Natural Relief From Chronic Inflammation
Living with chronic inflammation, can be depressing. You wake up in pain, go throughout your day, trying to ignore everything that aches, and as you lay your weary bones to rest at night, you can’t wait to drift off and forget about everything that hurts.
The usual course of action for those living with chronic inflammation is to go to the doctor to find out what’s happening to cause this. But what often happens is the doctor isn’t sure, and they can only guess at the many different scenarios if there is no specific showing up in your bloodwork.
This lead you to a spiral of frustration, and the only way to improve things is to take back control of your health and empower yourself with knowledge. Below, you are going to find many different natural solutions that can contribute to lessening inflation in your body.
Does that mean it will all go away overnight? Probably not. However, these are things many use to alleviate the inflammation and accompany pain that tends to get better over time the more you are consistent with these efforts.
You may want to do some trial and error to see what works best for you and definitely consult your doctor to make sure there are no underlying conditions he or she can address.
Sometimes, what works for you might be a nutritional tip and other times it might be some sort of other actionable tip that works best for your situation. You won’t know until you try and hopefully, you’ll find the relief you’ve been searching for.
Limit or Nix the Obvious Inflammation Foods and Make Replacements
It’s time to start sizing up your diet, because inflammation often stems from what you’re fueling your body with. If it’s processed foods, a high dose of sugar and everything typically considered bad for you, then lowering your dose of these can diminish inflammation significantly.
In addition to what you need to stop consuming, let’s look at what you need to start adding to your diet as a beneficial replacement. Instead of cooking with unhealthy ingredients, flavor it with inflammation-fighting spices and herbs.
Turmeric, ginger, chili peppers and cinnamon are all great for reducing inflammation markers. You want to cook with these and replace the seed oils you may have used with olive oil, too.
If you can tolerate them, seek ways to start adding mushrooms to your meals. Broccoli is another good addition that lowers cytokines, which drive inflammation in your body. While you’re at is, add garlic, too – it reduces chronic inflammation when taken regularly.
Other nutritional changes that will help reduce inflammation include drinking green tea, eating foods with omega-3 fatty acids (like salmon), eating nuts and adding leafy greens, tomatoes, cherries, and avocadoes to your meals.
For dessert, make a swap to consume more dark chocolate and snack on berries and cherries, which all help to combat inflammation that’s rising in your body. This is much better for you than highly processed desserts.
You can also add certain supplements to your day to help with delivering anti-inflammatory measures to support your body. Two of the most popular ones are Devil’s Claw, which helps manage inflammation and Boswellia Serrate, which can inhibit inflammatory pathways in your body that signal the increased production of inflammatory markers.
It goes without saying that all of this should be paired with good hydration. Water helps flush out toxins in your body, which often cause a rise in pain associated with the inflammation you’re experiencing.
Mind and Body Best Practices to Alleviate Inflammation
Once you integrate some of the nutritional and hydration measures that can help reduce inflammation in your body, you want to turn to your mind and body as a way to help calm this storm.
It may sound counterproductive to exercise, but this is actually something that can reduce inflammatory markers like C reactive protein and cytokines. You can do whatever feels best for your body, whether that’s walking or swimming, and try to engage in a mix of aerobic and anaerobic exercises each week until you can gradually increase the intensity or length of your exercise sessions without experiencing any pain.
The reason exercise is so good for fighting inflammation is because it helps you get more circulation throughout your body and it can contribute to weight loss, which also reduces inflammation.
The next thing you want to do in terms of lifestyle for your body and mind is restore your sleep if it has been interrupted by chronic inflammation. Some people who suffer from this condition feel pain up until they fall asleep, so you want to make sure you have a very good sleep environment that caters to your body’s needs.
You want to make sure that your room is dark and cool and that there are no noises that can distract you from falling asleep. Make sure your bedding is very comfortable so that it promotes a strong, restorative sleep that will help your body repair and recover from the inflammation.
Some people like to have a routine before bedtime that helps them sleep better. This might include taking a bath a couple of hours beforehand, eliminating any caffeine or technology, and reading a book to relax.
