How to alter your lifestyle to reduce your psoriasis

How to alter your lifestyle to reduce your psoriasis and stress levels

It is very hard to deny a correlation between levels of stress and the appearance of your psoriasis. You often hear the term “finding the right work/life balance” when it comes to managing your working life with your personal life.  For psoriasis sufferers finding the right work/life balance is that bit harder due to how our immune system reacts to; 1. what we put into our body, 2. dealing with stressful situations.

For people without psoriasis, the first symptoms of having a poor diet are:

  • Weight Gain
  • Energy and Depression
  • Malnutrition
  • Chronic Diseases like type 2 diabetes

For people without psoriasis, the first physical signs of high stress levels are:

  • Aches and pains
  • Diarrhea or constipation
  • Nausea, dizziness
  • Chest pain, rapid heartbeat
  • Loss of sex drive
  • Frequent colds

Unfortunately for us unlikely lot with psoriasis, we can experience all of the above as well as scaly unsightly psoriatic skin!

If you have checked out one of my earlier posts, The winning psoriasis trifecta, you will see I firmly believe and have proven from my own past, that you cannot fully control psoriasis just by eating the “perfect psoriasis diet” and exposure to sunshine. If you have high levels of stress then you will  find it hard to get your psoriasis under control to a satisfactory level.

But if you manage to eliminate your stress, stay on a psoriasis friendly diet and get sunshine/vitamin d3 every day you are guaranteed to have your psoriasis under full control once and for all.

Today’s stress management post as part of February’s psoriasis and stress management month is to do with controlling stress caused by your work.

Why work can have a detrimental effect on your psoriasis

How to alter your lifestyle to reduce your psoriasis and stress levels

Have you ever experienced the following, as I know I have multiple times:

  • You start a new job, you get get an bad outbreak of psoriasis
  • You get a pay rise and more responsibility at work, you suffer a psoriasis flare up
  • You return from an extended holiday and flare up occurs when you are trust back into a stressful situation at work

If you hate your job, dread going in every day and have moderate to severe  psoriasis, there is a good chance that you will never be able to get your psoriasis under control naturally.

If you like your job but are still stressed out by time constraints, financial worries etc,  you have a better chance of controlling your psoriasis naturally but still things will have to be done to combat the stress levels.

If you love your job and are not stressed out by it, then you are sure to be very successful in controlling your psoriasis naturally.

That is why you need to take stock of your life right now and decide is this what you imagined you would be doing when you were back in your teens? Are you content in your current employment?

how to alter your lifestyle to reduce psoriasis and stress levels

If you are content in your current employment, then I would advise you not to read any more of this blog post and concentrate on getting your diet and supplement intake right. But for those of you who are feeling stressed out and hate your job and current life then I urge you to read on.

I escaped the cubicle…

It wasn’t easy for me to change my lifestyle. In fact I planned it for nearly 2 years before I eventually quit my well paid job and packed my bags and moved to another country to pursue a lifestyle I know would be beneficial for my psoriasis.

To this day, it was the best decision I ever made. Even though I had a nice income and could afford to live a comfortable life, I hated my job so much. I hated having my life ruled by an alarm clock and having to play office politics to try and get things done.

Not only that but I was pretty good at my job, so I was getting more and more responsibility that just increased by stress levels. Even when I was looking after my diet properly I still had really bad psoriasis on my hands and face.  It was just inevitable.

I decided that to be able to leave the 9-5 cubicle jail I needed to acquire some skill sets that would allow me to work from anywhere. So after work each day I started to focus on my hobbies and began creating revenue streams from doing things I liked.

I taught myself how to create simple websites like the one you are reading now and I developed little websites in niches I had an interest in. Once I saw money trickling in, I knew this was the right time to take the plunge and make the big upheaval which would ultimately change my lifestyle for ever.

Fast forward to nearly 4 years now and while there has been a few bumps on my journey, I now love my job and the direction my life is taking from a work point of view. I now jump out of the bed in the morning and all I see around me is opportunity.  If you read on I will explain how I saw the light and hopefully it will resonate with you.

The key to a stress free life…

The hardest part to changing your lifestyle is the mindset switch that needs to occur. You do not have to settle for what you currently have if you are not happy. Below I list steps you must take to reduce your work related stress and alter your lifestyle for the better.

How to plan the escape from the dead end lifestyle

1. Identifying your single motivating purpose

If you are not happy and highly stressed in your current job you need to put a plan in place to get yourself out of that situation. That is why you need to define what your single motivating purpose in life is. According to the guys at internet business mastery, the following 6 criteria are key:

The Six Criteria for a Single Motivating Purpose

  1. Valuable: It impacts and improves the life of others (beyond just those closes to you)
  2. Remarkable: It is the product of natural talents that you have at an ability that is higher than average.
  3. Universal: It shows up in virtually every aspect of your life.
  4. Energizing: When you do it you are fulfilled, it gives you energy rather than takes it.
  5. Intrinsic: It comes to you naturally. It feels like home. It is a natural state of being. It feels like the best and ideal way to do things.
  6. Increasing: Your ability to apply your SMP is continually growing. The ways in which you apply your SMP are continually expanding.

