Updated March 26th, 2022
Introduction / Diet / Exercise /
Introduction
Unless you have been living under a rock, you have experienced some kind of inflammation. Actually, I take that back. If you lived under a rock, you would probably have a lot of inflammation throughout your body. There are two main types of inflammation: peripheral and systemic.
1. Peripheral inflammation on the outside of your body is seen through redness, swelling, or bruising and is usually caused by a physical injury. Remember the first few times you hurt your ankle or knee and it swelled up like a softball?
2. Systemic inflammation can still cause some redness or swelling in your joints, but it isn’t as obvious as a physical injury because it comes from within your body. This type of inflammation can affect your muscles, joints, and even your organs! It is usually caused by lack of movement, poor diet, and drugs/alcohol.
What’s so bad about this inflammation anyways? Well, unfortunately it can lead to diseases like arthritis, cancer, diabetes, and chronic pain among many others.(1)(2)
Okay Jeremy, enough of the nerdy stuff, I want answers!
I have compiled tips and tricks for you below to improve your overall health and avoid living an inflammatory life. Due to my license in Physical Therapy, I am not allowed to specifically give you advice or a prescription to improve your diet or anything else outside the scope of my field. Instead, I have provided you with as many resources as I could find from professionals in other fields of health. Please take the time to look through as much of this as you can, I believe an overall approach to health must be taken to avoid all the deadly diseases that Americans face today.
Diet - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Surprisingly, most inflammation starts with the food you put into your body. If you eat foods that came from an animal that was sick or created in a laboratory, guess what? This is going to increase the amount of inflammation in your body, leaving you predisposed to poor health. Eating healthy is simple, but it’s not easy. We all know the basics of what healthy eating looks like, but what would you choose to eat between broccoli and pizza? Many health professionals report that you don’t have to completely remove inflammatory foods from your diet, but following a “healthy most of the time” diet can be very beneficial.(1)(2)
Here are some basics for you:
The Good: veggies, fruits, nuts, grass-fed meat, fish, chicken, cheese, low-sugar yogurt
The Bad: meats and other foods raised with antibiotics and hormones, low fat and high carbohydrate foods, processed foods
The Ugly: alcohol, fast foods, cookies, chips, cake, soda (even diet) all with processed sugars (3)
Find more information on diet and inflammation HERE (this link will take you to a free PDF created by The University of Wisconsin in another tab)
Exercise
As a Physical Therapist, exercise is what I thrive on. For many, frequent exercise seems unattainable or maybe even a waste of time because it takes energy to complete. But when you exercise you re-distribute blood throughout your system, which in turn will help facilitate the inflammatory process and possibly give you more energy. Think about the last time you exercised. Did you leave the gym or get done at home and say “I don’t really feel good about myself”? I doubt it. Most people, including my patients thus far, report feeling better, “loose”, or more energetic following exercises.
If you are looking for suggestions on when or how often to exercise: The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) suggests each individual perform 150 minutes of exercise per week for improved overall health and fitness. There are also strengthening suggestions found HERE
But Jeremy, wait……I thought you said inflammation was bad? Isn’t exercise going to cause more? Put in a simple way, yes. Exercise will cause more inflammation. But it will distribute that inflammation and blood flow throughout the body, instead of letting the blood sit in one spot. Inflammation is a natural process that our body will go through to try and heal itself. The brain recognizes an injury in our foot and sends immediate blood flow and stimulates inflammation in order to promote healing.
Inflammation turns into a bad guy when it is affecting multiple joints, organs, or causing us a lot of daily pain. This is where exercise comes into play. Move your body frequently to help decrease the dangerous effects of inflammation hanging out wherever it wants all day. You can start with simple movements like kicking your legs or raising your arms. Then move up to walking or dancing or just moving more throughout the day!
Sleep
One of the most important areas of health that can lead to improvements in recovery, building strength, and reducing inflammation is high quality sleep. Sleep is another area that is important for me to discuss with my patients as a PT, but I am in no way a “sleep professional”. Not to brag, but most nights I feel like I do sleep like a professional would.
