Table of contents for Anti-Inflammation 2023 in Real Simple

REMEMBER BACK IN 2019 when the World Health Organization went deep on workplace burnout as an occupational hazard in its International Classification of Diseases? And everyone was like, Thank you for the added intel—because the experience of working to the point of mental and physical deterioration was nothing new to most people with jobs? (I remember.) While officially inducting burnout into the canon of negative-workplace-related syndromes was an excellent first step, people still struggle hard to find the proper balance and boundaries between work and nonwork. Technology renders anyone reachable at anytime, and anyone can hop online from anywhere. You have a couple of bars, so why not get a few more emails sent or that Instagram sales post up, right? Sounds harmless enough, but this never-ending compulsion to be…

EVER PURCHASED A FOOD or beverage labeled “antioxidant-rich” or “anti-inflammatory” without really knowing what that term means? You’re not alone. According to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, antioxidants only became well-known (and highly sought-after) by the general population in the 1990s. This was when researchers started to understand that the early stages of artery-clogging atherosclerosis, cancer, vision loss, and a host of other chronic conditions were closely correlated with free-radical damage and oxidative stress—in other words, the very activity that antioxidants help to prevent. To understand antioxidants, it is useful to know a bit about free radicals. “Free radicals are molecules that are broken down through normal metabolism and exposure to chemicals like tobacco or radiation,” explains Rachel Berman, RD, senior vice president and group general manager…

WE KNOW THAT excess added sugar and inflammation go hand in hand, and that eliminating sugar completely from our diet would be disappointing (no more birthday cake?!). But it can be a real challenge to curb sugar consumption because food manufacturers—with billions of dollars at their disposal for research and development, marketing, and advertising— have commandeered our taste buds, our brain chemistry, and our hormones. Even those who are conscious of how the hormones and neurotransmitters that fuel sugar cravings work are hard-pressed to fight Big Sugar. And while no one is saying to give up sugar entirely—and who really wants to?—it is possible to learn to loosen its grip on your every move. Here is some background to help you understand sugar, along with some proven tactics to help…

THERE IS A DIRECT LINE connecting your emotional health and your physical health, and one of the most important ways to manage inflammation and its associated ills is to be aware of your feelings. The recognition alone helps you better handle your reactions. We are accustomed to this kind of review process with big life events, like layoffs, divorces, and deaths: They often inspire us to evaluate our headspace because we know we should “feel the feelings” before moving on. But habitually getting in touch with your emotions—rather than burying them or willing them to change—can help you assess your mental state and improve overall well-being. There’s no better time to start than the present. What Your Emotions Can Do for You Regularly pausing to acknowledge the full spectrum…

SIMPLY PUT, GETTING creative gives your mind and body a break from the near-constant barrage of stress. “When using our bodies, such as in dance, or our hands, as in drawing or coloring, our mind makes space for the activity we’re doing in place of the stress we felt before,” says Sarah Pace, a certified health coach and personal trainer in Gilbert, Arizona. “Asking our brain to focus on something physical puts us in a sort of meditative state, releasing dopamine and slowing our breath.” In fact, research published in 2018 in Behavioral Sciences found that therapies done through art, music, dance, or drama can help prevent stress and improve stress management. As we know, less stress equals less inflammation. “Creative activities at their best elicit a state of…

PROTEIN IS ONE of the key building blocks of our bodies and one of the most necessary nutrients for human function. We need it to produce antibodies, enzymes, blood, connective tissue, hormones, and more. Protein is also responsible for muscle repair and growth. But because it’s so critical—the word actually stems from the Greek term “prôtos,” which means “first”—many Americans are concerned about whether or not they’re meeting the recommended amount of protein daily. And when you factor in the $20 billion–plus protein-supplements industry (and its associated marketing), who wouldn’t fret about packing more protein into their diet? But protein needs vary greatly from person to person—your required intake is determined largely by your lifestyle and activity level, muscle mass, age, current state of health, and body composition. There is…

IT’S WELL-KNOWN THAT exercise is good for improving overall physical and mental health, and who doesn’t want that? But if you lean more toward couch potato than marathoner, you might need a little extra motivation to lace up your sneakers—and here it is: Research shows that even one session of moderate exercise can stimulate the immune system and produce an anti-inflammatory response. We tapped a duo of experts to get the lowdown. Why Is Exercise Helpful for Improving Immunity? “Regular moderate-intensity activity improves immune function through a number of mechanisms,” says Sean Heffron, MD, a preventive cardiologist at NYU Langone Health, who focuses on the importance of physical activity in practice. He explains that getting moving can be beneficial on both short- and long-term bases. When your muscles contract,…

