How you eat plays a big part in your immune system. When you have an injury (or illness, for that matter), your immune system doses you up with some good ol’ inflammation to help the healing process. Once the injury’s healed, the immune system takes its foot off the inflammation pump.
Most of the time.
Living like Winston can mess up the immune system, so it doesn’t know which way is east. Like an old friend oblivious to social cues, inflammation hangs around long after the (healing) party’s finished. This contributes to ongoing low-grade inflammation, which can make the nervous system more sensitive to pain.
A poor diet also negatively affects mental health and reduces stress tolerance. Which then further contributes to a sensitive nervous system and reduced pain tolerance. It’s a vicious cycle.
Now I could harp on forever about which specific foods are the best for reducing chronic pain. Instead, I rather leave that to the experts who study these things.
But, focusing mostly on the principles of the Mediterranean diet would do a lot of good in our fight against chronic pain.