Are you chronically inflamed?
Chronic inflammation has been linked to multiple health issues that plague our society.
Scientists are beginning to refer to low grade, chronic inflammation in the body as “inflammaging.” Inflammaging has been associated with conditions like heart disease, stress, depression, and a weakened immune system.
Inflammation is the body’s way of protecting us from harm. Moderate inflammatory response is beneficial to the body but when excessive the response then becomes harmful.
Our body has anti inflammatory processes and pro inflammatory processes. As long as the anti processes are greater than the pro inflammatory processes than we stay alive!
There are 2 main stages of inflammation:
1. Acute – is your body’s natural and helpful immune response to tissue damage. When you get a cute that swells and feels inflamed. These are all signs that your immune system is at work. In this situation, inflammation is our friend—we couldn’t live without it.
2. Chronic- your body is confused and damaging immune response to a multitude of environmental, physical and mental invaders, which come in the form of things like poor diet, toxic chemicals and stress.
Whether you are over weight or not you can still be inflamed. If highly inflamed then our recovery time is lagging and our body has to work harder to remove waste products. This means feeling more fatigued than normal.
If we are inflamed then this means our brain is too and we will make less optimal decisions.
Although this may sound like a lot, this is actually great news because then there are many ways to reduce inflammation. And reducing inflammation means we will live a longer and happier life!
SPEED is an acronym for five major lifestyle factors that can be manipulated to mitigate and/or reverse some of the effects of chronic inflammation:
- Sleep
- Psychological stress
- Environment
- Exercise
- Diet
Five ways to Reduce Inflammation :
1. Physical Activity- According to the National Institute of Health, regularly being physically active reduces chronic inflammation because of its anti-inflammatory effects.
2. Posture- One of the most powerful benefits of improving posture is lessening inflammation . If the ribcage is compressed slightly then the diaphragm is compressed and the breaths we take are shortened. If our breathing is shallow then we are producing cortisol.
3. Eating more Omega 3 fats – Our society bombards us with processed foods filled with Omega 6 fats. In order to have less inflammation eating more Omega 3’s will support in balancing the Omega 6 – Omega 3 ratio.
4. Yoga/Meditation – Cortisol varies throughout the day based on the circadian rhythm and a higher baseline level of cortisol is one indicator of high chronic stress. Practicing yoga and/or meditation will help to incorporate deep breathing and other exercises that reduce stress levels.
5. Taking a simple blood test hsCRP test can measure (CRP), which is a marker for inflammation, including arterial inflammation in the blood. This information can give you insight on your current levels of inflammation in the blood and tips on what to do next.
The quality and length of our lives have everything to do with the levels of inflammation in our blood.
I hope this article inspires you to take action on your inflammation levels today! Contact me at to learn more.
Yours in health,
Nicole
