Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Friendships & Inflammation

I said that I would no doubt be writing about inflammation in the future but didn't expect it to be this soon.

Yesterday I read an interesting article by Carole Jackson of  Daily Health about research that has been done into the effects of friendship on our health. The results are quite fascinating.

A study was done of British men and women by Dr Noriko Cable over a 5-year period to establish the effects on mental well-being of having or not having many friends. A previous study had already shown that having friends reduces inflammation in the body and this new study sought to build on that earlier study.

The participants were asked to say approximately how many friends they had, with whom they met at least once a month. Five years later the study followed up to establish their psychological well-being. The results showed that people with more than 10 friends had a higher level of confidence and contentment than those who had less than 10 friends. That can be translated into feeling less stress if you have more friends. Read the full article here.

Many people who have psoriasis, arthritis and various other auto-immune conditions find that it is aggravated by periods of increased stress. We knew this was an effect of stress but not why or how it happens. These two studies seem to hold one possible answer, in that friendships reduce stress, which reduces inflammation.

A few months ago I wrote a blog entry about inflammation showing in X-rays, both on the skin (where it appears as psoriasis) and internally on various organs. Psoriasis involves inflammation in and on many parts of the body. Arthritis involves inflammation in the joints. For these conditions, inflammation plays a major part in creating the discomfort and pain that can make the lives of people with these conditions anywhere from mildly inconvenient through to thoroughly miserable.

We need to do whatever we can to minimise that inflammation and, according to these studies, increasing the number and quality of our friendships can help in that quest.

The quality of your friendships is important in this because we all know people who are simply more trouble than they are worth. They are in the friendship for what they can get out of it rather than to simply be a good friend. Or they are negative about themselves, us or their situations, with nothing positive to say about anything. These people drain us and can be unpleasant to have around; they create stress rather than alleviating it.

Friendship is a two-way street, with both parties needing to feel good about the relationship. If you regularly come away from meeting with such a friend feeling stressed in some way then you have to ask yourself if that friendship is worth maintaining into the future. We need to get such people out of our lives and to rather build up friendships with people who have a positive attitude, people with whom we share common interests and pleasures. When we associate with people who make us feel good about ourselves we feel less stressed. The lower stress levels will translate into less inflammation, which will ease the symptoms of your psoriasis and/or arthritis.

5 comments:

  1. This is such a great resource that you are providing and you give it away free.I love seeing website that understands the value of providing a quality resource for free.
    Regards
    skincare for psoriasis

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, everyone here. I wish to tell my experience with psoriasis. All began in now very distant 1961 when I met my future wife, beautiful girl with serious plaque psr. She had psr from her 9 yo. When we several times passed exclusive circle (clinics, drs, hosps, pharms) we understood that at that circle one can go all her life and without any success. We were in deadlock from which we must going out ourselves. From nowhere to wait help. In spite of those at that time we had slightly more then 20 yo and without any experience in that field, we decided to seek medicine ourselves. That work took us about 15 yrs of our life. Those period perhaps was most difficult in life of my wife, especially after 1966 when she born first child. Her skin at 90% was covered by spots of psr. It is sufficient to say that some time in summer people denyed to take money from her hands. But our work was not in vain. In 1977 after 25 yrs illness we once and for all cured her psr. Last 20 yrs I annually cure some patients. If anybody have questions feel free at my pneved@gmail.com please

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  3. Vasilij, thank you for your story.

    Can you please give my readers some basic information about your treatment methods that you have proven to work. Without that info your comment is really only an advertisement for your services. This blog is about helping others to improve their psoriasis and helping each other. Possibly by sharing your good info you will also gain some new patients.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Dix.
      I try to write you wish. It is naturally enough that at first I began to seek "miracle" ointment, but afterwards I understood that it was mistake. I understood that one from greate number functions of skin is ability reflect condition inside organs. Naturally I understood that ointment further cure p but it is not main. During 15 yrs was tryed many variants and many plants. In the end was saccessfully select composition plants and methods usage. All medicine consist from extract for wash (may be more exact for humid heat), extract for drink, extract for breathe and ointment. Time for finally cure p depend on from form of p and it serious but not more two months.
      Dix, my aim is to publish that result in magazine.But now it is not ready for publish, I must do some more work. Therefore now I limited myself only cure some patients annually.
      And the last. So for as P is initial caus of PsA, therefore at first necessary to cure P and after that to cure PsA.

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  4. Vasilij, thank you for the extra information. Will your article be for a Russian magazine? I hope that we will be able to see an English version as well. I am very interested to see what the natural methods are that you have found successful.

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