In order to battle your illness and the pain that comes with it, you must empower yourself with as much knowledge on your illness as you are able to. There are over 100 forms of arthritis and each is unique in itself. Research your illness as well as any and all treatments for it. Discover everything that you can about it so you have the power to fight it. This will be your greatest tool in your ability to reduce the amount of pain that you exist in. This one step can increase your quality of life dramatically. Remember that pain is a warning from your body and when you experience pain then you are most likely also experiencing damage to your body.

Accept that you are not the same person that you were before you became ill, do not expect your body to follow the same routines that it did when it was healthy, learn who and what you now are. Allow yourself to adapt to the person that you have become. Changing your lifestyle to fit your illness will greatly improve your quality of life.

Know what foods or activities irritate your illness and avoid them. Know what exercises and therapies are best for your type of illness and participate in them. Treat rest as a form of therapy and use it accordingly.

Use aides to prevent or reduce further damage to inflamed tissue.

With inflammatory illnesses never doing too much or too little of any activity seems to reduce the stress or inflammation involved. Living life in bits and pieces, or a little of this and a little of that, might now be a viable lifestyle option to adopt. It is how I live every moment of my life and it works to reduce the pain from inflammation. It allows me to accomplish a great deal more than I would otherwise be able to, and thereby, improves the overall quality of my life.

Budget your energy. Your body is busy using up it's energy resources and there may not be much left over for you to enjoy life with, fatigue is a natural part of arthritis, the more active your illness then the more tired that you will likely be. Budget out your energy reserves like other people budget time or money. First do the things that you must absolutely do. Second do the things that you want to do (which is logical because why would you even want to exist if your life has no rewards). Thirdly with whatever left over energy is remaining, do the things that you should do but that won't really matter if they get done that day or not.

Also allow yourself a twenty minute total rest period each day. Lay down and do absolutely nothing for twenty minutes. This brief period of total rest is amazing for allowing you to really enjoy the remainder of your day rather than just existing through it.

Recent studies have shown that people who suffer from Parkinson's disease actually see the symptoms of their illness disappear completely whenever they are up on a dance floor dancing! Although the reasoning why this occurs is not yet known it is believed that the dancer releases a flood of endorphins into his/her body whenever he or she dances and these endorphins are the reason for this temporary cure?

If the effect of endorphins is really powerful enough to cause the symptoms of Parkinsons to disappear, then perhaps attempting to keep a steady flow of them occuring in the body for as long a time period as is possible, might in effect bring about a respite from illness long enough to thereby create a more permanent remission period for the sufferer?

Endorphins are the body's own natural pain killer. They are a chemical that the brain produces which brings about a nice warm fuzzy feeling of "well being" and they actually reduce feelings of physical or emotional pain.

Your body releases them whenever you exercise, smile, laugh or experience other pleasurable sensations. Perhaps dancing is capable of a tremendous release of these endorphins because it is both exercise and a pleasurable activity? Perhaps these endorphins are the key to a possible remission from a number of illnesses?

Just smile, laugh, dance or do any other activity that brings you intense pleasure as often as you can. When you put that magical grin on your face, when you laugh or you dance, then your brain will do a wonderful thing and release those amazing little somethings known as "endorphins". Remember that the more often you smile then the better you will feel.

Reduce your stress levels any way that you can. Live in your own little self created fantasyland where everything is wonderful and happy. Relax. Have a cup of tea and make the rest of the world go away.

If you have to piss a few people off to do it, don't worry, if they really care about you then they'll still be around when you feel better. Just get your endorphins flowing!

Perhaps the long term release of endorphins into an unhealthy body may create a self induced long term remission for that person?

Sounds like a logical theory to me and one that is definately worth experimenting around with!

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