Several times, I have been told by natural health practitioners that repressed anger can trigger or even be the cause of my eczema symptoms. Having suffered from dry skin and cycles of intense itching throughout my life, I am on the path to totally eradicate this condition that has plagued me for years.

My friends, in the natural healing field, explain that each emotion is a potent force that suffuses your entire body, including your skin. In fact, you can notice the effect of emotion yourself. For instance, your skin blushes when you feel love or embarrassment. Or you break out in cold sweat when you feel fearful. Your face turns crimsom when you are overcome with shame and anger.

Psychologists have the same opinion as well. Should you continually deny or repress your emotions, you become unresponsive and numb to the things that happen around you. Or you can well develop a general sense of melancholy.

An interesting study of 128 patients in a hospital outpatient department was conducted to determine the relationship between repressed anger and the twelve symptoms or diseases.

Among the 27 patients who suffered eczema, it was found out that eczema symptoms flared up whenever the individual could not quite handle the intense frustration of being prevented from doing something or simply interfered with.

If what these practitioners and study say is true, eczema symptoms may well be the external manifestation of an underlying fire fuelled by suppressed anger. Hence if you are an eczema sufferer, ask yourself if you have been experiencing these:

- emotionally spent

- struck numb by the various events in your life

- putting on an external happy front but really feeling lousy inside

- bottling your emotions and thoughts inside

- no one to share your innermost thoughts with

- under undue stress but having no outlet.

Although I have not recognised right away that the emotions that lie deep in my subconscious mind, I did notice that whenever I was under stress, my flareups worsened. Additionally, now that I realise that there can be a possible link between repressed emotions and eczema, I have embarked on a journey to discover what my hidden emotions and thoughts are and how they have been sabotaging my best of intents often enough.

A repression in emotions is tied to dryness of the skin (and hence, eczema skin symptoms) while an excess of emotions can make the skin oily. If you have major issues like conflicting emotions, repressed feelings, grief and anguish, self-hatred, or inappropriate passions, you can find yourself having more severe breakouts in the form of rashes or blemishes that are hard to cure or treat.

There is no point carrying on life with the excess baggage of repressed anger. An excess baggage is a burden that exacts a great toll on your body. You get migraines and ulcers, and in the long term, suffer from strokes or tumours. More complex reactions result in eczema , shingles, psoriasis, or arthritis.

Your first body system to be affected is the gastro-intestinal or digestive system. You experience difficulty in swallowing, nausea, diarrhea or constipation, and gastric ulcer. In fact, it has been found that repressed anger is the most common cause of ulcerative colitis.

Hence if you want to treat your eczema symptoms or completely cure yourself of this condition, then you will need to release instead of repressing your buried emotions. When you release your emotions, you become free of the negative beliefs and thoughts that hold you back from leading the happy life that you deserve.

It is important that you channel your anger into something healthier and more creative. Look for outlets that help you discharge the unspent emotions that continue to bury you alive.

There are many ways of releasing these emotions, for the purposes of dealing with eczema symptoms. I have picked up some tips and useful advice from various sources, and will leave this information to be the subject of another hub.