By Sitara Hewitt

As with most skin conditions psoriasis is often your body’s way of telling you its overburdened or stressed… and thankfully there are things you can do to alleviate or even clear it up completely. One of my clients had severe plaque psoriasis all over her body… and a year later is free of it – and it hasn’t returned! With some dietary, lifestyle and topical changes you can help your body heal.

Psoriasis is caused inside the body, and the main causes are usually stress and a toxic diet. While you may not think your diet is toxic, your body may feel overburdened by it and some months of eating a cleaner, stricter diet are needed. Personally I love a clean diet because not only do imbalances clear up, but my skin gets younger, my stomach gets flatter and I have more energy. Also, I rarely catch a cold or flu anymore!

I heard someone say recently: ‘It’s so expensive being healthy’ I replied: ‘It’s a lot more costly being sick.’ So while we may balk at dietary or lifestyle changes because they seem difficult, in the end a healthier body is much easier to live with than a stressed out or sick one. Let that motivate you to make some of the following adjustments!

Diet

A conventional western diet can cause an overgrowth of yeast, bad bacteria and for toxins to build up in the system. White sugar, white flour, most grains, alcohol, dairy and too much meat overburden the colon so that we aren’t absorbing nutrients from the fresh foods we are eating. We want to move to an ‘anti-inflammatory diet’ based in unprocessed foods. Start by switching out one of your snacks for an apple with some raw almonds. Change out your breakfast for an easy smoothie full of berries, banana, spinach, coconut milk, and maybe a vegan protein powder. One of your meals could be a plate of greens with hard boiled eggs and oil and vinegar dressing. Soups and stews made with lots of veggies and chicken are easy to digest and satisfying. Try quinoa with veggies as one of your meals. The idea is to get more fresh, completely unprocessed foods into your diet. You can google ‘psoriasis diet’ for some recipe ideas and start getting creative.

Cleanse

The colon is often where psoriasis starts. Most of us have a great deal of old, impacted material lining the colon and so nutrients from new food aren’t being absorbed. Also, yeast or candida can breed in an impacted colon, and the result is a lowered immune system and often skin disorders. You can find a good herbal colon cleanse to take for about a month – you’ll feel amazing after detoxing your colon!

Lifestyle

Stress is a huge cause of psoriasis. Gentle exercise, like walking, jogging, stretching or yoga circulates oxygen, releases feel good hormones and decreases hormones like cortisol. Meditation and breathing techniques help, as does making the decision that you’re not going to ‘sweat the small stuff’ so that your body can begin to relax and heal. Acupuncture was life changing for my client with psoriasis; once a week for a couple of months healed hers.

Sunlight is also helpful and soothing to the skin whenever you can get it.

Supplements

Vitamin D is key, as it boosts the immune system. I like cod liver oil; it’s high in Vitamin D and A and contains essential fatty acids that benefit the skin and calm inflammation. Probiotics are essential to heal the gut and help the skin from the inside out. Neem is a powerful immune boosting herb that benefits the skin. Drinking aloe juice (unsweetened) helps inflammation, and applied topically will help lesions. Buy a pure aloe from a health food store for topical application, not a conventional ‘after-sun’ type which may contain irritating colors and preservatives. Bathing lesions is cold chamomile tea is also very soothing.

It may take some lifestyle changes, and some patience, but there is hope in sight for psoriasis sufferers and the good news is that the changes you make will benefit many other areas of your health and life as well!