Have you heard of inflammaging?
It has annoyed me in the past, because the premise was that it’s this low-level, chronic inflammation that just comes with aging.
But then researchers looked at other cultures – indigenous cultures that don’t live industrialized lifestyles.
As it turns out, the industrialized populations they looked at had similar inflammaging signatures, but the indigenous groups didn’t.
Actually, the main inflammation in the indigenous groups was driven by infection.
This goes even further, because the inflammaging seen in industrialized groups is connected to problems such as kidney disease.
The inflammation in the indigenous groups is not connected to such diseases, and they overall don’t even have Alzheimer’s, diabetes, heart disease, etc in their populations.
While industrialized lifestyles come with many conveniences, some of which I rather like, we do have to stop falling for the trap of convenience.
It’s a combination of a lack of nature (see the list below) and too much of industrial stressors (see the rest of the article) that contribute to inflammaging.
At the most basic level, we all need to:
– get outside barefoot – on earth/grass/sandy beach that isn’t sprayed or otherwise polluted
– we need to get full sleep – no lights on, with natural fiber pjs and bedsheets and non-toxic mattresses
– drink clean water – tap water has to be filtered, it just does. And one time use plastic water bottles aren’t giving you real water either
– eat real food (I know this keeps getting trickier but that makes it more important)
– get away from screens
And then we take a closer look at our homes, since we do have some control over that environment.
I can’t list everything here, it would take a series of books to cover it all, so let’s start with 3 simple things that will support your health and decrease that inflammation.
One consideration to decrease inflammation in the body is which lightbulbs are being used.
Several of you know I’ve been diving into lightbulbs that aim to be similar to the sunshine spectrum and flicker free.
To see that flicker, take your phone and turn on the camera, go to slo-mo, record your light when it’s on. Watch the video and you’ll see it.
That flicker is always stressing your nervous system, even when you don’t see it your nervous system does (and stress = inflammation).
So getting lights that don’t stress the nervous system is one way to decrease inflammation.
I’m zeroing in on the brand Sunsy, but it’s not the only option out there.
The next consideration I’m always aware of is the EMF load our bodies have to handle.
All those bluetooths, sensors, any sending/receiving device, wireless anything, etc are always bombarding us.
So I always wear my pendant from Aires Tech.
If you’ve been in my office, you’ll also have seen the Aires Tech on my laptop, a pendant hanging on my desktop computer, and my dog is usually wearing one, too.
This company is so different because they don’t try to block EMFs, they neutralizes them, make them harmless to your physiology (and they have the studies to back up their claims).
There are even beekeepers who placed Aires Tech by their beehives and the hives recovered!
I do still keep my router on a timer so it’s off at night, because I’ll minimize those EMFs wherever I can, but my neighbors still have their routers on…
And if you want more options to handle EMFs check out “Protecting Yourself Against Manmade Electromagnetic Fields.”
And lastly, I use a Therasage PEMF red-light mat daily (mine is the regular size; one is on the white sofa, the other is covered with a towel because my dog loves it).
The red light is important and helps with inflammation, too, but it’s PEMF that works on the nervous system, which is such a game changer.
You may have noticed that as I address inflammaging I keep talking about the nervous system…
… in the first two cases I’m looking at removing stressors, with this mat I’m actively using PEMF (setting #3 for me) to help calm my nervous system down.
Modern life is stressful for our nervous systems, it’s not what we are adapted for so I want to be sure and help calm back down on a deeper level (no one wants a stressed out Dr. K for their appointment).
It’s always a balancing act – handle the parts you can, support your body around the pieces you can’t – and each facet you work on adds to the whole.
