The foot phenomenon: simple, surprising ways to improve your balance, health – and longevity

It’s 11 o’clock on a Thursday morning and I would normally be bashing away at a keyboard or on the phone to a workmate. Instead, I am in a south London nail bar, reclining in a motorised armchair, mechanical fingers kneading my back while my feet soak in a little whirlpool bath. Someone has brought me coffee. In the seat next to me, another customer sighs: “This is the life!” before telling me about her ingrown toenail.

It is indeed, and if I wasn’t so comfy, I would be tempted to get up and kick myself. It has taken me 61 years to have my first-ever pedicure, and the moment I sat down all I could think was: “Why did it take me so long?”

The next 40 minutes are bliss, as my horrible old man’s hooves are painlessly clipped, filed, grated, exfoliated and moisturised. I leave Jolie Nails & Spa with a spring in my step, on feet that … well, no, you still wouldn’t call them beautiful – that will take several more sessions (and something to put a shine on my nails; I quite like the look of Boy de Chanel, probably in black) – but at least I’m no longer ashamed to show them to the world.

This is not about getting beach-ready, though I am happy no one will now flinch if I put on a pair of flip-flops. I have belatedly realised that if I want to make it to 100, I’ll have to take care of my feet. Unless I keep them strong, and flexible, and sensitive, more and more activities will slip out of reach. In the worst of all possible worlds, I will have a fall and end up in hospital. I’m starting to understand why we talk about having one foot in the grave.

“Our feet are literally the foundation for any movement we might make,” the longevity guru Peter Attia reminds us in his book Outlive. “Whether we’re lifting something heavy, walking or running, climbing stairs, or standing waiting for a bus, we’re always channelling force through our feet.”

They’re also crucial to balance. “They’re the feedback point for the brain to know where it is in its environment,” says Asha Melanie, a York-based personal trainer with an interest in longevity. In their natural, unshod state, feet are our main point of contact with the earth. “There are hundreds of thousands of sensory receptors in each foot,” Melanie says. “And then we put our clumpy shoes on and stop them from being able to feel anything.”

More than that, I’d argue: we forget they should feel anything. We wrap them up and it’s out of sight, out of mind. Men, in particular, pretty much forget we have feet, unless there’s a blister or bunion to remind us. I’ve only really become aware of mine in the few months since I started yoga. There they were, naked, ugly and surprisingly unstable. Yoga teachers would tell me to spread my toes, or to ground “all four corners of my feet” and I’d think “How?” and “All four whats?”

This pedicure is my way of telling my feet: “I see you. I will do better by you.”

How should I go about that? For a start, Melanie says, now they’re fit for polite company, I must stop hiding them away. “Go barefoot as much as possible,” she advises. “When you’re at home, there’s no reason to be wearing slippers or socks even. Get your feet out; let your feet be feet as much as possible.” Eloise Skinner, a London-based pilates and ballet teacher, backs her up. “Even socks can restrict your toes,” she says.

That doesn’t mean I should immediately chuck away my shoes, Melanie says, but I should try to transition towards something less chunky and cushioned, with plenty of room for the toes to spread and wriggle. “It has to be a gradual process, so that all your ligaments, tendons and joints can adapt.”

But this is just the first step. Now I’ve freed my toes, I need to re-educate them, so I can spread them when I need a more stable base, or put my weight precisely where it’s needed. I could start by just splaying them out: simply standing or sitting in bare feet, then willing the toes to separate and spread a little. I can just about manage this, though when I meet Skinner to run through some exercises, I am embarrassed at how hard it is to isolate – or try to isolate – individual toes or groups of toes. In an ideal world I would be able to copy her “piano toes”, peeling them off the ground one by one, then setting them back down individually – but I struggle to move just the two biggies without taking everything with them.

There are a few moments when Skinner, the photographer and I just stare at my motionless toes while I curse in frustration. It feels like a mental problem rather than a physical one – my mind can’t get the “move” command to the right bit of my body. Later on, I realise it reminds me of one of those 20th-century experiments in telekinesis, with an earnest researcher trying and failing to move a glass of water by thought alone.

How long will it take to make real progress, I ask Melanie. “How long is a piece of string?” she says. “The more you put in, the more you’re going to get out of it. But doing a couple of minutes every day, you could see a difference in weeks.”

I should also keep an eye on my big toes, where any weakness can lead to knee, hip and back pain. “It sounds ridiculous,” Melanie admits, but when you’re walking this is where you push off, so problems here will affect the rest of your body. One way to build strength is to sit on a chair and lift your big toe as far as you can with your index and middle finger. Then, without moving any other muscles, press down with your toe while lifting with your fingers, so that nothing is moving yet both your toe and fingers are trying to. Hold for seven or eight seconds, relax and repeat four or five times.

What else should be on my to-do list? Improving my ankle mobility, apparently. “Everyone should be doing ankle cars [controlled articular rotations],” says Melanie. This is as simple as sitting down with one leg out in front of you, then keeping the leg immobile while slowly rotating the foot through its full range of motion, five times clockwise, then five times anti-clockwise, before repeating with the other leg.

To strengthen your soles and arches, Skinner recommends a little rise that starts with you standing in front of a ballet barre or desk, the tops of your hands resting lightly on it, elbows by your sides, feet hip-distance apart. Then raise your heels and slowly roll up on to your toes, then back down again. “What you want to feel instead of a lift and lower,” she says, “is more of a peel up and then a slow peel back down, using the middle of your foot as well as the front and the back. It really helps if you can spread your toes, too.” That’s easy for her to say with her lovely slim digits. Mine are more like sausages that have spent too long squished together on the supermarket shelf.

You can also mix things up with a “towel scrunch” – standing barefoot on a tea towel or similar, use your toes to pull it all under the sole of your foot, then to push it back out again.

All this is just scratching the surface when it comes to foot exercises. But if it still leaves you a little sore, try a self-massage. Melanie and Skinner swear by small massage balls – about the size of tennis balls, sometimes studded with little bendy spikes – that you can roll or press against aching muscles, or roll between the ground and the sole of your foot. “It’s my number one thing to take on holiday,” Skinner says. “As well as your feet you can use it on your shoulders, your glutes, your hamstrings …”

I’m sold. That will have a place in my holiday suitcase, just next to the pedicure kit.

Asha Melanie leads the Move 4 Life! longevity retreat at Manoir Mouret near Toulouse in October; details at manoirmouretretreats.com