Feeling tired, bloated, or having body pain without any clear reason? Or, noticed any changes in your appetite, hair, and skin ever since the winter season started? It might not just be stress or winter blues. It could be the increasing inflammation in your body.
Causes of Increased Inflammation: Why Inflammation Rises During the Winter
Studies show that inflammation markers, such as CRP and IL-6, naturally rise during colder months, especially in people living in urban areas. Several factors contribute to this. The winter smog, traffic fumes, and stubble burning make urban air much worse than it is in summer. Fine particles from pollution can enter the bloodstream through the lungs and trigger inflammation over time. Additionally, colds, coughs, and minor viral infections tend to peak in winter. Even mild infections push our body’s immune system into a low-level inflammatory state, which can be present in our bodies for weeks.
Cool weather also brings richer, carb-heavy meals and festive eating. When this combines with reduced movement, slower metabolism, and irregular sleep, the body’s inflammatory response increases.
Busy work schedules, staying up late at night, and shorter daytime hours also affect sleep quality and stress levels. Poor sleep and constant stress raise cortisol levels, which directly promote inflammation.
Over time, this chronic, low-grade inflammation becomes one of the key drivers of lifestyle-related conditions like diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, and fatigue. The good news is that food and daily habits can change this. What you eat each day can either fuel or calm inflammation. Let us learn how we can make these changes without overhauling our lives overnight.
How to Know if You Have Inflammation
To tackle the problem, it is important to first understand it. Many people don’t realise they’re dealing with inflammation until their doctor connects the dots between their symptoms or test results. You don’t always need blood tests to notice the signs of increased inflammation.
If you feel tired despite good sleep, notice body pain, puffiness, or sluggishness that lingers for weeks, your body might be inflamed. Mild inflammation usually fluctuates with diet, stress, and sleep, and improves when you rest or eat clean.
However, if you experience persistent or worsening symptoms such as severe pain, swelling, fever, unexplained weight changes, or long-term fatigue, it’s important to see a doctor. Sometimes inflammation can point to conditions like autoimmune diseases, thyroid imbalances, or gut issues.
Remember, the goal is not to fear inflammation but to listen to what your body is trying to say. Early awareness makes it much easier to reverse inflammation through food, rest, and small lifestyle adjustments.
Food as Medicine: Where Science Meets Ayurveda
Inflammation in the body is measured through markers such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) as discussed above. Large studies like PREDIMED and EPIC in Europe have shown that diets rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and healthy fats lower these markers significantly.
The Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) helps measure how foods affect inflammation. Diets lower on this scale, meaning higher in natural plant foods and lower in processed ones, are linked to better heart health, stronger immunity, and even improved mood.
The Ayurvedic way of eating has always reflected this, though it described it differently. It teaches that poor digestion and toxic buildup, called ama, lead to disease. It focuses on keeping agni, the digestive fire, strong by eating warm, seasonal, and freshly cooked food.
Our mothers and grandmothers followed this principle effortlessly. Instead of cold muesli or sandwiches made with packaged bread and artificial sauces for the meals, they served hot parathas, dal, and sabzi made from local, seasonal vegetables. Spices like turmeric, ginger, cumin, black pepper, cinnamon, and cloves were everyday staples, and modern science now confirms their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.
When you eat according to these principles, choosing warm over cold, fresh over packaged, whole over refined, you’re automatically following an anti-inflammatory diet. Adding fermented foods like curd, kanji, or idlis supports gut health, while switching to ghee, filtered groundnut oil, and mustard oil for cooking improves digestion.
Simply put, traditional Indian meals already hold the foundation of an anti-inflammatory diet. We only need to return to the basics with awareness.
What to Fill Your Plate With (and What to Skip)
Before we get into the how, let’s be clear about what actually should go on your plate.
Eat More of These:
- Fill your plate with colourful, seasonal produce. Spinach, carrots, beetroot, guava, papaya, pomegranate, and citrus fruits. The variety brings antioxidants and fiber that actively work to reduce inflammation in your body.
- Swap white rice for brown rice or millets like ragi, jowar, and bajra. These whole grains are rich in fiber and nutrients that prevent blood sugar spikes, which are one of the main triggers of inflammation.
- Dals and pulses (moong, rajma, chana, masoor, kala chana) are your best source of plant protein. Studies consistently show they lower inflammatory markers in blood tests. Plus, they’re affordable and already part of most Indian kitchens.
- Keep nuts and seeds within reach for quick snacks. Walnuts and flaxseeds are particularly high in omega-3s, which directly counter inflammation. Almonds and sesame seeds are excellent too. A small handful daily is enough.
- Your cooking oil matters more than you think. Use mustard oil, sesame oil, or groundnut oil for cooking. These have a better omega-3 to omega-6 ratio. Use ghee in moderation for its flavour and digestive benefits. Save olive oil for salads and raw recipes where it retains all its properties.
- Fermented foods are non-negotiable. Curd or lassi with breakfast or lunch if possible, idli and dosa a few times a week, even homemade beetroot kanji. The probiotics in these foods strengthen your gut lining and reduce systemic inflammation. A weak gut is one of the primary sources of chronic inflammation.
