If your doctor has diagnosed you with arthritis, make sure you don’t make common mistakes others tend to make. The following foods, activities, and bad habits should be avoided if you have this inflammation condition.
Living a Sedentary Lifestyle
The first mistake you might be making if you have arthritis is living a sedentary lifestyle. This is commonly done with people who are struggling with physical pain, but you might actually be hurting yourself more. With arthritis, you need to try to be more physically active, even if very mildly. You don’t need to do marathon training every day and make your joints hurt worse, but gentle activity is highly recommended. This gets your joints moving, making them more flexible and strengthening your muscles. Try gentle exercises like walking and swimming.
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Eating Too Much Salt
Your arthritis pain is from the inflammation in your joints, so in order to reduce the inflammation, you really need to watch what you eat. One of the first changes you should make to your diet is cutting out as much salt as you possible can. Salt can increase both inflammation and swelling, both of which are commonly associated with arthritis and the pain that comes with it. Try not to add any extra salt to your food and be careful about pre-packaged foods that already contain a lot of salt.
Similar to not eating a lot of salt, you also need to be careful with overly processed foods that contain a lot of fat and very little nutrients. You aren’t just avoiding these because of the sodium content, though that is definitely something to be concerned about, but also because fried and fattening foods are not good for your weight or your joints. Since keeping your weight under control is high up on the list for treating arthritis the natural way, you don’t want to add to the risk of gaining weight or not being able to lose weight.
Not Listening to Your Doctor
Make sure when you have arthritis, you are also listening to your doctor’s recommendations. While there are definitely some things you can do on your own, you should not rely only on them and avoid what your doctor tells you. It is totally fine to use a combination of medical and natural remedies until you figure out what works best for your unique situation.
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