You know those weekend days where you get to wake up without an alarm and you feel like a million bucks? Why do you think you feel that way? Because your body and brain had adequate time to reduce inflammation, regulate all of your internal systems, and help you recover from the previous days’ activities. I’m here to tell you that you CAN have this feeling during your normal work week as well! I have some important tips below that I have found helpful in research, as well as some sources for those nerds like me that want to learn more.(4)
Waking Up:
Cell Phones
One of the first things people do these days when they wake up is check their phone or look at the news. If this describes you, you may be starting your day off on the wrong foot. Whether the information you take in was positive or negative, you are beginning your day focused on everything besides yourself.
MOVE
What is your morning routine? Is it always consistent? The brain loves easy and automatic tasks in the morning, but it is also helpful to let it know you are awake in the morning by doing some light exercise. As we said before, movement is helpful for reducing inflammation, so why not start out early and help yourself wake up as well?
During The Day:
Caffeine
Most research recommends avoiding caffeine within 6-8 hours of bed. With that being said, most caffeine has a half-life of 10 hours. This means that if you had 100 mg of caffeine at 10AM, there would still be about 50 mg of caffeine in your system at 8PM. This could have a huge effect on your sleep quality.
Early Dinners
The digestion process that begins immediately after you eat takes about 4-6 hours. So if you eat very close to bed and have difficulty falling asleep, it may be due to your body still trying to digest that huge dinner you had because you eat like a king for dinner like I do. And since you know I’m a “movement” guy, moving around for at least 10 minutes after you eat can help speed the digestion process up.
Approaching Bedtime:
Back to the Phones
Many people also check their phones or watch tv right before bed as well. That beautiful blue light technology used in these devices tells your brain and body that it is still time to be awake. Most research recommends avoiding blue light within 1-2 hours of bed.
Highly suggested alternatives prior to bed are reading, talking with a friend or spouse, or light stretching (call me a nerd again, but I sleep like a baby).
Find out more from a sleep professional HERE (this link will take you to another free article created by Health & Fitness Expert Shawn Stevenson)
Also, if you want to read my all-time favorite book and learn more from this amazing human (Shawn Stevenson), click below to buy his book on Amazon!!
(As an Amazon Associate, Peak Movement Health earns from qualifying purchases)
Just Breathe
How often do you lay down to go to sleep and all of the events of your day and life start popping up in your head? Did I get everything done today? How could I have done more? Am I saving enough money? Why did Shawn call me a loser? Okay, the last one might just be one of my thoughts but you get the point.
A great way to combat this running mind is with meditation. I know what you're thinking: get into the cross-legged position with your hands to your sides and say “HUMMM” right? I think you should try something else so your significant other and/or pets don’t think you're a weirdo like me.
A recent study of nursing staff working during the COVID-19 pandemic found that diaphragmatic breathing and relaxation techniques were very effective for improving overall sleep quality. (5) Check out my video below for some examples!
Try the body scan:
Take a deep breath down into your belly and focus on that breath leaving your body through your toes. Take another deep breath into your belly and picture it leaving your feet. Work your way up your body and feel the relaxation help you fall asleep.
Sometimes it helps to wiggle or activate the body part you are thinking about to improve your focus. Also, you WILL still have some thoughts racing into your mind during this process. Gently remind yourself that there is nothing you can do about that coworker that made you mad at 10PM as you lie in bed. Put it to the side for a later thought and return to the body scan.
Conclusion
Phew, you made it. I know, that was a lot of information to take in all at once. If you take anything away from this article, it is that there isn’t one single answer to living an Anti-Inflammatory Life and avoiding all of those deadly diseases that a majority of our population suffers from. An overall approach to health is the way to go. I provided a lot of links to articles and medical professionals that are WAY smarter than me in their areas of health. Their information, along with my own, is backed by up-to-date research and I hope that you find them helpful as well. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any health related questions. We cannot directly help you with topics outside of our scope of practice, but we can direct you to valuable information that is backed by science!!
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