How To Tell If You Have Inflammation + 5 Things To Do To Fix It: A Doctor Explains

I still remember the day in medical school when I first understood the duality of the immune system. The same immune system that heals a wound from a car accident (or historically from an animal bite) is the same immune system that goes to the coronary artery of the heart and causes a heart attack. How can something be so good and then so bad?

It is now that I understand that the immune system has the power to do both—inflammation for good and inflammation that causes disease. So you might be wondering: Do you have inflammation in your body right now?

The answer is an unequivocal yes. The real question is: Do you have inflammation that chronic, low level, causing harm to your blood vessels, your muscles, or causing you to gain weight, for example?

If you have symptoms like headaches, bloating, joint pain, rashes, fatigue, weight gain, allergies, asthma, or mood issues—you are most likely inflamed. Sometimes inflammation can be "silent" or difficult to detect. The reason it is such a huge problem and why I'm telling you about it today is because it's the root cause of diseases like diabetes, heart disease, obesity, hypertension, and cancer.

Adaptogen refers to a plant's ability to adapt to its environment, to survive, and to adapt to exterior stress.

Adaptogenic herbs—such as rhodiola, ashwaganda, ginseng, phosphytidyl serine, and maca—help strengthen and stabilize the body, thereby mollifying the impact of stress. Adaptogens also improve the entire body's resistance to stress (not just a particular organ or system) and create balance and harmony in the body, helping to reduce chronic inflammation.

Lack of sleep makes the body ripe for infection, while getting adequate sleep has an anti-inflammatory effect. A study from the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta found that short sleep durations and poor sleep quality are associated with higher levels of inflammation markers. In fact, individuals who reported six or fewer hours of sleep a night had the highest levels of inflammatory hormones and changes in blood vessel function.

Mindfulness is the newest component of an anti-inflammatory plan (yet, ironically, it is ancient). We are now finding out through brand-new studies that the immune system is directly connected to the brain—therefore lowering inflammation can treat diseases like depression and anxiety. This also gives more credence to the fact that daily mindfulness/meditation is anti-inflammatory.