TAKE A BLOOD TEST called C-reactive protein. It measures the degree of hidden inflammation in your body. This is important because almost every modern disease is caused by or affected by hidden inflammation, including heart disease, cancer, obesity, and dementia as well as arthritis, autoimmune disease, allergies, and digestive disorders.

Then once you figure out the cause and get rid of it, how do you live an anti-inflammatory lifestyle? Here is what I recommend. It’s disarmingly simple, but an extraordinarily effective way to achieve UltraWellness:

• Eat a whole foods, high fiber, plant based diet that is inherently anti-inflammatory. That means unprocessed, unrefined, real food and high in powerful anti-inflammatory plant chemicals called phytonutrients. Nothing full of sugar or trans fats.
• Get an oil change. Eat healthy fats from olive oil, nuts, avocados and omega 3 fats from small fish like sardines, herring, sable, and wild salmon.
• Exercise. Do I need to say more?
• Learn to actively relax to engage your vagus nerve, the powerful nerve that relaxes your whole body and lowers inflammation, by doing yoga, meditation, deep breathing or even taking a hot bath.
• If you have food allergies, find out what they are and get stop eating them.
• Take probiotics (“good bacteria”) to help your digestion to improve the healthy bacteria in your gut, which reduces inflammation. (Look for those that contain 10 billion CFU of bifidobacteria species and lactobacillus species. Choose from reputable brands.)
• Take a multi-vitamin and mineral which helps reduce inflammation.

This is only the beginning. Read the full article on inflammation–part of the 7 Keys to UltraWellness series–here: Inflammation & Immune Balance.