Are you sick of triggering old sports injuries, or feeling like every lousy food choice leaves your stomach crying out in pain? The problem might be chronic inflammation; a confusion in your body where your immune system is over-triggered. If you let this inflammation get out of control, it can put you at risk for dozens of different lifestyle diseases, including diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer’s.
Not all inflammation is dangerous. In fact, it’s your body’s natural defense against infection and injury. Understanding the intricacies of this condition will help you know how to fight inflammation. The ultimate guide to keeping your system running smoothly is below, so continue reading to find out the facts.
What is Inflammation?
Simply put, inflammation is the process your body uses to fight off foreign invaders like viruses and bacteria. Inflammation also helps your body heal itself by repairing damaged tissue after an injury. The process begins when an injury triggers the release of proteins called cytokines into your bloodstream.
When this happens, your arteries begin to expand to increase blood flow, allowing white blood cells to swarm the site of the injury and absorb the germs and other damaging materials that are present. At the same time, hormones called prostaglandins build blood clots that close gaps and stimulate the healing process. This flood of blood cells and hormones also brings fluid to the site of the injury, which can cause pain and swelling if it presses on nerve endings.
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Chronic Versus Acute Inflammation
There are two main types of inflammation: acute and chronic. Acute inflammation is caused by specific injuries, like cutting your finger or suffering from a sore throat. Your immune system responds quickly by sending white blood cells to the region, which leads to redness and swelling as they repair the injury.
In contrast, chronic inflammation builds up from daily wear and often comes as a symptom of conditions like IBS or rheumatoid arthritis. Poor lifestyle choices like smoking, being overweight, too little exercise, and stress are also triggers for chronic inflammation.
While inflammation is your body’s way of directing attention to a problem it wants to solve, it can lead to complications. Not sure how to fight inflammation? The ultimate guide for keeping it under control is ahead.
Symptoms of Inflammation
Do you have chronic inflammation without realizing it? The following symptoms are reliable indicators that you do:
- Redness and irritation
- Swollen joints
- Joint pain and/or stiffness
- Reduced functionality in joint
- Flu-like symptoms, including a fever, chills, and general fatigue
- Headaches
- Muscle stiffness
- Loss of appetite
9 Tips on How to Fight Inflammation
Understanding that chronic inflammation is harmful and knowing how to keep your levels under control are entirely different issues. There is a lot of confusion around inflammation today, making it difficult to understand what you need to do to stay healthy.
If you’re willing to work to reclaim your health and help your immune system function like it should, keep reading to learn how to fight inflammation, the ultimate guide.
1. Dump the Junk from your Diet
You don’t need a health article to tell you that some of your favorite foods are better suited for a chemistry lab than your belly. Overly-processed, nutrient-stripped snack foods abound in the American diet today, and they can wreak havoc on your immune system. Foods high in trans-fats, simple sugars, and processed carbohydrates will trigger your body’s inflammatory response.
A good rule of thumb? Avoid any foods with ingredients you don’t recognize or couldn’t buy to cook with yourself. Make sure that your daily carbs come as close to natural as possible, like whole grains or steel cut oats. If your system can handle them, these grains will mediate your inflammatory response and promote the growth of beneficial bacteria in your digestive system.
2. Practice Good Gut Health
A healthy digestive system is a key to combating chronic inflammation because many inflammatory conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease, and Celiac disease all begin in the gut. You can promote better gut health if you limit your consumption of trigger foods like caffeine, alcohol, and simple sugars, and fill up on foods rich in probiotics, zinc, and plant-based protein.
3. Tailor Your Diet to Your Specifications
Everyone’s digestive system is different, and one of the easiest ways to cause inflammation is eating foods your body can’t handle well. These can include common allergens like soy, dairy, and wheat. If you are overly sensitive to these foods, your body considers them hostile invaders every time they make an appearance. Filling up on them triggers potentially damaging inflammatory responses that you are better off avoiding.
4. Move More
While sports injuries are a leading cause of acute inflammation, regularly exercising can dramatically lower your risk of developing the chronic variety. This is because exercise (especially cardio) triggers your body to boost its antioxidant supply, which affects your cholesterol levels and blood pressure so that you are less susceptible to inflammation.
5. Cut Out Added Sugars
The modern world’s obsession with the sweet stuff makes it hard to avoid, but eating an average of 150-170 pounds of sugar per year is bound to lead to problems. Sweeteners in all forms (natural or otherwise) will spike your blood sugar and trigger your pancreas to release insulin in an inflammatory response that can lead to diabetes. If you crave some sweetness, fill up on fiber-rich fruits instead to slow down the rate of sugar absorption.
6. Fill Up on Anti-inflammatory Fats
You might be used to hearing that fats are bad for you, but the truth is that healthy fats are essential for lots of physical functioning. Early humans were never exposed to most of the fats we eat today, but instead filled up on anti-inflammatory foods filled with omega-3 fatty acids. Now, however, the standard American diet contains 30 times more bad fats than good ones.
Fats and oils also directly influence the kinds of bacteria within your digestives system, meaning that they play a role in how your immune system is triggered. Your body uses these fatty acids to make prostaglandins, which are considered to be anti-inflammation hormones.
7. Get Plenty of (Plant-Based) Protein
Red meat is responsible for more than its fair share of inflammation, so filling up on plant-based protein sources instead is a better idea for your health. Consider substituting tofu, beans, seitan, or quinoa for ground beef in your next recipe for a straightforward way to reduce your risk of chronic inflammation. Check out these other benefits of a Plant-Based Diet.
8. Lower Your Stress Levels
Food might be a factor, but one of the biggest triggers for chronic inflammation is an elevated stress level. Research from Carnegie Mellon University found that chronic stress causes your body to lose sensitivity to cortisol, a vital hormone for controlling inflammation.
If you want to keep your body tissue sensitive to cortisol, you need to shut down stress in whatever way works for you. Consider meditating, doing yoga, taking walks outside, and getting more sleep each night so that your problems are put into perspective, and you aren’t controlled by stress each day.
9. Fill Your Plate with Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
It’s practically impossible to overstate the importance of following a plant-based diet if you want advice on how to fight inflammation. The ultimate guide is to fill your plate at least half full of fruits and vegetables at every meal, paying particular attention to leafy greens like spinach, kale, chard, and collards. These foods contain sulfur-based compounds that naturally block enzymes that cause joint deterioration, a cause of inflammation.
Brightly hued berries are also beneficial, as they are filled with polyphenol compounds and phytochemicals that naturally moderate inflammation. In fact, the darker the coloring, the more likely the produce will have potent antioxidant properties that stave off an overactive immune response.
Fight Inflammation Naturally with Preventative Measures
If you’ve been wondering how to fight inflammation, the ultimate guide you can get is to focus on preventative measures first. By eating healthy, whole foods and avoiding common triggers like junk food and too little exercise, you can prepare your body up for success so that your immune system runs exactly as it should: not more, and not less.
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