One of the most overlooked drivers of autoimmune symptoms—whether that’s joint pain, fatigue, skin flares, digestive issues, or hair loss—is anxiety. Not the kind you can “positive thought” your way out of, but the deeper, chronic activation of the nervous system that keeps your body in a state of internal tension long after the stressful moment has passed.
This is something I understand both professionally and personally. Long before I became a nutritionist, when I was working as a Chartered Accountant, I was living in a loop I didn’t have the language for at the time. A loop where my nervous system was constantly activated, my body was exhausted, and my symptoms made no sense… until they did.
And now, years later, this loop is the pattern I see most often in clinic. Clients doing “everything right” on paper—diet changes, supplements, sleep, movement—yet their symptoms barely shift because the one system that governs all the others, the nervous system, is overloaded.
We talk about gut health, hormones, immune function, detoxification, and nutrient status. But without addressing the state of the nervous system, many people never get the results they should.
The anxiety–autoimmunity loop
I spent years operating as though I had an endless supply of resilience. Going from meeting to meeting, eating at my desk, powering through deadlines, pushing myself long after my body was pleading for rest. I didn’t recognise that the exhaustion I felt was more than tiredness; it was physiological overwhelm.
I was losing my hair. My skin was reactive. My digestion was unsettled. My blood sugar was out of balance because eating became secondary to “getting things done.” I was masking constantly, doing everything possible to appear capable and unaffected—despite knowing deep down that something was wrong.
But I kept going, because the fear of looking weak was stronger than the fear of burning out.
With hindsight, that was the perfect recipe for chronic inflammation. My nervous system was in a state of near-constant activation, which meant my immune system was too. And this created the kind of internal environment where healing simply cannot happen.
This is why I am so passionate about teaching this now—because I lived the consequences of ignoring it.
Chronic stress in rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis
A 2023 paper in International Immunopharmacology explored how chronic stress affects autoimmune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, and the findings echoed exactly what so many people feel in their bodies but can’t quite express.
The researchers showed that prolonged, unpredictable stress led to a clear aggravation of autoimmune activity: immune cells became dysregulated, inflammatory cytokines increased, oxidative stress rose, and the neuroimmune axis—the communication between the brain and immune system—lost its balance. What struck me most was that stress didn’t simply worsen symptoms; it intensified the underlying mechanisms driving the disease, leading to more persistent inflammation and faster progression of joint or skin changes.
This mirrors what I see every day in clinic. Clients often say, “I haven’t changed anything, but suddenly everything flared,” or, “I went through a stressful period and my symptoms started.” Their test results usually tell the same story—higher oxidative stress, disrupted cortisol, more immune activation. Stress has a very real, physiological impact that nutrition alone can’t always buffer.
What stands out in both research and real life is that it’s rarely one dramatic event that triggers a flare. More often it’s the quiet, accumulated pressures: the masking, the people-pleasing, the perfectionism, the pushing through exhaustion. These micro-stressors build up and keep the body in a heightened inflammatory state without us even realising it.
And understanding this is often the moment things start to shift—because once you recognise the role of chronic stress, you can finally begin to work with your nervous system rather than against it.
Why anxiety keeps the body inflamed
Anxiety isn’t just a psychological experience; it is a physiological shift that changes the way the immune system behaves. When your nervous system is in a prolonged fight-or-flight state, everything from digestion to detoxification to hormone balance becomes compromised. Your body stops prioritising repair and instead prepares for threat.
This is where I see so many clients get stuck. They’re eating the right foods, supporting their gut, taking high-quality supplements, but they’re still living in a constant state of internal vigilance. Their body never receives the signal that it is safe to heal, so inflammation never has the chance to come down.
It’s often only when we start working on their nervous system—helping them access rest-digest-repair mode more consistently—that the body finally responds to the interventions that weren’t landing before.
What actually helps
The biggest changes in my nervous system didn’t come from doing more—they came from shifting how I lived. Learning to slow down properly, to breathe before I reacted, to stop eating while working, and to let go of that deep, ingrained pressure to keep performing. Even when my life became calmer, I could still feel those old A-type patterns pulling me back into urgency and over-functioning. It was subtle, but familiar.
Recently I realised I needed something to help my body stay in that calmer state rather than slipping back into old wiring. That’s when I started using Nurosym, which you can learn about here, and it’s been a gentle but powerful support in keeping my nervous system anchored rather than reactive. If you do want to try it, my code VJ10 gives you 10% off at checkout.
What I see every day in clinic mirrors this: the clients who progress the most aren’t the ones with the longest supplement list, but the ones who make these small, meaningful shifts in how they move through their day. When the nervous system feels safe, everything else—gut healing, inflammation, hormones, energy—finally has space to respond.
Where to start if you feel stuck
If you recognise yourself in this loop—if your anxiety feels tied into your symptoms in a way that you can’t quite untangle—the best place to begin is with the smallest moments of safety. You don’t need a long routine or a perfect schedule. It’s the tiny shifts that change the direction of the whole system. A few breaths before you eat, slowing yourself down when you feel that old urgency rising, choosing to rest rather than push through. Even going to bed a little earlier can start to settle a cortisol rhythm that’s been overwhelmed for too long.
These are the quiet interventions that create the foundation for deeper healing. And they matter far more than people realise.
The part I wish everyone understood is that your body isn’t working against you. Your immune system isn’t broken. Your symptoms aren’t failures or weaknesses. They’re signals—honest, intelligent messages that your nervous system has been carrying too much for too long. When you start to create safety in the smallest ways, everything else becomes easier. Your body finally has the capacity to respond to the work you’ve already been doing.If this is something you want to explore further, I’ve put together a free mini-series on vagal tone and stress resilience inside The Autoimmune Forum. It’s a gentle place to start reconnecting with your nervous system and understanding how to support it in a way that feels doable.
References:
- Rishabh Chaudhary, Ajay Prasad, Vipul Agarwal, Mujeeba Rehman, Anand Kumar, Arjun Singh Kaushik, Siddhi Srivastava, Sukriti Srivastava, Vikas Mishra, Chronic stress predisposes to the aggravation of inflammation in autoimmune diseases with focus on rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis, International Immunopharmacology, Volume 125, Part A, 2023, 111046, ISSN 1567-5769, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intimp.2023.111046.
- Scott BG, Weems CF. Resting vagal tone and vagal response to stress: associations with anxiety, aggression, and perceived anxiety control among youths. Psychophysiology. 2014 Aug;51(8):718-27. doi: 10.1111/psyp.12218. Epub 2014 Apr 8. PMID: 24708059; PMCID: PMC4107166.
- Stojanovich L, Marisavljevich D. Stress as a trigger of autoimmune disease. Autoimmun Rev. 2008 Jan;7(3):209-13. doi: 10.1016/j.autrev.2007.11.007. Epub 2007 Nov 29. PMID: 18190880.
VJ Hamilton, BSc, RNT
VJ Hamilton is a Registered Nutritionist (BANT) and an expert in autoimmune disease. VJ combines her knowledge from her medical science degree in Biochemistry & Immunology with Nutritional Therapy to offer a thorough and personalised approach to support her clients based on the most current scientific research. VJ runs a virtual and in-person nutritional therapy and functional medicine practice, The Autoimmunity Nutritionist, specialising in gut skin and immune health.