What is inflammation and what should you do about it?
Considering all the focus these days on anti-inflammatory foods, medicine, and habits you’d think inflammation is a bad thing in the body. Which is why it’s important to understand that inflammation is actually the body’s first line of defense to protect you from injuries and invaders to the body such as viruses, bacteria, and toxins. It’s a process triggered by your body’s white blood cells to increase the blood flow to the area that’s injured or infected which in turn can cause tissue swelling and pain.
There are also quite a few diseases whose name ends in “-itis” which is a suffix used in medical terminology to denote inflammation of a certain part of the body. For example:
Cystitis is an inflammation of the bladder
Bronchitis is an inflammation of the bronchi
Dermatitis is a disease where the skin is inflamed
Tendinitis is inflammation of a tendon
So before addressing areas of inflammation it’s important to know what has triggered it so you can address the root issues. By design, inflammation should be a short term thing your body creates to facilitate healing itself and then return to the normal state. Chronic inflammation on the other hand, where the inflammation builds more slowly and lasts for months or years, is when we think of inflammation as a bad thing.
Chronic inflammation can occur when the initial trigger isn’t fully treated or removed, if you have an autoimmune disease, or from long-term exposure to a trigger which could be polluted air, exposure to certain chemicals, etc.
Left untreated, chronic inflammation can damage the body and is linked to most major diseases including cancer, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, type 2 diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer’s disease, and more.
Chronic inflammation risk factors that promote low-level inflammatory responses include:
Stress
Irregular sleep
Obesity
Smoking
Aging
Certain foods
Low levels of testosterone and estrogen
If you think you might be dealing with chronic inflammation, then the first step is definitely to figure out what is causing it and to try and get the body back in balance. During a reflexology session we can try to detect imbalances in areas of the body to point in the right direction and avoid triggers.
In the meantime, you can also take steps to reduce the inflammation:
Reduce your stress: while removing the source of your stress is always the most effective, sometimes that’s not completely feasible and you can use reflexology, mediation, and other stress-reducing practices to help
Exercise more: let’s chat during your next session about what’s keeping you from exercising more and ways to help you do it
Make healthy dietary choices: include more anti-inflammatory foods (and fewer inflammatory foods aka most processed food) in your diet
Lose weight if needed: hopefully, this one comes naturally by exercising more, eating more whole, anti-inflammatory foods, and reducing stress, though you may need to look at other causes and get your body back in a balanced healing state if those aren’t enough to reach your goals
Focus on reducing exposure to known or suspected triggers
Implement essential oils into your daily routine. Deep blue and copaiba are two that I can recommend and teach how to properly use. Copaiba works like CBD with cannabinoid receptors and does wonders to help inflammation.
Schedule an appointment today to get started.