The Real Reason You’re Achy Bloated and Exhausted | TUH #283

Gary Brecka. Chronic inflammation is at the root of many of the most serious diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, and even autoimmune disorders. So understanding how to manage and reduce inflammation can significantly improve your health and your longevity. Today, we're diving into an essential topic that impacts everyone: inflammation. Inflammation is your body's natural response to injury or infection. It's an essential part of the healing process. However, when inflammation becomes chronic, it can damage healthy cells, tissues, and organs. Inflammation is regulated by your immune system. So when the body perceives a threat, it releases inflammatory cytokines to deal with the invader. Chronic inflammation occurs when these cytokines remain elevated due to ongoing stressors like poor diet, lack of exercise, or environmental toxins. By making simple lifestyle changes, you can significantly reduce chronic inflammation and improve your overall well-being. Here's some practical steps you could implement today. Start your day with— Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, Gary Brecka, human biologist, and today we're diving into an essential topic that impacts everyone: inflammation. Chronic inflammation is at the root of many of the most serious diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, and even autoimmune disorders. So understanding how to manage and reduce inflammation can significantly improve your health and your longevity. We'll explore how to tell if you're inflamed and what it means for your body, and practical steps to reduce inflammation backed by science. Remember, inflammation is your body's natural response to injury or infection. It's an essential part of the healing process. However, when inflammation becomes chronic, it can damage healthy cells, tissues, and organs. So chronic inflammation can contribute to a range of health problems, from heart disease and cancer to neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's or dementia. Signs you might be inflamed are things like persistent fatigue. Constant tiredness can indicate that your body is fighting inflammation. Even joint pain— chronic inflammation can cause joint pain, stiffness, and swelling. Digestive issues— things like bloating, diarrhea, or irritable bowel syndrome can be signs of inflammation in the gut. Skin problems like rashes, acne, eczema might be inflammation manifesting in your skin. Even things like frequent infections— if you're always getting sick, it could be due to chronic inflammation suppressing your immune system. Inflammation is regulated by your immune system, so when the body perceives a threat, it releases inflammatory cytokines to deal with the invader. Chronic inflammation occurs when these cytokines remain elevated due to ongoing stressors like poor diet, lack of exercise, or environmental toxins. A study in the journal Nature Reviews Immunology explains how chronic inflammation disrupts normal cellular functions and how it can lead to disease. Lifestyle changes that reduce inflammation are things like adopting an anti-inflammatory diet. Diet plays a crucial role in managing inflammation. According to Harvard Health, an anti-inflammatory diet can help reduce chronic inflammation and improve overall health. So what does an anti-inflammatory diet look like? Well, things like fruits, vegetables, nuts, fatty fish like salmon and sardines, and healthy fats like olive oil and avocados. Avoiding at all costs processed foods, sugary beverages, refined carbs, and something called trans fatty acids, things like margarine and manufactured fats. Exercising regularly and physical activity definitely helps reduce our inflamed state. Exercise decreases the levels of inflammatory markers in the body, so we should aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise per week, like brisk walking or cycling. Managing chronic stress will contribute to a reduction of inflammation. Stress management techniques like just being mindful, meditation, yoga help lower stress levels and have been linked to reduced inflammatory responses. Getting quality sleep is arguably the foundation of reducing inflammation, especially neural inflammation in the brain. Poor sleep is linked to higher levels of inflammation, so aim for 7 to 9 hours of quality sleep per night. You can establish a consistent sleep schedule and a routine that creates a restful environment that's free of distractions. If you followed me for any period of time, you know that 5 of my favorites are keeping your room very dark, unplugging the electronics 6 feet from your head, getting off your screens at night, no alcohol, not eating within 2 hours of bedtime, practicing breathwork once you're in bed, adding an eye mask, and keeping the room nice and cool. 68 to 69°F. Staying hydrated, because dehydration can increase inflammation, is another key step. But remember that we don't just want to drink water, we want to drink fluids that have minerals in them. Adding a pinch of Baja Gold sea salt or Celtic salt to your drinking water throughout the day will not only keep you hydrated but will keep you mineralized and help you flush out toxins that may be leading to inflammation. Biohacking techniques that reduce inflammation are things like cold exposure therapy. Remember, cold showers and ice baths are great. You don't need to invest in an expensive ice bath. You can simply take a cold shower at the end of your shower. 