When was the last time you paid attention to your feet? Chances are, unless you are getting a pedicure, a massage or are experiencing pain, your feet are the last thing you think about. We shove them into shoes, elevate our heels, slam them into pavement as we run, and expect them to carry our entire weight all day, (or all night) without a second thought…until we develop bunions, hammer toes, plantar fasciitis, heel spurs or any number of other foot “issues.” These painful and expensive problems don’t happen by accident. They are connected to how you walk, stand, and move through your life.

There’s a saying, “How you do one thing is how you do everything.” What is happening to your feet is the result of different life choices, you were not born this way. Your feet are full of information. Everything that happens “down there” impacts your hips, back, your thoughts and your mood. Think about how cheerful you feel after stubbing your toe.

Everyone, from Oprah to the National Institute for Health tout walking as the new elixir of life. But how can you start a walking practice if you are in pain? It doesn’t matter how beautiful the scenery is if it hurts with every step. Americans spend millions of dollars on special shoes, treatments, orthotics and surgeries every year to correct problems that could have been avoided with just a little attention.

Here are a few simple things you can do to keep your feet happy.

1. Find your balance point. In standing take a few minutes to feel how your bare feet touch the ground. What are the clear points of contact? Does it feel heavier to the inside or the outside of your feet? Is it different on one foot or the other? Is it heavier in the heels or the balls of the feet? Your feet have three balance/push off points – under the ball of your foot behind your big toe, your fourth toe and your heel. Play with shifting your balance along those three points and see how it feels up in your hips. Experiment with how you hit the floor and push off as you walk.

2. Play with your toes. Wearing toe separators is not always the solution because your metatarsal bones actually have many joints that connect with your arch and other foot bones. Trying to force a change will only confuse your feet. Instead, take a few minutes every day to gently rotate, bend and lengthen each toe. Without using force, explore interlacing the toes of a foot with the fingers of your hand, from the top and then the bottom of your foot. Bend and straighten your toes. It may seem impossible at first, but if you pay attention and take your time, your toes will eventually relax and create space.

3. Free up your ankles. Just doing a bunch of ankle circles doesn’t do much, although it can feel good if you’re stiff. Instead, try this either sitting in a chair, or lying down with your legs bent with your feet flat on the floor. Try with one foot at a time to lift the inside of your arch. Hold onto your leg so your knee doesn’t move. Do it gently, allowing your ankle to move out while your knee stays still. If it feels easy, you can speed it up. Try the other foot and see if it feels different. Then try lifting outer edge of your foot. You’ll notice that your toes want to do the job. See if you can keep your toes relaxed and your knee still. You need to move slowly and delicately at first to release the ankle. Your ankles are crucial for aligning your feet as you walk.

4. Do the chicken scratch. Stand, holding onto a chair or the wall for balance, Kick one leg backward as if you were scratching the earth like a chicken. Or maybe kicking sand at something behind you. Let your foot sweep the earth going backwards and let your knee go backward as well. When you’ve tried it with each leg, try taking a few steps doing the “chicken scratch walk.” This will help your push off and give more power to your walk.

5. Master silly walks. It may sound crazy, but spending a few minutes finding different walking patterns lubricates your hips, frees up your back and changes how your feet hit the ground. Not only that, but according to a study conducted by Arizona State University, silly walking also burns more calories. Try walking pigeon toed or duck footed for a few steps. Lift your knees high or play with the chicken scratch above. Swing your arms and hips in a crazy fashion. You might start a trend. And your feet will find new ways of connecting with the ground.

Walking is a human birthright. And with happy feet, you’ll find that every part of you feels a little happier as well!

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We generally take all this for granted: jogging, chopping onions, coaching the soccer team, until something goes wrong. It could be an injury or an accident. Or it could be the result of invisible habits that have accumulated over a lifetime: clenching your teeth when feeling stressed, tightening your lower back for stability, curling your toes or hunching your shoulders. Whether it’s compensation for a recent injury, or a posture from childhood, these habits are now part of what your brain calls “me” and can seem invisible, until they cause pain. This impacts not just your physical comfort, but your mood, thinking ability and quality of life.

Those bones and muscles only work well when everything lines up as intended. Imagine a bridge, constructed with steel girders and cables. Your bones are like the girders, your muscles like the cables. Imagine what would happen to the bridge if one cable was too tight or too loose. Eventually the entire structure is compromised.

