Last week, I heard a sales pitch for a product which has stuck in my mind ever since.
It used fear to sell the harm of inflammation and the apparent fact that if you want to be healthy you have to totally eliminate it. And of course, you should buy the product to save yourself.
These kinds of absolutes raise my eyebrows – I find they are rarely helpful.
And, this suggestion that we need to totally eliminate inflammation seems to be a common theme in a lot of things we hear. Inflammation = bad. Always, no exceptions.
But actually, it CAN sometimes be a good thing!
Inflammation is actually an essential protective mechanism of our bodies. It triggers the immune system to deal with an infection, and it can promote the clean up and repair after a workout or injury.
If we were in a totally uninflamed state, we’d be more likely to have a massive inflammatory response to a minor trigger, which of course isn’t helpful. It’s worth considering if you could be noticing some of the effects of a lack of inflammation if you have been working hard against inflammation because you’ve been led to believe any level is bad. You might build less muscle from your workouts, and you might not repair from workouts or injuries completely.
But, this said, it is also true that excessive or long term inflammation is pretty common, not good for us and can lead to health problems.
If you’re experiencing brain fog and feeling exhausted, especially after a workout, particularly if you’re certain you’re not over-doing things, then you might consider whether you’re experiencing an unhelpful level of inflammation.
The easiest way to deal with excessive inflammation is with diet, and as with most things, eating a real-food diet is the way to go.
Highly inflammatory foods are of the processed variety, including vegetable oils, whereas olive oil might be one of the most important things to include in your diet to reduce chronic inflammation.
The balance between omega 3 and omega 6 in our diet is important too. Our diets are often 1:18 in favour of omega 6, but getting the ratio around 1:3 or even 1:5 is ideal – so, make sure you’re getting several portions of oily fish into your diet each week.