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Living the #ChronicLife is a 24/7/365 job.
Unfortunately, our conditions don’t take a break during the holiday season.
So how do I help manage my psoriatic arthritis during the holidays? Here are 4 resources for you!
1. 10 Tips For Keeping Your Stress In Check
Here are 10 tips for managing stress and keeping our symptoms in check this holiday season that I recently put together for HealthCentral.
This post originally appeared as a guest post on Painfully Optimistic! Ross, from Painfully Optimistic, asked me to write a guest post for his blog. He’s a wonderful CRPS advocate who is living a great life, despite chronic pain. Make sure to check out his site and follow him on twitter!
3. Think ahead and plan your meals.
Living with chronic conditions usually means that we must be picky about the food we’re eating. (And if you’re not, you probably should be. BUT, you can wait until the new year to tackle that monster!) Last year I put together 101+ recipe Holiday guide. What will you make this year?
This year my diet has changed even more! January 2016 I cut out Poultry and in April 2016 I cut out fish. Since then, I’ve only been eating fruits, veggies and nuts and seeds. I plan on incorporating seafood back into my diet at the beginning of the new year. For thanksgiving, I made tons of sides, cut out the ghee and used coconut oil or EVOO and used flax-seed “eggs” in my stuffing recipe. I can’t lie, I enjoyed every bite tremendously!
Last year I published a post about my Thanksgiving menu (check it out here!) and a lot of people said it was super helpful. I’ve been asked a ton of times already what foods I’ll eat during the holidays and to point them to yummy recipes. Well, here ya go folks!
4. Keep calm and listen to Christmas music.
Music is SO healing to me. I truly think music is medicine for my soul. Here’s a playlist that I use during the holidays to help calm me down and get me smiling 🙂 They’re not in any specific order, so hit shuffle and click play!
I even teach yoga twice a week 🙂 BUT, let me tell you. Every time I go to teach yoga, I always say a silent THANK YOU up to God and the Universe. There was a period of time that I never thought I’d be normal again. I never thought I’d have the energy to participate in life. There was a period where I wasn’t even sure I’d ever walk again. So the fact that I’m able to get up, in front of a class, twice a week, and TEACH yoga. . . that fact is NOT (and never will be) lost on me. EVER.
So why do I think yoga and movement is an important aspect in managing your chronic condition? Well let me tell you 😉
So, where should you start?
Start where you can! As you begin your yoga journey, or really any movement practice, I’d like to leave you with a few tips to have in the back of your mind.
There is no perfect practice. Even if you’re sitting on your mat breathing, you’re doing yoga! When I first started back into yoga, I couldn’t even do child’s pose (which is a resting pose). I used to think, “how the heck am I supposed to do yoga if I can’t even do the resting post?” So you know what I did? For a good 6 months, I didn’t incorporate that posture into my practice. And guess what? No yoga police yelled at me, I received the benefits of practicing and I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Listen to your body. This can be a hard thing for people because we tend to tune our body out. But, I urge you to start to connect with yourself. Your breath. How you’re feeling. Where you’re holding tension in your body. Build up a picture of what your body is telling you. Our bodies give us symptoms just like our car dashboard gives us indicators! All we need to do is stop and listen.
Start slow and work your way up. Do 5 minutes of breath work or stretching, then increase it to 10, and so on. Don’t overwhelm yourself. Yoga may seem boring or too slow, but it’s because we’re taking the time to listen and to get in tune with our mind-body and soul.
Whenever I was at my lowest low, in the midst of my biggest flare, I could have never imagined even completing a normal yoga class – let alone teaching 2 classes a week like I do now! But I’m the perfect testimonial to show you that if you start slow, and work your way up, yoga can truly become an essential part of your treatment plan with psoriatic disease.
Resources
I’ve written many different posts that can help you on this topic! Some of them are geared towards psoriatic arthritis, but truly they’re applicable to ANYONE with an autoimmune disease or chronic condition.
Make sure to check out my chair yoga flow here. This is a great yoga flow for everyone and anyone!
