Your Work And Life Balance And Healing Psoriasis
Psoriasis – The Work And Play Balance
Healing yourself from psoriasis requires a combination of things we have spoken about at length throughout my psoriasis writings, but most importantly, it requires some kind of balance. The eighty/twenty balance is a concept that can help you put these factors into perspective.
An Italian economist named Pareto created a mathematical formula in 1906 to describe the distribution of unequal wealth in his country at the time. Pareto noticed that twenty percent of the population owned eighty percent of the country’s wealth. This 80/20 principle can be applied to help you manage your psoriasis, and your life in general more effectively.
The 80 Percent
Spend eighty percent of your time concerning yourself about your lifestyle habits, including ways you can balance your work and home life and work to live (not the other way around), how you can include plenty of healthy activity and exercise into your daily life, what you do to relax every day and interact in a positive way with those around you. Family or friends may know you better than you know yourself and they on occasion give you feedback if you appear tense, stressed, anxious or get angry or impatient at times.
It is more important for me as a practitioner to have you address these issues than it is to worry about what kind of fruit or grain is better for your digestive system.
By spending a proportionately bigger chunk of your time working on you rather than on your psoriasis, you will have understood the immense healing power that can come from within rather than from outside your body. You body’s innate ability to heal, leading to a recovery from your psoriasis may quite surprise you.
Look at ways of healthy eating we have spoken at length about in the Psoriasis Diet book (part of The Psoriasis Program), such habits include eating away from computers and TV screens, slowing down when you eat, chewing foods, etc. Do you ever leave the table feeling eighty percent full, and twenty percent empty? Or do you eat until you are almost full, and then go back for more? You should never have to go back for second helpings; it means that you are probably overfilling your stomach. By leaving the table while you are still capable of eating more, your stomach will be much more capable of processing any foods in it, and also allowing the enzymes and hydrochloric acid to deal more efficiently with restoring your digestive function.
Now is the time to drop the word “diet” from your vocabulary, it can have negative connotations and for some it means eating a certain way for a while, and then slowly sliding back into their regular eating pattern. I use the word Psoriasis “Diet” to show you the healthy eating principles which are not only important overcome psoriasis, but to remain in great health for many years to come. Once you customize and adopt many of these eating habits into your own life, you won’t think of your newly adopted habits and food choices as a diet but rather as an eating style that makes you feel consistently great.
The 20 Percent
Spend about twenty percent of your time being more focused on your health complaints, and look at the potential issues that are building up your health, as well as issues involved right now which may be breaking down your health, maintaining your psoriasis. Are they diet related, lifestyle related, stress related, etc. Remain objective, and focus your attention from a positive and not a negative perspective, concerning yourself about the best possible ways of tackling your psoriasis by looking at any underlying causes. You may need to ask for some professional help, and don’t be afraid to do so.
Unfortunately, some people with chronic psoriasis can pursue stressed-out lifestyles, thinking about how psoriasis is affecting them, lamenting to anybody who wants to hear how bad they feel, how terrible their skin looks and maintain a strong focus on psoriasis eradication by way of a super-strict regimented diet and dozens of supplements or skin creams, rather than lifestyle enhancement. And I can perfectly understand why, it’s because they have not really found much long-term relief with many of the treatments they have tried, and have most probably not been taken too seriously by their doctor.
Others may become entirely absorbed in taking lots of dietary supplements or drugs with the aim of conquering psoriasis almost like some sort of inner battle has to be waged. There may not as much concern with leading a balanced and relaxed lifestyle than taking products or special foods, and some may not be too concerned when it comes to healthy eating, including a token piece of lettuce and tomato next to their French fries and glass of wine, thinking that a tube of cream and bunch of pills might get things right. Unfortunately, this too is not a wellness-centered approach, it is very hit and miss and will give temporary results at best. This scenario is much more common than you think; I see it all the time in the clinic.
Here is a picture taken of the dietary supplements a person with chronic psoriasis has been taking. There are more than 60 different kinds of dietary supplements, creams and ointments, as well as herbal and homeopathic medicines taken for years on a rotational basis. This is a rather extreme (but not uncommon) example of being disease-focused and not wellness-centered, and it is not unusual for a person who has had psoriasis for several years to have a cupboard full of such products. And yet they still have their psoriasis, albeit with a lighter wallet.
A balanced approach to diet and lifestyle and supplementation is critical, it can get boring when you eat a “perfect diet” one hundred percent of the time, and some of your friends and family may begin to see you as a pain in the butt.
I gave up preaching on health matters to my family and friends years ago, and the only people who get my health sermons today are the ones who pay for my services, or when I give presentations to the public, at naturopathic or chiropractic colleges or at integrative medicine conferences.
These are only a tiny fraction of the problems people face and I give a comprehensive list here: