What Causes Inflammation?

Easy Ways to Reduce Inflammation in Everyday Life

Clearly chronic inflammation is a state we ought to avoid, yet despite reading this and other articles, it can seem like a challenge to achieve an inflammation-free body. The goal is not to cripple through knowledge, but rather to empower–to lead as healthy a life as possible, without feeling like you need to give up everything you currently enjoy. That being said, chronic inflammation is, for 99% of people, an affliction of lifestyle, and the only way to cure lifestyle diseases is to change your lifestyle.

With chronic inflammation, there are more and less important factors. While all of the most important factors were covered earlier sections, consider this section a quick and easy review–it contains the most important information to relieve chronic inflammation and the steps which are the easiest to incorporate. Through incorporation of these steps into your lifestyle, chronic inflammation can be reduced or completely eliminated.

Reach an Ideal Weight

This is the hardest part for most people, but it is also the most important. As long as you have excess fat tissue, your body is going to be creating excess inflammation, making it impossible to reach an inflammation free state.

Obesity is a low-grade state of chronic inflammation, which means that obesity and inflammation co-exist. If you fight one source, you fight both.

How Exercise Fights Inflammation

Although exercise has not been demonstrated to reduce inflammation itself, and is actually associated with increased levels of IL-6 for a few days, exercise does have numerous other benefits, all of which help your body better regulate its inflammatory response. Our bodies are designed to move, and optimal health cannot be achieved without moving.

Load Up on Spices and Herbs

There’s no such thing as too much spice. Salt and sugar have taken over our taste buds, though, and fight our love for interesting flavors. In history, we loaded up on spices for many reasons, most of which have been resolved by modern knowledge. We no longer need spices to preserve food, for example, now that we have refrigeration. Nonetheless, there is very strong evidence that we need spices in order to best regulate our body, so don’t be shy with them!

When preparing a recipe, use the called-for amounts of spice as a baseline. Then, put as much in as needed for brilliant flavor, before salting the dish! With the exception of a few spices, which overpower all other flavors (such as cloves, allspice, and nutmeg), most spices can easily be doubled. Even better, the “spicier” the dish, the less salt necessary, increasing its health benefits further.

For the best spices, find an ethnic market or spice shop nearby. Most Americans don’t use spices frequently, and as a result they tend to sit and grow old on grocery store shelves, where they lose their potency and flavor. At ethnic markets and spice shops, the spices are bought frequently so there is more turnover and potency.