Avascular Necrosis (AVN) of the Knee & Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA) Personal Journey Blog.
Wishing You A Pain Free Day!
Catch up on this “Managing My Psoriatic Arthritis” Ask Juls series:
This series was created after having been asked the question “Did an elimination diet help you manage my psoriatic arthritis?”.
Short answer – YES
Long answer – YES, but I’ve also done a lot of other things as well to help manage my condition. I focus on the following 5 areas to help manage my psoriatic arthritis.
If you’ve read any of my other blogs, or follow me on social media, you already may know I’m a huge huge huuugggeeeee believer in the power of quieting the mind. But I wasn’t always like that. I thought being able to think 5 steps ahead, always processing something and never sitting still was a GOOD thing… that’s probably half the reason I landed in this boat in the first place.
I just finished reading Deepak Chopra’s Super Genes, which was about how meditation can help you manage your gene expression. Becoming more mindful, and practicing meditation, we can help start to bring some balance and clam to our bodies. There are many, many, MANYYYYYYY benefits to meditation (check out this research study that I recently posted on my FB about chronic pain and your nervous system). . . let’s learn more 😉
So what are some great tools for meditation?
Well, first off. If you haven’t downloaded a FREE copy of my Chronically Grateful ebook DO IT NOW! (Register for my newsletter and you’ll be redirected to the ebook to download!) This book will take you through 30 days of mindfulness exercises. At the end of the book is a whole chart dedicated to so many amazing resources for you to continue your journey.
There are so wonderful apps and sites out there, but my FAVORITE are:
Headspace *By far my most favorite. I’ve been using headspace since the fall of 2012 and I’m a huge supporter of their app. I use it EVERY SINGLE DAY. Ok, maybe not every day, but as of today I have a 98 day running streak. Whoop whoop!
Take some time to check out these apps! If you stick with them, you’ll begin to see HUGE shifts in your life. When you start to quiet your mind, you can and will balance our your nervous systems, allow your body to calm down and then it can focus on HEALING! It’s an awesome thing 😉
Wishing You A Pain Free Day!
Catch up on this “Managing My Psoriatic Arthritis” Ask Juls series:
This series was created after having been asked the question “Did an elimination diet help you manage my psoriatic arthritis?”.
Short answer – YES
Long answer – YES, but I’ve also done a lot of other things as well to help manage my condition. I focus on the following 5 areas to help manage my psoriatic arthritis.
I’ve written several posts on my blog about toxins and what products I use. Here are 3 examples and make sure to check out my Spoonie Products page too to see the products I suggest using!
It really is important to remember every toxin that we encounter affects our body and our immune system. Most times we don’t even realize this is occurring!
Toxins in the air, toxins in the water, toxins in our beauty products, toxins in our medications, toxins in our food . . . some we can control and others we really don’t have control over.
We NEED to step up and control the things we CAN control.
You don’t need to throw everything out right away.
That would be WAY too overwhelming and would cost you a fortune! My top tip? Whenever you run out of your items, replace them with a more natural product instead of rebuying the same thing. So, next time your window cleaner is empty, replace it with an all-natural cleaner. Whenever your blush runs out, replace it with an organic mineral blush. Once you kick your hair gel, switch over to a paraben/sulfate/alcohol free gel.
Taking small steps to eliminate the toxic load in your body will help so so sooooooo much.
It will help reduce inflammation, it will help decrease the toxic load on your liver and overall will help your body to thrive.
Here are some resources to help you figure out what ingredients you should be steering clear of:
Catch up on this “Managing My Psoriatic Arthritis” Ask Juls series:
This series was created after having been asked the question “Did an elimination diet help you manage my psoriatic arthritis?”.
Short answer – YES
Long answer – YES, but I’ve also done a lot of other things as well to help manage my condition. I focus on the following 5 areas to help manage my psoriatic arthritis.
Continuing the conversation that I started in Part 1 of this 5 part series. Catch up here!
The original question was, “Did an elimination diet help you manage your psoriatic arthritis?”
The short answer is YES.
The long answer is YES, but there were other key factors as well that helped me get my psoriatic arthritis in an extremely manageable state. In part 2, we explore supplements!
