How To Reduce Inflammation Naturally | And Feel Better In Your Body

Inflammation is a pain. It's no fun, it wreaks havoc on your daily activities, and it makes just living life generally uncomfortable and unpleasant. And I know we use the term inflammation a lot, but it really needs to be taken seriously because having chronic inflammation can lead to a long list of health problems down the road, like heart disease, obesity, diabetes, arthritis, cancer, and even depression. And if you've been following me for a while, you know that inflammation and how to reduce inflammation is one of the big things that I share on this channel. And the cool thing about inflammation is that there are a ton of things that you can do naturally to reduce your inflammation. And it's actually pretty simple. And once you understand what you're doing to cause the inflammation and then subsequently how to naturally reduce it, you have so much more power to get over the pain. So let's get started. So if you're looking for the single fastest way to reduce inflammation in your body, are you ready for it? It's three words, change your diet. And it really does come down to that. So in order to reduce that inflammation, we need to start reducing and or eliminating inflammatory foods that are causing that inflammation. And we also want to start paying attention to our nutrition and focusing on foods that contain antioxidants. Why are antioxidants so valuable and so important here? Because antioxidants actually reduce the free radicals in your body. And that reduces inflammatory markers. So less free radicals, less inflammation, more antioxidants, less free radicals. So it kind of all works together. And it's very simple. If you can just look at it that way. I have a whole video on the top anti inflammatory foods that I can link for you below. And you also want to have a balanced diet, one that is rich in complex carbs, lean proteins, healthy fats, whole grains, high fiber foods, and have those in every meal, try to make every meal as balanced as you can. And if you need some help, I have a five day free anti inflammatory meal plan that I can link for you below as well. And it's full of delicious recipes. And I get tons of positive feedback from it. So definitely check that one out if you just need, hey, what the heck does anti inflammatory foods look like? Because I think you're going to be surprised how delicious it is. And in a sec, I'm going to go into a step by step list of the different ways that we can start reducing inflammation naturally. But in addition to changing your diet, it's also important to focus on the things you're drinking as well. Lemon water is one I have a whole video on lemon water if you want to check it out and the benefits of it. It's basically getting you hydrated, you get the antioxidants from the lemon, you get the water, there's some studies that show that it reduces inflammation, it repairs damaged tissues, it's just an overall good way to just have water. And if you don't really like lemons, having water in general is a great idea. Aim for about half of your weight in ounces each day. So if I weigh 140 pounds, I want to have at least 70 ounces of water and then more so if I'm exercising to replenish that apple cider vinegar, y'all know that I have all these videos on apple cider vinegar and the effectiveness for anti inflammation. Definitely check those videos out. If you're interested, I can link to some below for you. There's some proven research for an abundance of things that apple cider vinegar can do for you, one of which is to help reduce inflammation, you want to aim for no more than two tablespoons a day. And you can have that just in a shot in water cooked into foods, whatever, just having that in your daily routine is a great idea. So let's start talking about some legit research based ways that you can start reducing your inflammation naturally. Number one, obviously, like we've already talked about is eating more anti inflammatory foods. The cool thing about this is you actually get to do something and eat something rather than having to remove things. So I really like to focus on all the abundance of foods that you can eat that work to reduce your inflammation, which is kind of a cool way to look at it. And it also gets you away from thinking there's these magic pills and supplements and medicines that you can take that will reduce your inflammation when what we really need to be doing is just focusing on our diet. And in general, if you want to reduce inflammation for the long term, changing your daily routine, changing your diet is really going to have such a big effect overall today and in the future. So in general, foods like nuts, berries, olive oil, coconut oil, whole grains like quinoa, brown rice and wild rice, red grapes, beans and legumes, lentils, avocado, broccoli, cauliflower, green tea, or matcha spices like pepper and turmeric and ginger and cinnamon. Those are all really good anti inflammatory spices to just kind of dose onto your food. Dark chocolate definitely over 75% cacao is the ideal so that you get rid of all that extra sugars and added artificial stuff, chia seeds, flax seeds, citrus, especially like oranges and lemons using natural sweeteners instead of artificial or processed sweeteners like pure maple syrup, raw honey, coconut sugar, those are all really good options and high fiber, high starch foods like sweet potatoes and regular potatoes and even beets. So another way to get your inflammation down naturally is to just start moving, you know, we might be really uncomfortable and your body might be telling you no, I want to sit down and stay here and not move because I'm in so much pain. But the reality is if you just start to move and you start getting the synovial fluid moving in your joints, it's going to reduce pain, it's going to reduce inflammation and it's going to improve your health. Just in general, being active in your day at a minimum of one to two hours in your day is going to have a positive effect. Number three, try to keep your stress levels low. There is a direct correlation between stress and inflammation and it's no fun. It's not a good way. We want to reduce our stress so that we can reduce our inflammation. And so there's a few ways that we can do that. One is to get better sleep, it reduces our cortisol levels so that you are generally less predisposed to be anxious and stressed. You can work on your own relaxation techniques, you can start yoga, you can work on meditation, whatever you need in order to start reducing that overall stress because that's going to tell your body that it doesn't need to be on high alert. Instead, it can start to reduce that stress and reduce that overall inflammation. Managing your blood sugar levels is another way to naturally reduce inflammation. And what do I mean by that? In general, eating a clean-ish diet is going to help you reduce your overall inflammation and blood sugar levels because you're going to be removing those very simple carbohydrates like plain white flour that's been bleached, refined sugars, and other forms of sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup. All of those types of things just give you an instant giant spike in your blood sugar levels. In fact, there's research that shows that refined white flours increase your blood sugar levels just like sugar would. So we want to reduce that and have a more mellow sugar level in our blood so that we aren't constantly putting our body to the max of having to deal with that and to bring it back down. The more you do that and the more you cause your body to have to constantly bring your blood sugar levels back down, the more likely you are to become obese and also to develop type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance. And number five is to get more sleep. And you can tell that a lot of these are all kind of interrelated because the more you kind of just have this better healthy lifestyle, you're replacing more processed foods with less processed foods, you're getting better sleep, and you're doing all these things. It's going to have an overall holistic positive effect on your health. So like I was talking about before, when you have poor sleep, your body increases its cortisol levels, that increases your stress, and that also causes an increase in inflammation. So you'll notice on those mornings that you really didn't get very good sleep. You wake up uncomfortable, swollen, maybe you're craving carbs the whole day, lacking energy, and it's just no good. Nobody likes that feeling. And if you put yourself in a position where you're always feeling that way, you're never going to get out of that inflammatory response. You're always going to be in that chronic inflammation stage. So the better sleep you get, the better quality sleep you get is going to really, really help to reduce that inflammation. So I know it's sometimes challenging, especially if you're uncomfortable, to get that momentum going, but just try to focus on these top five tips and just increase your general movement, eating healthy, and removing those things that we know that can cause inflammation, and you're going to be on your way. If you need some help, check out my free five-day anti-inflammatory meal plan, or come join me in 30 Day Healthy for a 30-day program for anti-inflammation, and I will see you in the next video.