Simple yoga for feet

If you have foot pain, these simple poses might help you by opening up your joints. Be gentle and don’t do the full pose at first if it really hurts. I like to ease myself into each pose lovingly. We are often taught “no pain, no gain” but that is not true.

Start by putting your feet together, heels lifted on a folded blanket so you can squat between your knees. Spread your toes apart here and give your feet room even though they are together, making sure they are parallel and even. I like to really take the time to give my feet attention in poses like this, feel the bottoms of your feet spread wide, move your little toe to match the others if it is not already. The blanket under your heels should start at about mid arch and be as high as it needs to to support you and keep your whole foot pressing evenly. Make the lift of the blanket smaller as you improve. This simple squat is very difficult for me, if it’s not for you, remove the blanket and do it with flat feet for as long as you can, a min or so. I’ve gotten my lift down to about an inch now after several years of doing this but I used to wear heels and wedges a lot so I really like the stretch on my calf and Achilles tendon. I really feel it strengthen my shins.

I then bring my hands to the floor, bring knees together and sit back on my heels, toes bent. This one can be intense for some of us. Do as long as you can then go back into the squat pose and go back and forth, twice will be enough for the first couple times and be gentle with yourself, do less time if you need to, then add more time and reps as you get better at it. It is fun to see yourself progress fairly fast, noticing it becomes less intense each time.

One of my favorites that started me doing a sort of meditation by focusing on my feet is legs up the wall. Just laying with back on floor and legs up wall is very stress relieving and I really look at my toes in this pose and work on spreading each toe apart. It’s a nice restorative pose to calm you, as your heart gets to rest while the blood flows to your heart and it cleans your blood if you stay 3 mins all blood cleaned.

Shoes cram our feet in unnatural positions. Be aware of what your shoes may be doing to your feet and consider this when shopping for shoes.

-Heather Purple