Supplements are a very important part of your treatment plan. Many people have mixed feelings on supplements.
Some think that if you’re eating a nutritious diet, or you’re taking medication, then you don’t necessarily need to take supplements . . . but that really is far from the truth.
With chronic illness, our bodies are constantly fighting off disease. If we are not replenishing what it’s already lacking, how can we expect our bodies to function normally? In a perfect world, we’d get all of our nutrients from our food – but I can tell you that 95% of humans aren’t receiving all the nutrients they need from their diets. Therefore,by adding supplements into a healthy diet and lifestyle, we can start to have a big impact on our overall health.
Below are the supplements that I currently take. I have changed regiments many times over the last few years. I know that I’ve written updates like this one or these ones. But my current protocol is REALLY working wonders for me.
Just as I say with diet, EVERY SINGLE BODY IS DIFFERENT. Therefore, we cannot expect that everyone will need the same supplementation. There are common supplements that will benefit most individuals, but it’s important to experiment and find out what works best for you. This is where working with a functional/integrative medicine doctor or a health coach will be extremely helpful for you.
Supplement
Benefit
Where To Buy
N-Acetyl Cysteine
NAC is the precursor to glutathione in our body. These amino acids help support our bodies detoxification pathways. It also reduces inflammation and relieves pain.
Fortifies the endocrine and nervous systems. It also helps insulin resistance and repairs areas of the nervous system which may have been damaged by a virus.
Lemon balm is antiviral, antibacterial, and strengths the immune system. It kills viruses, bacteria and funguses that may be inflaming the intestinal tract and causing food allergies.
Provides virtual micronutrients to the brain, blood and central nervous system. Also contains alkaloids which can reduce inflammation specific to viral infections.
I take a separate one because the Prescript-assist does not contain this strain and my own functional medicine tests have shown me that I need more of this strain.
Caprylic acid is a natural immune booster! While antibiotics can kill off all bacteria in the gut environment — both good and bad — caprylic acid can actually do the opposite, helping prevent an imbalance between the presence of various bacteria.
Digestive enzymes are an important process within our digestive system. Because of our lifestyles and diets, our bodies can be lacking these enzymes. Taking them with meals helps our digestive system work optimally!
I used to take these religiously, but have since switched to a vegan omega. I’ve done this because I’m working to reduce my toxic and metal load. If you’re going to take a fish oil, this is the one I took for years and would suggest.
Above are supplements I believe in and take myself. I just want to explicitly mention that Life Equals is a company that I really trust and respect. They use quality ingredients and never add anything that’s not necessary. I take Life Equals supplements each day and because I believe in the product I was given discount codes to offer to my clients!
I’m not selling these products and I’m not trying to get you to sign up for anything! Because I believe in their products, I’ve become an ambassador to help spread the word. This in turn means that I’m able to help my clients get QUALITY supplements at a discounted price!
If you purchase a monthly shipment of a supplement, you can get 75% off! Use the code CER75 at check out.
If you make a one time purchase, you can get 30% off! Use the code CER30 at check out.
So whew, there you have it!
There are the supplements I’m currently taking and am doing really well on. I’d love to hear about what products you may be taking and feel are really helping you. Every body is SO different, therefore we all need different things. Comment below with your list of supplements!
Wishing You A Pain Free Day!
And because our world is super crazy, let me just leave this right here . . .
You should always consult your doctor before using any prescription, drugs, supplements or undergoing any treatments. The above statements have not been approved by the FDA, doTerra and any of the supplement companies listed. They reflect my own opinions and research.
Catch up on this “Managing My Psoriatic Arthritis” Ask Juls series:
This series was created after having been asked the question “Did an elimination diet help you manage my psoriatic arthritis?”.
Short answer – YES
Long answer – YES, but I’ve also done a lot of other things as well to help manage my condition. I focus on the following 5 areas to help manage my psoriatic arthritis.
I received an AWESOME question a few weeks back that I knew I HAD to cover in my Ask Juls series. The question was “Did an elimination diet help you manage my psoriatic arthritis?”.
