size is right. Earth Runners has a great sizing system and also a custom option that is great for wide or narrow feet or to make sure sizing is perfect.
Five fingers are the most protective of the barefoot shoes we use. These fit the foot like a glove and often get some interesting looks in public. These are the go-to barefoot shoes of fitness experts like Mark Sisson. I often travel in these because they are comfortable but protect the feet from truly gross places… like airports!
None of the above options are great for babies and toddlers. I’m especially careful to let little ones walk barefoot whenever possible so they can develop good walking patterns. Thankfully, walking barefoot is a little more socially acceptable before age 2 or so! When going barefoot isn’t allowed, I put babies in Robeez (or similar) shoes as long as possible.
Being barefoot is great. Running barefoot on pavement may not be, at least without proper training!
Before I tried barefoot running, I consulted a friend who is a physical therapist about the safety of it and any possible problems.
He explained that when barefoot running is done correctly and worked up to slowly, it can be safe, but that many people jump in and begin running the same way they’ve always run, just without shoes, and that this causes problems.
From what he explained, the foot strikes the ground differently when shoes are worn. With shoes, a person is more likely to heel strike, or let the heel touch the ground first (unless the person has specifically trained not to run this way). Without shoes, landing in a heel strike can be damaging to the foot, especially over time, and it is much better to land on the mid-foot or top of the foot.
If a person tries to run with a heel strike in minimalist shoes or barefoot, this is likely to cause discomfort or even injury as the full impact of the strike is absorbed in the heel and transferred up the leg. Landing in a mid-foot strike allows for a more gentle impact and reduces this risk.
Even if a person begins running with a mid-foot strike when switching to minimalist shoes or barefoot options, the process uses the muscles of the foot and leg differently, and should be worked up to slowly. I speak from experience on this one, as my first day running in five-fingers, I pushed too hard and ended up with really sore calves for about a week.
The benefits of running barefoot or in minimalist shoes is that it naturally leads to a shorter stride, which means a lower impact on the feet and legs, and that it leads to landing with a slightly flatter foot, which may also help reduce injury.
The podiatrist’s suggestion? Learn to run the right way before trying to run barefoot. Even if you don’t plan to run barefoot, there may be benefits to learning to run like you are. A mid-foot strike is gentler on the feet and legs and may reduce the chance of injury.
If you heel strike like I did, I found it helpful to practice on nice soft grass or sand and focusing on landing mid-foot. This brought back memories of running around the backyard barefoot as a kid. When running this way, the heel still hits the ground, just not before the ball of your foot does (many people make this mistake, never let their heels touch, get really sore calves, possible achilles tendon issues, and swear off barefoot/minimalist running for life).
Another thing to focus on is increasing turnover. This means taking smaller steps but moving the legs more quickly. Instead of extending the foot in front of the body to propel forward, I focused on just leaning my body slightly forward to propel myself and “catching” myself during a controlled forward fall.
For running, I also found some type of barefoot shoe helpful. As much as I love walking around barefoot in the grass, this wasn’t doable on concrete or harder surfaces, and minimalist shoes like five-fingers protect my feet but allow me to work on my running technique.
Do you spend any time barefoot? Ever tried barefoot shoes? Share below!
Continue Reading...Benefits of Going Barefoot (and the Best Barefoot Shoes)
