Did your competent? doctor give you ANYTHING TO RECOVER PROPRIOCEPTION? NO? So, fucking incompetent then!
Walking’s ability to boost physical and mental well-being has been sung far and wide — but the activity comes with one health pro you may not have heard of. As we age or after an injury, our proprioception, aka our “sixth sense” that enables us to identify where our bodies are in space, declines. Walking on uneven surfaces such as grass or sand, however, can help train your proprioception in your lower body and improve your balance.
If your proprioception is impaired, you’re more susceptible to falling, as you can “get into a position where you need to catch yourself, but you don’t have the quickness to catch yourself,” physical therapist Claire Morrow told HuffPost. And if you don’t work on restoring this sense, it’s possible to lose it entirely.
But when you walk on slanted ground, you challenge your limbs to react to something new. Your proprioception kicks in, notifying your body that “the position of your joint is different and so it would activate muscles in a different way so that you don’t fall over to the right,” Morrow said.
Want to give it a try? Morrow advises starting on pressed dirt, then working up to sand and grass. If you’d like more stability, walk with hiking poles for extra support. And “if you don’t mind getting your feet dirty, then doing it barefoot is sometimes a fun way” to get into the habit too, she noted.
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