Short answer – YES
Long answer – YES, but I’ve also done a lot of other things as well to help manage my condition.
This question will be answered in 5 parts. Today kicks off the first part (and the longest answer!) and explains my journey with psoriatic arthritis and how an elimination diet helped me reign in my inflammation.
Make sure to stay tuned for the rest of the discussion. There are 4 more parts coming to this answer 🙂
Also, I’ve written 2 articles for HealthCentral, which targets Psoriatic Disease, but are applicable to ALL chronic conditions. Make sure to check them out!
To continue reading in this series, make sure to check out my next post on Supplements!
Wishing You A Pain Free Day!
Catch up on this “Managing My Psoriatic Arthritis” Ask Juls series:
This series was created after having been asked the question “Did an elimination diet help you manage my psoriatic arthritis?”.
Short answer – YES
Long answer – YES, but I’ve also done a lot of other things as well to help manage my condition. I focus on the following 5 areas to help manage my psoriatic arthritis.
You may laugh, but are you chewing your food properly?
Chewing is something we don’t usually stop and think about, but it’s one of the first steps in our digestive process. When we only take a few seconds to chew our food, we’re not breaking down the proteins like we need to for our gut to handle the rest!
Today’s Ask Juls video tackles an important question you should ask yourself.
Are you taking the time to chew your food in order to allow your body it’s best chance to break it down, extract and absorb the nutrients and excrete it?
Digestion initially begins in the mouth. As you start to chew your food, digestive enzymes found in saliva begin to break it down, preparing for nutrient absorption. It’s important to chew your food thoroughly to achieve maximum absorption of all your vitamins and minerals.
How To Chew Properly
To get into the habit of chewing foods thoroughly, try counting the chews in each bite, aiming for 30 to 50 times before swallowing. Try putting your utensils down between bites to help you better concentrate on chewing.
• Chew every mouthful of food at least 30 times each, until the food becomes liquid.
• Chewing breaks down food and makes it easier on the stomach and small intestine.
• Saliva assists in the digestion of carbohydrates.
• Saliva also makes the food more alkaline, which creates less gas.
If you are feeling stressed during a meal, take deep breaths, chew, and let the simple act of chewing relax you.
Taking the time to chew will help you to enjoy the whole spectrum of tastes and aromas that make up the meal.
Taking the time to chew will help your overall digestion AND your overall health!
Or maybe you’re so fatigued that you haven’t moved from your bed all day.
Or maybe you’re just running around and have little, to no time, to think about making dinner.
There are many reasons why life gets in the way, but that doesn’t mean we should just opt for fast food or processed, boxed (or bagged) food. It’s in all of these instances that we NEED to be using our food as medicine and gain the fuel we need from what we’re consuming. There are a ton of easy ways we can get the nutrients we need from a delicious meal that takes no time at all to prepare!
Check out this week’s Ask Juls for my easy go to meals!
Basically just stir-fry every and any veggie you have in coconut oil or EVOO (maybe a splash of sesame oil for flavor!), use left over protein (like chicken or shrimp) you have in your fridge or throw a protein you have in with the veggies your sautéing.
Use coconut aminos instead of soy sauce, as they’re SO much better for you and you won’t compromise your already compromised body with soy.
Serve your stir-fry over brown rice or cauli-rice.
The more veggies you pack in this dish, the more phytonutrients you’ll be receiving. Which is a GREAT thing!
Meal Idea 2: Roasted Veggies + Breaded Chicken
1) Go into your fridge (and pantry for sweet potatoes if you have them!), take every vegetable you have and chop it up. Onions, peppers, brussels sprouts, carrots, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, kale, EVERYTHING!
EVOO + garlic + salt + pepper + dill (or whatever herb or spice you like) = throw it in the oven for 400* and flip every 15 minutes. Mine usually takes about 45 minutes to roast the thicker/denser veggies.
2) Cover chicken in mayo (make sure the mayo doesn’t NOT contain soy, like this one), bread with almond flour + spices (I like salt, pepper and garlic) + tapioca starch/arrowroot powder = in the oven at 350* for 25 minutes.