Formula for a Single Motivating Purpose

I get up in the morning to [DO THESE ACTIONS] in order to [PRODUCE THESE VALUABLE RESULTS FOR OTHERS].

From reading the above I figured out that my single motivating purpose is the following;

I get up in the morning to take advantage of my joy of learning and self improvement to pass on my knowledge to people with a desire and work ethic to improve their situation in life.

Basically I enjoy adding value to other peoples lives and I do this by continuous reading, learning and experimentation and telling anyone that wants to listen and learn about that stuff too.

When I worked in a multi-national company that employed over 10,000 people, what value did I pass on to people’s lives by being the best software tester that I could be? Its very hard to tell isn’t it? And it doesn’t sound very fulfilling making a multi-billion dollar insurance company richer does it?

However imagine with my same skill set I set up a website that helped train people who want to transition from a non IT role into an IT role in a company. I can use my knowledge to educate my members on how to test software proficiently and train them how to stand out at the job interview. Imagine the joy you would feel when one of your members secures the job that gets them onto the first rung of an IT career and an extra $10,000 a year in salary.

What happens next once you define your single motivating purpose?

To achieve your new goals you may need to do the following:

  • Go back to school and get a qualification – Either go back and do a full time degree course, or a part time evening course or even more common now is to self learn through websites like lynda.com.
  • Change industry – Take a pay drop and go do a job you will actually enjoy. Watch your stress levels disappear instantly! When you like a job, your enthusiasm and work ethic will always mean you will rise to the top of that profession and the pay will eventually rise to coincide with that.
  • Create revenue streams out of your passions/hobbies/interests – this is my favorite one as you are in control of your lifestyle. You can choose to work hard at it and watch what you build from the ground up prosper. Not everyone can just quit their jobs but everyone can spare 2 hours every evening and all weekend to work on a project they are passionate about. It actually brightens up your day as you constantly thinking of improvements you can make while working away in your boring 9-5 job!

2. How to earn a living following that purpose in short and long term

Once you have decided on what option to take and especially if you have chosen the last option, you need to create a runway for yourself. This means that you have to start saving up money for your expenses if you do decide to go it on your own and develop a business around your passions/hobbies/interests.

I am a big believer in becoming an expert in one area in life. Let’s say you have a interest in graphic design and you are proficient with Photoshop. Take the time to master that product and then specialize in an area. So for example, you know that you are one of the best logo designers in your town/city and this offers the safety net for you if you are ever in need of some quick cash flow while you own business is growing.

3. Work hard now to reap the long term benefits

Whatever option you choose to help you change your lifestyle, understand that you will have to start from the beginning again and will have to make some sacrifices. However this can become easy if you make yourself mini goals and deadlines with the long term end result of you being in a position to control your own destiny.

4. Avoid the naysayers who try to bring you down. Surround yourself with positive mindset, join communities of similar like minded people

When I decided to quit my job and move country, I got a few people telling me I was stupid. They couldn’t understand why I would leave a well paid job when everyone else my age were struggling to find work in the current bad economic times.

To this day I still have close family members saying to me “You know there are still lots of IT jobs available at home”. It is usually family members who put up the biggest resistance when you try to make those big changes to your lifestyle.

There is a saying going around that your life will be the average of the 5 people you hang around with the most. So if you are surrounded by negative people, then you will more than likely have a negative view on life as well, which doesn’t bide well when you are trying to improve your lifestyle!

If you decide to create your own business around your passions/hobbies/interests then it definitely helps to join communities where like minded people hang out. Sharing stories, tips and ideas will definitely keep you motivated and productive.

Resources

If you are starting out and like the idea of creating your own internet based business, then you could do worse then check out this fantastic free resource called the Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn. Every piece of content he releases is top class and has a very helpful guides for beginners to internet marketing

The best step by step guides both free and paid for beginners is still Jeremy Frandsen and Jason Van Orden’s Internet Business Mastery website (This is where Pat Flynn learnt about internet business as well). You can sign up for their free 3 secrets to fast internet success here and also get all of their podcast back catalog which has amazing actionable content.

For those of you who have an expertise that you would like to monetize but don’t know the best and most cost effective way to set up a website, just drop me a line and I will point you in the right direction!

Conclusion

I honestly think in these day and age that you should be able to enjoy your work. We have so much opportunity around us at the moment in this information age that you no longer have to be stuck in an a office from 9 to 5 every day unless that is what truly makes you happy. Gradually change your lifestyle for the better to improve your psoriasis and your stress levels.

John Redfern