30 seconds to 3 minutes is plenty to get some of the benefits of the elevation of mood, the increase in emotional state, and the reduction in inflammation by constricting blood vessels and reducing swelling. This stimulates the vagus nerve and also promotes an anti-inflammatory response. Don't need fancy equipment. Most of us are going to be showering anyway. Red light therapy is another one of my favorites. You can do full body photobiomodulation. Lots of clinics have full body red light beds. Even gyms are starting to put these in that you can use on a membership basis. But if not, you don't need to spend all of that money on an expensive red light bed. There are plenty of really good red light panels that have decent depths of penetration that can reduce inflammation and promote healing at a cellular level. These are well known to be supportive of things like collagen, elastin, and fibrin in the skin to improve inflammation, circulation, and especially the microvascular circulation that supplies things like our liver, lungs, pancreas, kidneys, and our eyes. So red light therapy is another exploratory area that I'm enormous fan of, and photobiomodulation has taken center stage in the reduction of inflammation lately as an alternative that actually has very, very little downside. Certain supplements like omega-3 fatty acids that are found in fish oil are potent anti-inflammatories. Most of us have our omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid ratio out out of balance. So supplementing with a good omega-3 can help reduce the production of inflammatory cytokines. Another one of my favorites are turmerics and curcumins, and the active ingredients in these are powerful anti-inflammatories. Studies have shown that these can be as effective as some anti-inflammatory drugs. So these are great supplements to include in your daily routine if you feel that you are suffering from an inflammatory condition. Here's some practical steps you could implement today. Start your day with an anti-inflammatory smoothie. You can include things like berries, spinach, chia seeds, and even a splash of turmeric. You can incorporate movement. Short walks are arguably the most overlooked thing in all of modern medicine that we can easily incorporate throughout our day. Practicing yoga or engaging in a fitness routine that you enjoy— these have direct impacts on circulation, which has an impact on the inflammatory reduction process. Even practicing mindfulness. Spend a few minutes each day meditating or engaging in deep breathing exercises. If you haven't seen the video that I've done on breathing, I do an entire tutorial online. Um, just look up my breathwork video and I give you the specific instructions on the breathwork technique that I use every single day and never ever miss. Remember, optimizing your sleep environment is as important as optimizing your sleep. Make your bedroom a haven for rest. Comfortable bedding, blackout curtains, and remember a nice cool temperature. Unplug the electronics 6 feet from your head. Don't bring your phone into the bed with you. Stop eating 2 hours before bedtime. Don't consume any alcohol. And use the breathwork techniques in my breathwork video once you're in bed to help you get those thoughts out of your head and ease into the first stage of deep sleep. Remember also staying hydrated and carrying a water bottle with you and making a conscious effort to drink water regularly with little bit of pinch of a mineral salt will not only help keep you hydrated, it will help keep you mineralized. And staying hydrated and carrying a water bottle with you and making a conscious effort to drink water regularly is a great way to reduce inflammation. My personal opinion is that hydrogen water is the best form of water we can put in the human body. There are lots of peer-reviewed studies on this. You can go to hydrogenstudies.com. That's hydrogenstudies.com. And the studies are there for free. You can sort them by human studies or animal studies. You can even select out for things like inflammation, circulation, absorption of nutrients. You will be a hydrogen water convert. Look into getting hydrogen water tablets. These are inexpensive ways that will cost you less than a dollar a day to turn regular bottled water into hydrogenated water. Also, if you haven't tried, now's the time to start trying cold showers. Start with short cold bursts at the end of your regular shower and gradually increase the duration. You don't need fancy cold plunges or to spend money on fancy equipment, but you are going to take a shower and you might person will get the inflammation-reducing benefits of doing 30 seconds to 3 minutes of cold at the end of your shower. I promise you, if you do it for 7 straight days, you'll never stop doing it. Reducing inflammation is crucial for maintaining optimal health and preventing chronic diseases. By making simple lifestyle changes like adopting an anti-inflammatory diet, with exercising regularly, learning to manage stress, getting good quality sleep, staying hydrated regularly, and even incorporating some of the biohacking techniques I described above, you can significantly reduce chronic inflammation and improve your overall well-being. Remember, small consistent changes in your daily routine can make a big difference. Thank you for joining me today on the Ultimate Human Podcast. If you found this episode valuable, please like and subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your friends. And until next time, remember, it's just science.