Other ideas?
Make a “flare box”. A friend of mine gave me this idea a few years back. Make a box, or a shelf in your pantry or fridge, or a drawer in your kitchen, that has easy, nutritious foods in it for when you’re not feeling well. Then, it makes it easy to just go grab these items. Get ideas from my snack post!
Make sure you’re hydrated and are drinking lots of water or tea.
Mix up some smoothies or protein shakes (make sure you’re NOT using whey protein though).
Use your crock pot! Throw in some veggies, chicken broth, spices and chicken – allow it to cook all day and voila! Delicious, nutritious dinner!
Dinner doesn’t have to be a 5 hour prep event. Check out pinterest for some super easy meal recipes too! When you’re feeling well, take a few minutes to write down a list of meals that you know are easy to make. Perhaps print out the recipes or collect them all to put in a convenient location so when you’re not feeling your best you can easily reference it!
The absolute VITAL time to be using food as medicine is when we’re rushed or don’t feel well. Make the RIGHT choices for your body. Your body will thank you and will then be able to focus on healing!
I received a question about why I don’t only focus on foods, but also talk a lot about mind, body and spirit. Well this is a fantastic question!!!!! I do focus on food, ALL TYPES OF FOOD. Betcha didn’t realize that there was more than 1 type of food 🙂
Most of the clients I work with don’t realize that primary food is just, if not even more, important than secondary food. You NEED NEED NEED to have them both in balance to live a happy and healthy life.
There’s no way you can live your best life if you hate your job so much that it’s affecting you as a whole.
There’s no way to lose those pesky 10 pounds if you’re holding onto stress and resentment from relationships in your life.
There’s no way to live an authentic life if you’re holding yourself back creatively.
There’s no way that you can achieve whole healing without balance.
And I betcha there are areas of your primary food that are so out of balance that you don’t even realize.
So, take a moment to complete the Circle of Life to identify what you need to work on. Then, make yourself a priority, and start to bring awareness and action to those areas. Balance has profound affects on all areas of your life and I guarantee you’ll start to see cosmic shifts!
Ps. Don’t judge my super red eyeballs in this video. I had a lovely virus that gave me double pink eye, amongst other infections for an entire month. It was no beuno!
This video was created after I received a question on why I talk about vision and goals, yet believe we shouldn’t have everything planned out to a T. It’s true! We shouldn’t be attached to outcomesand we should be flexible enough to allow things to not go the way we WANTED them to go . . . but that doesn’t mean we SHOULDN’T have goals and a vision. It’s so important to know where we want to go, therefore taking the time to create a vision should be high priority on your to-do list!
There are many different ways you can create your vision, here are 2 examples:
Write Out Your Vision
Get our your journal and write out every detail of your vision! If you don’t like physically writing, get on your computer, open a new word document and start typing away. There really isn’t a right or wrong way to write out your vision. Here are a few guidelines to help you write.
Guidelines for writing your vision:
Do this exercise in a way that feels best to you. Use your creativity and make it fun!
Some people like to focus on their ‘ideal day’ and identify what their dream day would look like. Others like to take a big-picture point of view and focus on what their ideal life would be like. Do what feels good to YOU. The main thing to remember is that you want to get a sense of what your ideal lifestyle feels and looks like. Bring as many of the five (or six!) senses into this experience as possible.
Focus on what you’re passionate about: What do you love? What makes your heart sing? The more strongly you feel for the things in your vision, the more likely you are to create them. This is about creating the life you love – the life of your dreams!
Use as much detail as possible. That is, an ideal vision might focus on what your dream life is like from the time you wake up until the time you go to bed. A big-picture vision might focus on exactly how you feel as you go through your life, whom you’re with, how you take care of yourself, where you live, and so on…
Use language as if your vision is in the present moment, and use positive language. Do not use ‘I will not’ or ‘I don’t have’, but instead say ‘I am’, ‘I have’, or ‘I choose’.
Include people you want in your life (specific people or characteristics of people you want to spent your time with).