You don’t want to forget your mind and how it can contribute to inflammation in the body. Having high levels of cortisol coursing throughout your veins is something that will contribute to high levels of inflammation.
So you have to learn how to get your stress under control, and this can be done by practicing deep breathing techniques as well as gentle exercises like yoga or even using a guided meditation app for a few minutes each day to help lower your stress.
You don’t have to do everything on your own to reduce stress, either. There are support groups online and off, and even making sure you interact with friends and family to reduce stress and boost dopamine levels can benefit your health.
Therapies and Non-Traditional Care You Can Try
There are some different therapies and care that you can get from others which have a natural slant to them. These are not things you’ll do on your own. The first one would be acupuncture, which is a Chinese medicine that stimulates points in your body for healing and reduced inflammation.
For this type of therapy, you may want to go once a week or every other week, and just adjust it as you feel is needed based on your current level of inflammation in that moment.
Another type of natural therapy you might try as chiropractic care. Sometimes, depending on your situation, it may help to reduce inflammation by having your joints aligned correctly.
You want to have an initial assessment of your spine and see what can be done to relieve pressure in your body and lower those inflammation markers. Some people go more frequently than others, up to a couple of times per week, while others go only as needed when symptoms arise.
You may also want to look into massage therapy period you can get a therapeutic massage that not only relaxes you, but reduces the tension in your muscles and helps produce more circulation throughout your body to decrease inflammation.
There are different massage techniques you can choose from, such as a lymphatic drainage massage that can help reduce inflammation or a deep tissue massage that really works the muscles, but sometimes feels painful before it feels better.
There is one therapy that you can do at home on your own, and that is using hot and cold methods to apply heat or cold to your body that either reduces swelling and numbs areas of inflammation or increases the blood flow and allows you to move more easily.
In order to carry this out, you can use things like heating pads or even a bath. You can use ice packs on areas that feel injured or more painful than others. Alternating between hot and cold is often a good idea if you have an inflammation condition such as arthritis.
Infrared Heat and Red Light Therapies
If you’re still looking for more natural therapies to address your inflammation, consider infrared heat and red light therapies. These are two different things, but both work to penetrate into your skin or tissues and promote healing from inflammation.
If you have access to an infrared sauna, you can sit in it for two to three times a week and spend anywhere from 10 minutes to half an hour allowing it to reduce muscle pain and detoxify your body.
You can purchase red light therapy gadgets online, and these cause no pain and can be done head to toe. They are not hot, but the red light is delivered at a low level wavelength and penetrates the skin to assist your body in its recovery.
These are not things you’re going to see overnight results with, but instead if you use it consistently over time, you will begin to see results from this type of therapy. There are many scientific studies done on red light therapy if you’d like to look those up and see how beneficial it can be for many different health conditions.
You do have to make sure you get the right kind of red light therapy device. It needs 660 nm for the red light and 850 nm for the near infrared light. This is a great thing to combine with other natural solutions to help reduce your inflammation and improve your sense of well-being.
Lifestyle Changes That Can Reduce Inflammation
There are also basic lifestyle changes you want to consider making in an effort to combat the inflammation you are feeling. If you’re someone who sits at a desk all day, look for ergonomic furniture that can be better for your body in terms of making it strain less throughout the day.
You also want to look at what kind of environmental toxins you are surrounding yourself with each day. It may help to get an air purifier and a water filter to use in your office or at home so that you are not allowing triggers into your body that can begin a new inflammatory cycle.
If you smoke, consider looking into cessation options. There are many health benefits to stopping smoking, but inflammation is one. The toxins that it introduces fuel the inflammation you are trying to decrease.
Likewise, consuming alcohol regularly can contribute to increased inflammation in your body by stressing your liver. It’s better if you can eliminate it altogether, but at least limit it significantly or try to replace it with non alcoholic options that will help your body.
If the list of natural solutions feels overwhelming because you are changing so many different things in your life, don’t worry. Start with one thing and begin gradually adding on others until you are at a point where you are not consumed by the pain you are feeling from inflammation each day.