When your body is under stress, it’s on hyperdrive. You might recognize some manifestations of this phenomenon—a rapid heart beat, sweaty palms or racing thoughts. But all throughout your body, chronic stress triggers a different sort of over-activity—inflammation, a process by which the body’s immune system is in a constant state of alert. Inflammatory diseases including arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and fibromyalgia, can be health-threatening at worst and uncomfortable at best.
People with an inflammatory disease diagnosis typically have doctor’s orders on medical and lifestyle approaches to treatment. But everyone who ever experiences stress—in other words, everyone!—can benefit from daily choices that help reduce inflammation. The easiest and most accessible of these is to eat foods that have anti-inflammatory properties.
Read More: Quick Healthy Dinner Salad
See if you notice anything the Harvard Medical School-recommended anti-inflammatory foods have in common:
1. Olive oil
2. Tomatoes
3. Green leafy vegetables (spinach, kale, chard, etc.)
4. Fatty fish (salmon is a top choice)
5. Nuts (almonds and walnuts especially)
6. Red and blue fruits (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, cherries, etc.)
If you noticed that all these foods are hallmarks of summer eating, you are well on your way toward a season of healthy meals that nourish your body and keep inflammation at bay. How about a dinner salad of grilled salmon over spinach that’s been tossed with fresh tomatoes, slivered almonds, blueberries and a lemon-juice-and-olive-oil dressing?
Could you ever have guessed that healthy summer eating would set you up for stress management success?