Include thing you want to have in your life (the house of your dreams, your own business, or what have you.)
Include how you want to be or feel (such as happy, healthy, energized, light, peaceful, joyful, charismatic, confident, smart, loving, forgiving, patient, and so forth.
Include what you want to do (such as travel to XYZ country, be a leader, work part-time and still make money, get married, be fit, eat healthy, write a book, etc!)
Bring in as many of your senses as possible (what do you see, taste, touch, smell, feel?).
Be specific as you can about how your work and personal life flows together. You are inventing the lifestyle that is most ideal for you, not what you think is realistic.
Avoid worrying about limitations (that is, ‘I have kids, so I can’t live in a sunny place in the winter’ or ‘My husband’s job is here, so I can’t go live in my dream city’.) This is your time to dream about what you want, not what you think will work for everyone else.
Are you dreaming big enough? Don’t confine yourself to what you think is possible. You might not even know what is truly possible until you experience the power of getting clear about what you want and visualizing it coming true for you.
There’s also the ‘keep it simple’ option – maybe you just want to focus on how you’ll feel with no emphasis on anything else. For instance, I feel loving toward myself, and I know I’m feeling this way because I am kind to myself. I say yes when I truly want to say yes and no when I want to say no. I feel a sense of ease in how I do things, and I know this because I have very little stress in my life. I feel happy and calm as I go about my day.
Create A Vision Board
1. To make a vision board, invest time clarifying your goals. Decide what part of your life this board will represent and for what period of time. Is this for short-term or long-term goals? You can make several mini-boards for each area with a goal or connect them as one large board.
2. After your goals are clear, use a blank wall or board to pin images as a collage. You can create it on a cork board, in a picture frame on the front of your journal, on paint or a photo editing program on your computer, on a huge piece of cardboard – whatever you want to do! For “portable” vision boards, use a piece of cardboard to glue or tack images in place or place your images and words into a small photo album to take with you! Otherwise, tape images to open wall space in an area where you frequently work.
Collect images from: magazines, personal photo albums, online, your own sketches, craft items, anything you have sitting around your house!! Choose photos of yourself and of people you want in your life. Pictures of things you want in your life or that express the way you want to be or feel. Look in magazines, newspapers, or other sources.
3. Supplement images with quotes or words that also represent your vision. Use vibrant colors to enhance the emotion of these pieces. Add words – use colored markers to something to write words that are meaningful to you. Add specific dates for when you want these things in your life. And remember, think big – don’t get constrained by the how or worry about whether you can get it done by that date! This is your dream and you set the time frames! A vision board represents everything that is YOU, so creatively express YOU!
4. Display your vision board in a place that is highly visible to you. Popular places to hang vision boards are above computer screens, in offices, on your desk, in your bedroom, next to mirrors, on refrigerators, or any high traffic area of your home or office. You may want to take a photo of your vision board or create a digital version to display on a mobile device. Or, some people will paste the pictures in a journal that they carry around with them. There’s no right or wrong way to do it! It’s whatever works for YOU and YOUR LIFE.
5. Meditate on these images for a few minutes a day. As these visions become reality, acknowledge the success with check marks or stamps recognizing the piece as achieved. Give yourself the satisfaction of completion!
Having goals doesn’t mean you should be attached to the outcome. You should have goals which will help propel you forward down the right road. During your journey, your goals may change, detours may arise and wrenches WILL be thrown into your plans – AND THAT’S OK!!! If these didn’t happen, then we wouldn’t end up getting exactly what we need. Exactly what we’re meant to have. We wouldn’t end up exactly who we’re meant to be.
So have an open heart, an open mind and believe in yourself.
Throwing your intentions out into the Universe is one of the most impactful acts you can do. So empower yourself and get serious about your vision and what you want in life!
I’m SUPER picky when it comes to taking supplements. You have to be these days because there is a whole lot of CRAP out there. 
To get into the habit of chewing foods thoroughly, try counting the chews in each bite, aiming for 30 to 50 times before swallowing. Try putting your utensils down between bites to help you better concentrate on chewing.
