It’s hard to know how much inflammation you’re dealing with in your body. The effects of inflammation can be subtle, but it’s one of the biggest things people should be worried about when it comes to long-term health. That’s because high inflammation causes damage to your body over time. Swelling in your organs, muscles, and joints taxes your immune system and drains your body of important resources. Recovery becomes harder and it’s easier to get sick.

Inflammation is the body’s response to injury and stress. For people dealing with chronic inflammation, the consequences of too much strain on the body or stress at work will start showing up more clearly in older years.

To fight back inflammation and to protect your body, there are things you can do now to change the way your body reacts and how much inflammation you’ve got going on inside of you. Here are five ways to reduce inflammation effectively and live a healthier life for longer.

Tip 1 – Avoid Stress

Stress is the silent killer. People who have stressful jobs, long commutes, tumultuous family relationships, carry large amounts of debt, etc. have so much stress that it impacts their physical health. Your body sends out immune responses when stress jumps, and that response increases inflammation in your body. If you have prolonged stress, it can lead to things like a heart attack, stroke, and other serious medical conditions. Examine your life and find where you can cut down on stress.

Tip 2 – Exercise

Whether it’s as a stress outlet or to maintain healthy body weight, regular exercise is wonderful for reducing inflammation. Just make sure you’re not exercising while injured. If you’re injured, your injury becomes inflamed as the body marshalls resources to get it back in good condition. Putting pressure or strain on the injury can just increase inflammation.

Tip 3- Eat Right

There are plenty of anti-inflammatory foods like vegetables and fruits that contain omega-3 fatty acids. Additionally, fish like salmon and tuna give you great results when you want to get rid of inflammation. Foods like celery, garlic, turmeric, and flax seeds are well known for their ability to lower inflammation.

Tip 4 – Peptides

An enzyme called NAMPT is linked to several adverse health conditions like obesity and insulin resistance. When NAD+ levels in the are low, NAMPT increases, triggering inflammation and causing things like type 2 diabetes. Recent studies on animals show that increasing NAD+ levels could help reduce NAMPT activation and help regulate inflammation.

Tip 5 – Get Enough Sleep

Sleep is a fantastic way to reduce inflammation. Hardly anybody gets enough sleep anymore because we’re all on phones or busy working all of the time. Your body likely needs more rest than you’re giving it. Sleep is when the body naturally recovers and can work to reduce any lingering inflammation. Examine how much sleep you’re getting and try to get more if you’re lacking in the sleep department.