Khaberni - Sports shoes have entered a new era of ambition. After "Nike" was content with the promise of comfort and performance, it now claims that its shoes can activate the brain, enhance sensory awareness, and even improve focus by stimulating the soles of the feet.
Other brands, such as Naboso, sell "neural insoles" and other specially designed socks and shoes to stimulate the nervous system.
It's an appealing idea: the feet are rich with sensory receptors, so can stimulating them truly enhance the mind?
Dr. Atom Sarkar, a neurosurgeon at Drexel University, says: "As a neurosurgeon specializing in brain studies, I have found that the science of neuroscience indicates that reality is more complex – and much less exciting – than marketing campaigns suggest."
The close links between the foot and the brain
The soles of the feet contain thousands of mechanical receptors that sense pressure, vibration, texture, and movement.
According to "Study Finds," signals from these receptors travel through peripheral nerves to the spinal cord, and from there to an area in the brain called the somatosensory cortex, which maintains a map of the body.
The feet occupy a significant part of this map, reflecting their importance in balance, posture, and movement.
The type of shoe also affects proprioception – the brain's sense of the body's position in space – which depends on inputs from muscles, joints, and tendons.
Because posture and movement are closely linked to attention and alertness, changes in sensory feedback from the feet can affect how steady, alert, and balanced a personal feels.
For this reason, neurologists and physical therapists pay great attention to the quality of shoes in patients with balance disorders or neuropathy or walking problems. Changing sensory inputs can alter the way people move.
But the effect on movement does not necessarily mean improvement in cognition.
The simple shoes and sensory awareness
Simple shoes, with thin, flexible soles, allow more information about touch and body posture to reach the brain compared to shoes with thick padding.
In laboratory studies, reducing padding can increase a shoe wearer's awareness of where and when their feet touch the ground, potentially improving their balance or the stability of their gait.
However, increased sensation is not necessarily better. The brain continuously filters sensory inputs, prioritizing what is useful and ignoring what is distracting.
For those unaccustomed to simple shoes, a sudden increase in sensory feedback might increase cognitive load, directing attention to the feet instead of freeing mental resources for focus or performance.
In another form, sensory stimulation can enhance awareness, but if it exceeds a certain threshold, it becomes just noise.
Do shoes improve focus?
According to Dr. Sarkar, neuroscience is particularly skeptical about the ability of sensory shoes to improve focus.
There is little evidence that passive stimulation of the foot – such as insoles with special textures, innovative geometric shapes of foam, or precise mechanical properties – significantly improves focus in healthy adults.
Some studies suggest that mild sensory stimulation may increase alertness in specific groups - such as elderly individuals training to improve their balance or undergoing rehabilitation for sensory loss - but these effects are minor and highly context-dependent.
Simply, feeling more sensory stimulation does not necessarily mean that the brain's attention systems are working better.