- Use the spices mindfully. Turmeric with a pinch of black pepper (the piperine in black pepper increases curcumin absorption significantly), ginger and garlic in your daily cooking, cinnamon and cloves in your morning tea. These aren’t just flavour enhancers, as clinical studies show they actively lower CRP and other inflammation markers.
What to Limit:
- Refined grains like packaged breads, momos, and noodles. They spike your blood sugar rapidly, triggering an inflammatory response every single time you eat them.
- Added sugars and sweetened drinks. This includes the seemingly innocent packaged fruit juices that are basically sugar water.
- Deep-fried snacks like chips, spring rolls, fries, fritters, etc., and heavily processed foods. The oils used for commercial frying are often reused and oxidised, making them inflammatory for our system.
- If you eat meat, limit red and processed meat. The saturated fats and preservatives in these contribute to inflammation. However, chicken and fish are better choices.
- Refined cooking oils: They’re stripped of nutrients and high in omega-6 fats that become inflammatory when consumed in excess. Switch to cold-pressed or filtered mustard, groundnut, sesame oil, or ghee as mentioned earlier.
Making Healthy Eating Work in Real Life
It’s easy to agree with all this, but hard to apply when your day is packed with deadlines, traffic, and family duties. The trick is not perfection, it’s creating small, repeatable actions that make healthy choices effortless.
- A 5-minute morning ritual:
Soak a few almonds before bed. Eat them with warm water and lemon in the morning. Add ginger and cinnamon to your tea or just boil them in water to make an anti-inflammatory herbal tea. These small steps support your metabolism and strengthen your immunity. - Two-hour weekend prep:
Chop vegetables, cook dal or khichdi, and soak and freeze pulses in small batches. You’ll thank yourself on busy evenings. - Never skip your breakfast:
Spend one hour on Sunday preparing ragi dosa batter or upma mix, or cooking kala chana for quick salads and chaats. Store it in the fridge for the week. Having something ready helps you avoid skipping breakfast. - Pack lunch the night before:
While cleaning up after dinner at night, set aside a portion for your lunch. Add a box of curd and some salad too. In the morning, you just grab the tiffin and go. - Manage 4 pm hunger:
Keep roasted chana or makhana in your desk drawer to avoid eating sugary snacks. You can also swap your regular chai or coffee with green tea at least three times a week. This will help you stay energised for the rest of your work shift without the sharp blood sugar fluctuations. - Keep dinner simple:
Dal, sabzi, and roti with some salad is already a complete, anti-inflammatory meal. For days when you don’t feel like cooking, you could simply boil the soaked dal with your favourite vegetables and blend them with some spices to make a simple soup. Make sure that you eat it warm and without any distractions to help you keep your portions in check.
Healthy eating sticks when you remove daily decision-making and keep it simple. You don’t need more motivation, just a system that works quietly in the background.
Why This Change Actually Works
Here’s what happens in your body when you eat this way:
- Curcumin in turmeric actively lowers inflammatory markers like CRP and IL-6. Multiple clinical studies confirm this. That pinch of haldi in your dal isn’t just for colour. It’s working at a cellular level to calm inflammation.
- Omega-3 fats from walnuts, flaxseeds, and fish reduce inflammation by blocking inflammatory pathways in your body. This is why traditional coastal diets with fish or inland diets with plenty of nuts have always kept people healthier.
- Fiber and polyphenols from vegetables, fruits, and whole grains feed your good gut bacteria. A healthy gut microbiome directly regulates your immune system and keeps inflammation in check. This is why fermented foods like curd, idli, and dosa are so powerful. They’re giving your gut exactly what it needs.
- As per Ayurveda, warm, freshly cooked food is easier to digest, which means less undigested food sitting in your system, creating ama (toxins). Less ama means less inflammation.
- Eating mindfully without stress lowers cortisol levels. High cortisol drives chronic inflammation. This is why Ayurveda insists on calm, focused eating, not eating while working, scrolling reels, or watching TV.
Did you notice? Every principle in Ayurveda has a scientific explanation. Hence, it’s not ancient versus modern science. Both systems are describing the same truth from different angles.
Lifestyle Habits That Support Healing
- Move daily: Yoga, walking, or light workouts help lower inflammation. CRP levels drop in active adults.
- Sleep well: 7 to 8 hours of deep sleep supports recovery and hormonal balance. So, prioritize your sleep each night.
- Manage stress: Meditation, journaling, and breathing practices like pranayama calm the nervous system and lower inflammatory hormones like cortisol.
The Takeaway
You don’t need exotic superfoods or expensive supplements to fight inflammation. Your homemade thali already knows how to do it: warm, fresh, balanced, and full of spices that heal. Start by making small changes in your daily habits. Swap desserts for fruits, caffeinated beverages for herbal teas, and eat more home-cooked foods. The healthiest diet is often the one that feels closest to home and is easy to follow.
You don’t have to rely on painkillers and quick fixes to feel better. As you start living more mindfully, you will gradually notice changes in your overall health. And, don’t forget, healing doesn’t happen overnight; it happens each time you choose nourishment over convenience, and awareness over habit.