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In this episode, I’m diving into the hot topic of inflammation. You’ve probably heard the term thrown around, but what does it really mean? I break down the basics of inflammation, how it affects your health, and share my top tips for managing it—especially if stress or lifestyle factors are leaving you feeling bloated, puffy, or out of sync. Whether you’re recovering from holiday chaos or tackling chronic stress, I’ve got actionable advice to help you feel better fast.
Key Topics:
-Reduce inflammation fast
Key Topics:
-Reduce inflammation fast
-Anti-inflammatory diet tips
-Symptoms of stress-induced inflammation
-Natural ways to reduce inflammation
-How to manage chronic inflammation
-Improve digestion and reduce bloating
-Stress management tips for inflammation
For next level fat loss strategies, hormone/gut health help, serious performance goals and unparalleled support, apply for Mountain Metabolic coaching. Learn more HERE.
For more free wellness resources, hiking/travel guides, and other blog posts, check out my website HERE.
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Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!
5 Ways to Bring down Inflammation FAST
Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict and combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking. I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for hiking podcast. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the fit for Hiking podcast. This is your host, Brady, and today we are going to be diving into the topic of inflammation. This is kind of a buzzword I feel like in the health space lately, everyone is talking about inflammation, and I feel like there's just not a lot of light shed on what that actually means. Um, what causes inflammation? How do we deal with inflammation? Different types. So we're just going to kind of break all of that down today and ultimately dive into five ways to bring inflammation down fast. Um, and I also want to preface this episode by saying some inflammation when it's more of a the chronic kind, where it's something that we've been dealing with for a long time due to some deeply rooted issues. This is going to be a bigger, a bigger scope, bigger issue that we need to deal with at the root level. And some of these strategies may not work if you have some, some deeply rooted inflammation that's been going on on a chronic level. So what I'm talking about today, more so, is inflammation that's caused by stress or, you know, a lot of travel, different things going on more on an acute basis. And how we bring that down after something like the holidays, for instance, maybe you're traveling to time, you're not in your normal routine, you're just feeling bloated, puffy, swollen, and you want to kind of flush that out. So let's get into it. What is inflammation? By definition, it is a complex biological response that occurs when the body detects an injury, infection or other harmful stimulus. So it's a protection mechanism designed to eliminate a threat, repair damage tissue and restore normal function to the body. So inflammation isn't always bad. I feel like we hear it and we think negative thoughts always. However, when it comes to repairing injuries, dealing with infection, dealing with invaders in the body, it's actually very helpful and protective response that's necessary. What we don't want is that chronic inflammation where our body's just always feeling inflamed for one reason or another, and there's lots of different causes of this. So stress can be a big contributor to inflammation in the body. And this can manifest in both physical and psychological symptoms. Chronic stress often activates the body's stress response system. So it kind of puts you in this constant stress out nervous system state, which involves the release of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline over time. Prolonged stress can then lead to increased inflammation, potentially exacerbating or triggering different health issues. So here are some common signs of inflammation due to stress. Okay. So let's talk about what these are. Physical symptoms of inflammation due to stress would be things like just chronic fatigue. You're just persistently tired low energy even after you're getting adequate rest. Like obviously if you're saying, oh, I'm getting six hours of crappy sleep with no good bedtime routine, I'm waking up a lot. Yeah, of course you're going to be tired. Talking to someone who's, like, getting the good, like, 8 to 9 hours of sleep. Really? No reason to not feel rested after that. But you're still tired. Um, joint pain and stiffness. Stress can worsen inflammation and joints, which leads to discomfort or pain, especially in people with conditions like arthritis. Headaches. It is an inflammatory response. Um, and it can be linked to stress. And it just creates this, like tension headache or low grade migraine digestive problems. Stress can cause or exacerbate GI issues like bloating, cramping, diarrhea, constipation. Inflammation in the gut is also common, and it can lead to common to conditions like IBS. Um, and there's a big reason for that. When we think of digesting our food properly, we need to be in this rest and digest state. So that's the opposite of our stressed out nervous system state. So we're really not going to digest our food properly if we are chronically just stressed out. Even if we don't realize it, we might not realize that we're walking around stress out to the max all the time because maybe that's just become our normal. Um. The next is skin irritation. Inflammation from stress can show up on the skin as rashes, acne, eczema, flare ups, or other types of irritation and swelling. Unexplained puffiness or swelling, especially in the face. Um. So you might have experienced this yourself. I