You may have tried to relieve your discomfort through exercise. But if you are exercising with a hunched shoulder, or rotated pelvis, you may be creating even more problems by further straining or forcing. And because these habits are so invisible, you don’t feel it till it’s too late.

It may seem like there’s no extra time for self-care. But paradoxically, if you slow down and pay attention to your body for five minutes a day, you can literally teach yourself new habits that can make you more effective, calmer and stronger as you go through your day.

Here are some ways to develop your ability to notice:

1. Body Scan. You can’t change what you don’t know. By taking a few minutes to sense yourself, you begin to educate your brain to make new choices. Lie on your back, preferably on a mat or carpet, something firm and comfortable. Close your eyes. Notice the parts of you that touch the floor. Are you heavier on one side? Are your feet pointing in the same direction? Where is your spine? Take a slow tour of all the places that touch the floor. Notice where things feel more or less comfortable. Allow the floor to support you, you don’t have to hold it together all the time.

2. On Your Feet. Stand with your feet comfortably underneath you, preferably without shoes. Sense how your feet touch the floor. Are both feet touching the same way? How are they different? Slowly shift your weight to one side and return a couple of times. Then shift to the other side. How is it different? Feeling stressed? Bounce up and down on your heels a few times. Walk around the room on the outsides of your feet. Then try it walking on the insides. Bounce again. Then check your feet and how you shift. Is it different? When you are more balanced on your feet, you’re more balanced in your thoughts.

3. Lengthen Your Back. Lie on your back with your legs long. Notice the space under your lower back. Is one side of your pelvis heavier than the other? Stand your right foot on the floor. Press your right foot into the floor so your right hip lifts, and slowly release several times. Pay attention to not clench your buttocks. Rest, then repeat on the other leg. Stretch out your legs and sense the space under your lower back.

Bend both of your legs over your chest and hold your knees. For at least five breaths, simply circle your legs and feel your pelvis and back move. Do it slowly, then reverse your circle. Stretch out again and notice how you feel.

4. Let Your Breath Help. Sitting or lying down, sense how your breath enters through your nose, into the back of your mouth, down your throat. Feel the air pass across your upper lip as you inhale and exhale. Notice the length of your inhale, exhale, and any pauses in between. Without straining, exhale completely and hold your breath out. Wait a few seconds, and without inhaling, exhale again. Pause again and wait for your body’s need to pull air in. Try this about five times, then go back to your own breath. Slowing your breath this way is a great way to re-set and calm down.

By interrupting your habits with slow, small changes, you will teach your nervous systems optimal ways of moving that can help reduce pain, increase your confidence and improve your wellbeing. You can apply the same kind of attention to any part of your body. Just remember to go slow and listen to your comfort level. As your ability to attend to yourself improves, you will paradoxically discover you have more time for the things you want to do!

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We need our habits. Without good habits, you’d have to plan every step you take: how to hold your toothbrush, put on your shirt, or even how to start your car and back out of the driveway. Without them, the simple tasks would become overwhelming.

Along with these practical habits, other habits develop over our lifetime. These aren’t just the behavioral habits we struggle with, like “I need to eat less” or “I have to start going to the gym.” Even the way you choose to walk or stand is a habit. So is how you listen to others and how you use your voice.

Some choices were useful for a time but now are not only unnecessary—they could even be robbing you of energy and happiness. These habits are so invisible that they feel like a part of you. How could they have anything to do with your well-being?

For instance, a person who grew up in a family where “wiggling the hips” was frowned upon might later discover that holding the pelvis still for many years caused back pain or even arthritis in the hips. There are many good reasons for rounding the back or hunching the shoulders: emotional trauma, carrying a backpack, imitating an adult role model, and more. Even if you want to change, it might seem impossible. “Whenever I tell my shoulders to go down, thirty seconds later, they’re back up again!”

Whether you want to improve your posture, overcome anxiety, or relieve back pain, using force will only take you so far. However, there is another way—one that is pleasurable, interesting, and just a bit revolutionary. It involves doing less, not more.

Current wisdom advises that you should move more—walk, exercise, do yoga, etc. After all, humans have been moving for at least a million years. The human body is designed to move, not to stand (or sit) still for long periods. But movement alone is not enough. Your movement habits can actually contribute to injuries—from torn rotator cuffs to plantar fasciitis.

