Dealing with eczema can be cumbersome. But remember you’re not alone! Although non contagious, it is the most common form of skin condition. Apart from making the skin become sore, itchy, dry, and cracked, the physical appearance and discomfort can lead to emotional distress. This can affect a persons' sleep, work, and mental health.
Luckily, there are various ways to help patients living with eczema. Positive affirmation is one of the ways patients can overcome the eczema condition. Keep reading to learn more about eczema and how positive thinking can help.
The physical and emotional effects of eczema
According to a recent report, people living with eczema face some problems. Over 50% of people living with eczema wait for over a year to get a treatment that helps them manage their condition, and over 75% reported eczema had affected their mental health.
Physical effects of eczema
- Eczema can occur in all body parts, making your skin red and itchy, cracked, or scaly. Scratching can split your skin, leading to infections like 'wet' eczema.
- Regardless of how severe eczema is, it can cause discomfort and sometimes pain. Most patients with moderate to extreme eczema conditions report it affects their sleep and daily activity performance.
Emotional effects
- People with eczema conditions and their families may experience emotional distress because of other people's responses to this condition.
- Families can suffer more due to the stress caused by this condition, like sleep disturbance, anxiety, and stress because of the affected member.
- Patients experience depression, embarrassment, anxiety, or lack of confidence.
- Patients might suffer discrimination and social isolation. Most people step back or stare at people having eczema because of fear.
1. Accept, identify and stop negative thoughts
The first thing to do is accept that you have a problem and then identify negative thoughts. This way, you will be able to block them as soon as they occur.
For instance, if you think, "My skin looks bad," identify this negative thought and correct your thinking immediately. So, decide to change your thoughts and think positively. Remember that you aren't alone, and you have to face your fears. Such thoughts will help put you in a better mood and reduce stress.
2. Use positive affirmations
According to research posted in the Journal of Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, they used MRI to demonstrate that practicing positive affirmation activates the reward centres of the human brain.
Positive thinking fires up human neural pathways bringing changes to the parts of the brain that make a person positive and happy. When a person feels comfortable, the stress hormone level reduces. Here are various ways to ease eczema through positive affirmation.
When you face a situation that makes you scared, like going for an interview in your condition, try repeating positive affirmations that accept your negative thoughts. For instance, change your beliefs as follows:
- Anxiety is normal. It's just that I am feeling uncomfortable, but I will get over this.
- What I am thinking isn't healthy. I am just being negative.
- I will only focus on things that I love to get over this.
- Everything will be ok.
3. Speak the affirmation
Ensure that you speak the affirmation every day for about five minutes in the morning, afternoon and before you sleep. The ideal moment to do this is when applying your makeup or shaving. You will look at yourself in the mirror as you say the affirmation statements. You can also opt to write down the affirmation words several times in the book to strengthen the new belief.
4. Know that you are not alone
Sometimes you might feel like no one understands what you are going through. You can overcome this when you start looking for internet communities who meet to share their emotions, offer support, and compare their situations. Finding such communities on the internet will help you avoid feeling isolated, and you will have peace of mind knowing that you aren't alone and that what you are going through is normal for some people.
5. Knowledge is power
Another way that you can cope is by looking for information and understanding the complexities of your condition. A deeper understanding of what you are going through will make it easy to break everything into a logical process. Instead of patients being clueless and feeling anxiety, they can break down intellectually what they are going through.
Stress and anxiety
Managing stress is another way you can manage your eczema condition, according to the NES landmark 2022 patient survey. The participants reported that stress was the leading cause of their eczema increasing, with 57% of women affected than men (41%). Furthermore, stress impacts the skin's ability to repair. Tips to help reduce stress;
- Implement relaxation techniques like meditation, mindfulness, and visualisation techniques.
- Create and maintain a regular workout routine.
- Seek the support of others, i.e., friends, family, or professionals.
How it feels after eczema goes way
Eczema can't just go away if it's untreated and unmanaged. For some people, eczema is a chronic condition, so they have to avoid triggers. The treatment of eczema depends on the underlying triggers. They might undergo emotional stress, thus affecting the quality of their life.
Bottom line
For some people, eczema is something they live with, and it consists of occasional flare-ups. It can take weeks for the rashes to disappear when you seek treatment. Eczema appears because of adverse immune reactions, and there are high chances of more flare-ups occurring. Therefore, it's essential to learn your triggers and reduce exposure.
Although eczema can develop during adulthood, they are more common in children, and the good news is that they improve with age.
For more information about treatment, talk to a dermatologist.
