Reduce your inflammation

Inflammation gets a bad rap but the truth is, inflammation is our immune systems natural response to injury and for fighting off harmful invaders.

A healthy immune response triggers inflammation to help heal wounds or mount a response to attack and take out foreign bacteria and viruses. Some common signs of inflammation are redness and swelling at the site of injury or a fever when we come into contact with pesky organisms. This type of response is usually short lived and considered "acute."

The nasty kind of inflammation that is harmful to us is what is considered long-term or chronic inflammation which can last for months or even years.

Research has now linked chronic inflammation to countless health issues including heart disease, diabetes and cancer, just to name a few.

So, the million dollar question becomes, "what can I do to reduce inflammation in my body?"

Here are my top 3 suggestions for reducing inflammation:

1. Have a variety of ways to remove stress build up from the body. Try deep breathing, meditation or finding time as often as possible to do some things you really love. We can't avoid stress altogether but we can make sure it doesn't sit in the body long term and cause issues.

2. Limit your intake of processed, convenience foods and load up on lots of veggies and healthy proteins! Nourishing your body with proper nutrition can greatly reduce the inflammatory load on the body.

3. Exercise on a regular basis. This can help reduce stress as well. Be sure to find the right balance of energy exertion for your body, over doing it can cause inflammation and putting in too little effort might not be enough to be beneficial.

The combination of all three could drastically reduce inflammation levels!

Go on, give it a try. Your body will thank you.