So how do you create new ways of moving? And how can this help with something like anxiety? The truth is, how you move is how you move through life. The way you walk, your facial expressions, and where you hold your tension all tell the story of your life. And these habits are often the reason for physical discomfort. By learning to become aware of your movement habits, you can begin to reprogram not just your physical habits but your mental and emotional ones as well.

Try this: Sense the distance between your shoulders and your ears. Does this area feel relaxed or tense? Notice your breath. Very slowly, begin to raise one shoulder in the direction of your ear. Then, just as slowly, lower it. Repeat this a couple of times. Notice how you breathe, and where you tense or relax in other places as you do this. After a few repetitions, hold your shoulder as close to your ear as possible. Then slowly lower it. Sense how that shoulder feels now, and notice the difference between the two shoulders.

What you just experienced is a tiny experiment in movement and attention—what is called somatic movement. Some call this mindful movement, but you’re not just thinking. You are intentionally sensing and feeling as you move. “Somatic” comes from the Greek word soma, which means body. Somatic movement uses small, slow movements that give you time to actually experience your movement habits. You will learn to relax, use less energy to accomplish more, and even stay calm in tense situations. By slowing down and paying attention, you will begin to recognize the habits that get in the way of your well-being and happiness—one movement at a time.

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Our culture exhorts us to fake it till you make it, power pose your way into the job, look strong, act strong, be strong. And yet…the fear of failure, rejection and criticism keeps so many of us from realizing our dreams. Not to mention feeling ridiculous trying to puff yourself up and look like you know what you’re doing.

And yet, there is a connection between your posture, breath, facial expression, and how you walk. with your nervous system. Your brain interprets everything. Every breath, every step, smile or tooth clench, is sending millions of mini-messages via neurotransmitters about your state of mind.

So how can you embody courage and confidence when you need it most? Not just before a big pitch meeting, but on that first date, or the difficult phone call. Somewhere between faking it and making it there are strategies that can help you walk your talk with elegance and ease.

1. Upload Power From the Earth. Stand comfortably, looking straight ahead. Raise your heels slightly, no more than an inch, then drop them back down on the ground with a slight thump. Don’t resist the landing, but don’t go up so high that the landing is uncomfortable. Repeat the movement slowly a few times and see if you can relax your whole body so that when you land, you feel the reverberation all the way up your spine. Then speed it up, bouncing up and down. If you’re alone, feel free to make sounds as you bounce, activating your voice. The vibration from your heels will revitalize and energize your whole skeleton. Then pause, straighten up and walk into that room!

2. The Breath of Courage. Every emotion has a breath pattern to it, so you can bring power into your body by listening to your breathing. Take a minute to sense your own breathing pattern now. If you’re nervous, it may be a bit shallow or rapid. Interestingly, taking big gulps of air is actually counterproductive. Instead, begin to breathe through your nose with an even count of both inhale and exhale. Find a comfortable count and let your belly relax and move. Don’t pause in between inhales or exhales. Keep the movement going down, a diaphragmatic breath, not up into your shoulders. If it’s comfortable for you, bring your teeth lightly together. Do this for about 30 seconds, and then go for it. Calm and determination prevail.

3. The Bell Hand. This was developed many years ago as a tool for calming the nervous system. It can be done anywhere. I’ve even done it under a table during a dinner conversation. You simply close your hand as if you are bringing all your fingertips to touch your thumb. You delicately touch, then open the hand again. Turn it into a pulse, like a flower opening and closing, or a sea anemone. Find an easy rhythm. If you go too fast, or squeeze your hand shut, you know you have lost your cool. This is incredibly effective as you are sitting, or standing, waiting to be called onstage, into the meeting, or to meet your child’s teacher.

4. The Power Pose. Yes, it really can work. You don’t have to stand with your legs apart and your arms on your hips like a Superman cartoon or the Jolly Green Giant. Although you can, and it can work. Just strike a pose that gives you the image of power. Your power center is your pelvic region: the abdomen, hips and lower back. We intuitively know that your abdomen, hips and lower back are the first responders to the “flight, fight, freeze” response. We have sayings like, “I was so scared I almost peed my pants!” “Her guts clenched in fear.” You don’t need to know anatomy to know that if you freeze, your legs won’t move. Take a moment to sense your abdominal region, even move it around in a circle. Then take a stance. Hold the pose for two minutes, which may seem like a long time. You need to listen to your own body’s intelligence. Just make sure you strike your pose before you go into an event, then let it go and be yourself.

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