8 ways to reduce inflammation
Inflammation in your system isn’t always all bad. In fact, inflammation works to protect your body and stomach when you’re sick or injured. Having said that, it can be extremely painful, and when extended, inflammation can increase your risk of certain diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. So while short term stomach pain may in fact be helpful, you’ll still want to eliminate that inflammation pretty quick. If this is something you go through a little too often, here are some proven tips to reduce inflammation.
Eat foods with probiotics
We want to protect our guts even if we aren’t dealing with inflammation. Consuming foods like yogurt, sauerkraut, kombucha, and kimchi are common ways to strengthen our gut microbe barrier, and this in turn reduces both long and short term inflammation.
Stock up on Omega-3
Omega-3 fatty acids help regulate our body’s inflammatory system and generally help with pain caused from it. Foods like salmon, tuna, and mackerel all have loads of omega-3 fatty acids. Or you can also seek out walnuts, pecans, and ground flaxseed oil if fish isn’t your style.
Ease up on sugar and high fructose corn syrup
In one study, researchers found that mice with high-sugar diets were more likely to impair anti-inflammatory responses. Another study showed that high amounts of high fructose corn syrup contributed to the development of breast cancer that spread to mice lungs, partially due to inflammation. A lot of studies have proven that high levels of each can cause casual and heightened inflammation.
Eat more whole foods and avoid refined sugar
How do we avoid those refined sugars? Eating whole foods and plants is the way to go. Fruits and vegetables known to have significant amounts of anti-inflammatory properties include berries, tomatoes, cherries, grapes, mushrooms, and legumes.
Get your sleep
Getting the right amount of sleep can be vital to reducing inflammation. Our biology resets while we rest, so sustained inflammation can often be cured by getting some quality shut-eye time. If you don’t, poor sleep can even ramp up the effects of inflammation.
Exercise daily
While we exercise, our contracting muscles actually inhibit inflammation. Overtime, regular exercise can reduce inflammation itself and some of the worse diseases associated with it. This includes, heart disease, dementia, diabetes, and arthritis. Essentially, moving your body prepares us to combat illness and recover faster from an injury.
Take anti-inflammatory supplements
If you want to avoid changing your eating regimen, supplements are a great way to fight inflammation. Some ingredients you’ll want to look for in supplements are: Alpha-lipoic acid, curcimin, fish oil, ginger, resveratrol, and spirulina.
Add some spice to your food!
Most people would assume that spice makes the pain worse, but in fact some spices do the opposite. Using garlic, turmeric, rosemary, cinnamon, cumin, ginger, and fenugreek generally decreases inflammation. A great idea is to add ginger, honey, turmeric to hot water or tea of your choice!
These are only a handful of the researched and proven tips in reducing inflammation. The general message is to eat more foods in which you can easily find the ingredients and get your rest! Hopefully, some of these tips can help fight your inflammation and the linked diseases that can result from it.
References
- https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/6-foods-that-cause-inflammation#1
- https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/how-to-use-food-to-help-your-body-fight-inflammation/art-20457586
- https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/anti-inflammatory-diet-101#other-tips
- https://www.copemanhealthcare.com/resources/chronic-inflammation-exercise
- https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/6-anti-inflammatory-supplements#section6
- https://www.cookinglight.com/eating-smart/nutrition-101/how-to-reduce-inflammation-overnight