personally can look back on photos from when I was experiencing high levels of inflammation in my mid 20s, when I was at my heaviest. And holy cow! My face looks so puffy, and it's such a noticeable difference now that I've dealt with the stress and inflammation in my life. Um, okay, so let's talk about the changes in mood and mental health that can be brought on by inflammation from stress, anxiety, and depression. Chronic stress can increase inflammation in the brain, which has been linked to mood disorders like anxiety and depression. And the inflammatory response may alter brain chemistry, contributing to feelings of sadness or nervousness. Pretty crazy. Irritability and aggression. Elevated. Elevated levels of cortisol due to prolonged stress can make you feel more on edge, leading to increased irritability or aggressive behavior, and then brain fog and difficulty concentrating. Inflammation in the brain can affect cognitive functions, leading to difficulty focusing, remembering things or just thinking clearly in general. Also can cause disturbances in our sleep. Stress can really disrupt the body's natural sleep wake cycle, which can lead to trouble. Falling asleep or staying asleep um, just worsen sleep quality, leaving you feeling rested. You might have also heard of the phrase tired but wired where you're exhausted, but then you lay down to go to bed and it's like your brain is kicking into overdrive and you're so wired that you can't sleep, even though your body is exhausted and you've been tired all day. This is often a sign of some nervous system dysregulation and stress and then restlessness, even if you do manage to fall asleep. Stress induced inflammation might lead to restless sleep, making you feel just pretty fatigued once you wake up and weight changes. Weight gain or loss can be a byproduct of chronic stress because it can affect the metabolism causing weight gain or loss. This can also be due to increased levels of cortisol, which may lead to fat retention, particularly around the abdomen, or a loss of appetite or muscle mass if the stress is severe. So yes, you hear about, like some people who lose a lot of weight during stress, that's typically due to them not eating like they just lose their appetite. Don't eat anything. And then some people are more prone to gain weight during stress, stressful time periods of life, um, because of the different hormones that are affected from stress. Cravings for unhealthy food. Stress induced inflammation may lead to emotional eating or cravings for high sugar, high fat foods, which can further fuel inflammation, so it's kind of like a vicious cycle. You can also have weakened immune function, which results in frequent illness and just being slower to heal or repair. Um, increased heart rate or blood pressure. Stress and inflammation can elevate blood pressure and heart rates, and over time, this may contribute to more serious cardiovascular issues. And hormone imbalance is another one. Menstrual issues. Chronic stress can disrupt your hormone balance, which leads to either irregular periods, missing your periods altogether, or more painful menstruation. Um, and so if you're noticing like that your cycle is not regular. Usually stress can be a big key player there. I know for myself personally, in my past, that was a big one for me when I just didn't have my period for years when I was in my early 20s. That's not normal. There was some underlying issues going on with stress in my life that was causing just a cascade of issues, and my brain was not communicating to my body that I needed to have a period, um, thyroid dysfunction as well. So stress can affect your thyroid, leading to some things like hypothyroidism or hypothyroidism, which can turn into, um, symptoms like weight gain, fatigue, changes in skin or hair. Um, and of course, all of this is not just going to happen overnight. This is like chronic stress where you are just a stressed out human all the time. Um, so don't freak out if you have like a few of these symptoms, it's not immediately going to say pinpoint that. Like you are just having all the stress induced inflammation. But if you are noticing some of these patterns and you're having these symptoms consistently over time, and you notice that you are a Type-A personality, you tend to kind of hold on to stress and you don't have great outlets for for relieving that stress. Or maybe you've had some pretty traumatic things happen in your life recently. Big life changes, um, some relationship issues, crazy chronic work stress, things like that. Then you're more likely to kind of fall into this category of stress induced inflammation. So how do we manage stress and inflammation? Um, and we'll get into five kind of quick tips for how to bring it down fast. But in general, if you're wanting to manage chronic inflammation, one thing you might end up needing to do is just getting some labs around, because sometimes we're experiencing symptoms of inflammation, but we don't exactly know what the culprit is, where things need to be addressed in the body. There's so many different systems in the body, and they're all very much intertwined when it comes to our, um, hormones and gut and our adrenals. So it's helpful to actually see what the numbers are saying when you get some labs run. So this is something that we offer within Mountain Metabolic Coaching for certain people. Not everybody who comes in is going to need to have labs run. But if there are serious, persistent symptoms and the foundational things aren't really cutting it, then we know there's probably some underlying issues and a lot of them do stem from stress. So apart from that, I'm kind of getting to the root of it. Some other things you can do is practicing relaxation techniques like deep breathing, meditation, meditation and yoga, engaging in regular physical activity to bring