YOU’RE IN A ’90S MOOD: You’ve got your high-waisted jeans. Your hair is swept up in a claw clip. You’ve pulled on your bodysuit. To complete your retro moment, how about putting on a pair of in-line skates and hitting the pavement? You’d be right on-trend, as in-line skating is having a comeback. It started during early pandemic lock-downs when people couldn’t go to the gym and were looking for at-home workouts. Some bought kettlebells. Others went for resistance bands. And a lot of folks ordered in-line skates. The Rollerblade brand alone reported its sales tripled in 2020. Although those numbers have leveled off, enthusiasm has remained, in part because in-line skating is really a great workout—it can burn up to 600 calories an hour, improves your core balance,…

WE MAY MONITOR our vegetable intake, our cardio routine, and our sleep habits, yet we rarely consider one simple act that fuels everything we do: breathing. We chug along taking 17,000 to 20,000 breaths a day, blissfully unaware of most of them. But proponents of breath work, the therapeutic use of breathing techniques, say the practice can chase away anxiety, increase energy, and help manage pain. Though the discipline has been around for generations, lately it’s having a moment, with breath-work artists and medical professionals alike encouraging people to show their lungs some love. “You would be astounded by how many pulmonologists, cardiologists, and other experts are exploring breathing, both for themselves and for their patients,” says James Nestor, author of Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, who…

INSTEAD OF LETTING stress—and the inflammation it can prompt—control your life, try mind-body interventions such as meditation and mindfulness. These practices can turn your focus to something calm and bring inner peace, benefiting people suffering from inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and asthma, where stress can play a role. What Is Meditation? Despite meditation’s multifaceted history, the basic concept can be distilled into something surprisingly approachable. “At its core, meditation is an intentional, contemplative practice,” says wellness expert Jamie Price. “In a traditional sense, the word ‘meditation’ has been translated to mean ‘to become familiar’ and ‘to cultivate.’ Meditation affords you the opportunity to become familiar with your mind—your habits and patterns of thinking—and then provides the means to transform it.” In other words, the exercise of meditation…

OH, FAT. AMERICANS have a somewhat troubled history with this key macronutrient (one of three, along with protein and carbs), and it’s created a lot of confusion over fat’s nutritional value. As scientific studies in the mid-1900s began to show a link between diets high in fat and heart disease, Americans, under the guidance of their doctors, began to move toward lower-fat diets—even those who were not at high risk for heart disease. By the late ’80s, the low-fat diet became almost an ideology, with devotees subsisting on fat-free yogurt, margarine, and carbohydrates. Since then, we’ve come to realize, through both research and observational study, that there’s a lot more nuance to the role that dietary fats play in our overall health. In recent years we’ve even seen the rise…

Hatha IDEAL FOR: Beginners. WHAT IT IS: Hatha refers to any practice that combines poses, or asanas, with breathing techniques, or pranayamas. The goal of a basic hatha class is to develop flexibility and balance and to integrate breath and movement, so it is generally relaxing. In fact, a study published in the Journal of Nursing Research found that just one 90-minute hatha class significantly reduced women’s feelings of stress. Participants often begin by chanting the syllable “om,” then move into a series of poses and finish on the floor in a supine position called shavasana for 5 to 15 minutes, says Julie Wood, the director of programming for YogaWorks, a yoga streaming service. GOOD TO KNOW: Gauge the intensity of a class by asking the instructor how quickly…

FALLING ASLEEP AT NIGHT isn’t always as simple as it sounds. For those of us with chronic insomnia, it’s a physical and psychological effort—and all of us have rough nights from time to time. That’s why many adults could use a few tools to help them quickly and easily drift off to dreamland. Here are some ideas. Stick to a Consistent Sleep-Wake Schedule Keeping a consistent bedtime and wake-up schedule is the number-one recommendation from sleep experts, including Michael Breus, PhD, founder of the website the Sleep Doctor. “It’s critical to keeping your circadian rhythm in sync, and should even be practiced on the weekends,” Breus says. Start trying to wake up at the same time every single day. Your body will gradually adjust, and you should get sleepy…

WHEN IT COMES to remedies for insomnia, white noise and white-noise machines get most of the attention. The fact that you might not be able tolerate the staticky hiss of white noise does not mean you’re out of options. Instead, you might consider pink- or brown-noise machines, which offer the same broad benefits as white, just using different frequencies. Here, a guide to the different types of sleep noise and how to pick the best machine for you. What Is White Noise? White noise is a machine-generated sound that contains all frequencies. “There’s been a lot of confusion about what white noise is,” says Sam Nicolino, a sound engineer, musician, and founder of Adaptive Sound Technologies, Inc. (ASTI), which is behind the LectroFan and Sound+Sleep series of sound machines.…