up your endorphins. Yes, exercise is a stressor, but it is a positive stressor. As long as you aren't just beating your body into the ground. If you are in a chronically stressed out state, this is really not the time to be like killing yourself with hit workouts or super fast paced workout classes. Cycling, running, things like that might need to kind of take the back seat, um, eating an inflammatory diet, which we'll talk about in a little bit here. Getting adequate sleep, managing your time and setting boundaries to reduce stressors, and then seeking professional help if you need to, like just through therapy, counseling, having outlets to talk to about what's going on that's causing such immense stress in your life. Um, so let's get into five tangible ways that you can start to reduce inflammation fast. If you're feeling some of these things chronically, some of these tips will help. Or if you're just feeling like that puffiness, you feel like you're holding on to a little bit of extra water. Wait, you're not getting good sleep lately. You're coming off of a big trip that really threw off your circadian rhythm. Some of those types of more acute situations than these are going to be great, um, solutions for you. So let's talk about five ways to bring down inflammation fast. One is to increase your water intake big time. Um, so water is crucial for kind of flushing out the body, uh, flushing out the liver, aiding in that process. And when we don't drink enough water, that can lead to dehydration, which reduces the body's ability to flush out toxins, build up and waste products. And that buildup of inflammatory substances can just cause some issues in our tissues. So we want to make sure that we are flushing things out, helping our liver and getting enough water on a daily basis. If you're someone who just kind of. Doesn't think about drinking water throughout the day, highly, highly recommend having like a water bottle. Goal where you maybe if you have like a 30 ounce water bottle or a cup, you try to fill it up three times that day and get through it. Um, so up your water intake ASAP. Like just go chug a glass of water and keep doing it. Get that water intake up and minimize other forms of liquid such as alcohol or caffeine. Those are going to tend to be a bit more inflammatory, especially if your liver is a bit sluggish. Adding alcohol into the mix. That's just going to slow down the liver's ability to work on flushing out other things, like hormone buildup. If you're taking tons of medications, um, environmental toxins that get filtered through the liver, all of that. So adding alcohol to the mix just isn't really doing your liver any favors. And your liver already has a lot on its plate. Number two is to follow a more anti-inflammatory diet for several weeks, limiting processed foods. So what is an anti-inflammatory diet actually look like? This would be choosing things like lean proteins, fish, legumes, nuts and seeds, fruits, cooked green veggies. Especially if you know that your body doesn't respond well to a ton of like, raw veggies and that can cause extra bloating or just digestive issues, then make sure you're doing cooked, um, avocado and olive oil as your form of oil instead of some of the more inflammatory options and root veggies like sweet potatoes. Um, this type of diet is proven to be the most anti-inflammatory diet in the world. It's kind of like the Mediterranean diet style. So even if this isn't something that you want to do all the time, if you're feeling a ton of inflammation, then it's worth even eating this way for a week or a month or whatever it takes to kind of get that inflammation down. The more processed foods that you're putting in your body, the more inflammation that you're going to have. So this is a priority to you. Then it's worth it to make that sacrifice, and you're going to increase your nutrient density tenfold. I mean, the amount of nutrients that you'll get if you really are focusing on getting tons of cooked greens, root veggies, nuts, seeds, fruits, lean proteins, fish, legumes, it's going to be awesome for your body. You're going to feel so much better. Um, and also on top of that, just eating enough fiber to have regular bowel movements. Um, our bowel movements are one of the top ways that we get rid of the toxin buildup and hormone buildup as well. So if we are not having regular bowel movements, then we're more likely to kind of hold on to some of that toxin, that toxicity in the liver and inflammation. Number three is lymphatic drainage for liver support. Um, so basically, like I said, the liver is filtering out so many different things in the body. And lymphatic drainage is one of the ways of kind of like clearing that out. Um, so when you think lymphatic drainage, thinking things like lymphatic massage, if you've ever heard of that, it's a very specific type of massage that helps release some of these toxins. Um, wash off or the face. So it's basically like taking this specific type of tool and pushing your face to get the inflammation out of your face. I love it, I do it every night. It's amazing. Um. Dry brushing. You might need to watch a YouTube video of this. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, because it looks kind of funny, but it is awesome for lymphatic drainage in your limbs. Um, and you can also focus on sweating more to flush out toxins. So if you're someone who never does anything to release sweat. Um, sweat and bowel movements are two of the top ways to flush out the liver and the toxin and hormone buildup. So flushing out toxins through things like the sauna is a great way to do that. Or just exercise sweating, getting your body to the point where you're working up a sweat. Number four is drinking some specific types of teas. Um, so some of these herbal teas have amazing properties for reducing inflammation and also increasing bowel movement. So very, very like low level, almost like laxative properties, but from a natural standpoint. Um, so green tea, raspberry leaf tea and ginger tea are three of the best teas that you can have for naturally reducing inflammation in the body just through their herbal properties. Um, as well as helping increase bowel movements. If that's something that you struggle with, specifically, the raspberry leaf tea will help with the increased bowel movements. So if you're someone who, like, always has a glass of wine in the evening, um, I definitely recommend swapping it out for some tea. Trying to incorporate more tea into your life. For me, this has been a hard one because I don't love tea. I'm just naturally I prefer coffee or other types of beverages. But there's so many amazing properties in these types of teas. And, um, for your just overall health, I definitely recommend trying to do that even just a few times a week. Or if you're noticing extra inflammation. And number five, stress reduction and nervous system regulation. We've talked about the role of stress with inflammation a lot in this episode. So how can we tangibly reduce stress and regulate our nervous systems effectively? What are some of the things that have been proven to work? Um, cold therapy is one. So, um, you know, you might have seen, like, cold plunges really taking center stage in the last few years. People are talking about that quite a bit. There are a lot of nervous system benefits for cold plunge therapy. Um, so this could be submerging your entire body into a tub. This could be doing some cold water at the end of your shower. This could also be face dunks in ice water, specifically getting your eyelids under water. Under cold, cold water. All of these things have really great nervous system benefits, especially if you're just in a anxious funk and you can't seem to get out of it. That's a really great way to get yourself regulated. Um, and you don't have to do the coldest possible temperature to see benefits, especially if you are a very stressed out female or you're in your luteal phase as a female. So you're kind of heading into menstruation, your body, it's not as resilient to stress at that time. It might not be great to do the coldest possible water. So something a little bit warmer, like 40 to 50 degrees instead of trying to go for like 30 degree dunks. Um, the next is to synchronize your circadian rhythm. If this is not a priority in your life, it definitely should be for just overall kind of optimizing your hormone curve throughout the day, making sure that it's peaking when it should be, and coming down as you head into the evening and improving your sleep quality, which is such a big part of recovery and getting your nervous system regulated. So basically getting out into sunlight and getting light from natural sources into your eyes first thing in the morning, instead of starting with artificial light, scrolling your phone, things like that. Being outside as much as you can during the day, or getting your face directly in sunlight, and then trying not to do anything too stressful as you get later into the day. So ideally, you're getting your workout in in the morning or midday, maybe early afternoon, but avoiding late night workouts if at all possible. And then as the sun starts to go down, you start to naturally wind down as well. You're not doing anything super stimulating once the sun's down, getting your blue light blocking glasses on. If you plan on looking at screens, which most people are. So if you're going to be looking at a TV or a phone or anything like that, having your blue light blocking glasses, reducing overhead lights or just dimming them into the evening because we don't want our brains thinking it's still the middle of the day, right? That's going to throw off your natural cortisol curve, which can leave you with that tired and wired feeling in the evening and doing things that are going to let your brain relax. Stop scrolling for hours before you're falling asleep. Don't do things that are going to stimulate your brain right before bed, okay? Do things that are relaxing to you. Taking a warm bath. Have a nice bedtime routine where you plug your phone in. You put it somewhere else. You're not looking at it anymore. Maybe you read, have a brain dump journal where you can kind of get out all of your thoughts for the next day. Um, something like that. Have some routines in the evening that help you synchronize your circadian rhythm properly. Um, along with that. Trying to sleep in a cold and dark room. This is going to increase your sleep quality. Um, we just tend to not sleep as well in a hot room or an environment where there's light streaming through, um, and then it just increasing your sleep volume if possible, especially if you're trying to flush out some inflammation. The more sleep and recovery you can get, the better. Um, so if you're normally a 7 or 8 hour per night person, maybe you try to increase that to nine hours or so. Um, less screen time, more and scrolling. Just in general, this is huge. And not even just before bedtime. Just in general. Um, we are very, very stimulated by social media, constant access to the news. Feeling bombarded by notifications on our phone. Having constant email access. People have access to us pretty much 24 over seven when we were looking at our devices. And that's terrifying. And it's very, very stimulating. So more than ever, we're living in this chronically stressed out state. Um, just kind of because of this technology boom that we are living in. So just keep in mind that people 50 years, 100 years and and way further before that, we're not dealing with the level of stimuli that we are now and our brains aren't equipped for it. We're not meant to be this stimulated all the time. So as much as you can reduce that go periods of time without bringing your phone from room to room with you, you don't need your phone for every single downtime you have. Maybe bring a book with you if you're going to go to an appointment and sit and wait in a waiting room instead of grabbing your phone and scrolling. Having a book. Having some sort of crossword puzzle. Things that can stimulate your brain in positive ways instead of just this bombardment of information that we're getting from our devices. The next is more time outside. We are naturally regulated from a nervous system standpoint when we're outside in sunlight. Hearing bird noises. Hearing water noises just out in nature. The mental health benefits, as well as physical health benefits are just off the charts. It's crazy how much our bodies need to be in nature. So if you can get outside for walks instead of, you know, walking on a walking pad or treadmill, obviously seasonally this isn't always realistic. Right now it's winter in Colorado and I've been doing my walking pad walking because it's been like literally five degrees outside. So I get it. It's not always realistic, but as often as you can get yourself outside, get your face in the sun. The benefits are just insane. Um, and then the next is diaphragmatic breathing. So most of the day we are kind of shallowly breathing. So we're just kind of like rushing through our breath cycles. We're not paying attention to our breathing. Right. It's just something we do without thinking about it. However, when we're stressed, we're going to end up breathing more shallowly. And this is going to contribute to a stressed out nervous system state, whereas deep diaphragm breaths are going to regulate you and get you back down into that rest and digest state. So taking a few opportunities throughout the day, maybe you're driving or you're on a walk, or you just have like a five minutes of solitude, which I get it, I have a toddler. That's not always so easy to come by, but trying to make pockets of time for yourself where you actively take deep breaths or you're breathing in for a few counts, hold it and then exhale through the mouth and repeat that a few cycles. Um, especially before you eat or after coming off of a stressful situation after a workout, maybe you've just almost got in an accident or something really crazy happened at work. You just had a really elevated conversation with somebody. Those are the times when you want to do those deep diaphragm breaths, because you're probably in a heightened nervous system state, and if you don't do something about it, you're just going to stay in that state. And that's why so many of us end up having these symptoms of chronic stress. Um, and kind of going along with that is eating in a rest and digest state. So taking a few seconds before you dive into your food and maybe say a prayer. Take a few seconds of gratitude. Do five diaphragmatic breaths. Try not to eat while you're running around, rushing out the door in the car where you're just not even paying attention to what's happening. Mindfulness goes such a long way with this of actually being able to properly digest your food, and it's going to help your digestion if you are constantly bloated and having some GI issues. It's likely that you're not digesting your food properly or you're not in a great nervous system state to do so. Um, you can also focus on this by trying to chew your food 15 times before swallowing. That's going to help you be mindful if you're sitting there actually counting. How many times am I chomping on this bite before swallowing? You're going to be paying way more attention than if you're just rushing around, and that's going to help you properly digest before things go down your throat. And the last one is to just do more playful activities. Um, I think sometimes in adulthood we just get sucked into our to do lists and just getting through the day, like just surviving all the things that we have to do and we forget to play. We forget to laugh and enjoy life and just, you know, pet our dogs, give hugs to loved ones. Things that naturally reduce cortisol and help you chill the heck out. Um, so doing things that are fun and playful. Bonus if it's active or you're outside, then you're going to get double the benefits. Those types of things are amazing for a nervous system regulation. So trying to incorporate a few playtime activities, things that you're just doing for fun and have zero productivity value whatsoever. Um, this can go such a long way. Okay guys, we have covered what inflammation is. What are some signs of chronic inflammation due to stress and five ways to bring inflammation down. And again, if you are dealing with chronic deeply rooted inflammation, then I definitely recommend going and getting some tests run if you're unsure of where to start with this. Definitely check out Mountain Metabolic Coaching. This is something that we can help you with within our coaching program. and guide you in that process so that you feel like you have control over what's going on, and we can work through some of these symptoms together. The application process starts in the show notes. You can click that link there and get going with applying. Um, if we have availability, we'll reach out and we will schedule a call to get to know you better and make sure the program is a good fit for your needs. All right. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you found today's episode helpful or enlightening, please share it. You can screenshot it and share it to your stories. You can text it to somebody, but just word of mouth is so, so helpful to get the word out about this podcast and what we're doing here. Thank you again for tuning in and I will chat with you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this, be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at Pony Tail on a trail. Com. Happy and healthy trails.