For a long time, I wouldn’t have described myself as stressed. I was functioning, productive, capable. Life was busy, but it always had been. That level of pace felt familiar, even comfortable. It wasn’t until much later — through illness, recovery, and eventually data — that I realised my body had been living in a state of readiness for years. What I’d taken for normal wasn’t calm; it was adaptation.
Yet in clinic — and increasingly through wearable data — I see a different pattern emerge. A nervous system operating at a chronically elevated baseline, where stress has become so familiar it no longer registers as stress at all. It’s so familiar you assume it’s just how life feels.
This matters far more than most people realise. Healing — whether we’re talking about autoimmune regulation, hormonal recovery, gut repair, hair regrowth, or sustained energy — depends on a nervous system that can genuinely shift out of threat mode. Repair is not a high-alert state. It requires safety.
When baseline activation is already elevated, even relatively small inputs can tip the system further into dysregulation. And if stress has always been present, you may not even recognise that this is happening.
I didn’t, for a long time.
I grew up in a household that was rarely settled. My parents didn’t get on, and although nothing overtly catastrophic was happening, there was a persistent sense of tension, unpredictability, and emotional noise. The environment was busy, but more than that, it was unstable. I didn’t experience it as “stress” at the time — it was simply normal. It was only much later that I realised my nervous system had never really learned what safety or steadiness felt like. High alert wasn’t a response; it was the baseline.
Why Baseline Stress Matters
We tend to think about stress as something that happens to us: deadlines, illness, emotional shocks, travel, periods of intense pressure. And of course, those things matter. But the nervous system doesn’t only respond to events. It responds to what it has learned to expect.
Over time, the body develops a default setting — a level of activation it returns to when nothing in particular is going on. This is your baseline. For some people, that baseline genuinely feels settled. For others, it’s alert but flexible, able to rise when needed and soften again afterwards. But for many, baseline stress is already high. The nervous system is operating in a state of low-grade fight or flight, even in the absence of any obvious threat.
The difficulty is that this doesn’t feel like stress. It feels normal.
When a nervous system has been operating at a heightened level for long enough, it stops registering that state as activation. Instead, it becomes the background. In fact, the more stressed the system is, the more disconnected many people become from their internal signals. Sensation dulls before it becomes overwhelming. Awareness narrows to what needs to be managed. You don’t necessarily feel anxious or distressed — you feel functional.
This can show up in everyday ways: needing to stay busy to feel comfortable, struggling with silence or stillness, feeling oddly flat rather than emotional, or realising you’re exhausted only once you finally stop. It might look like pushing through on adrenaline, being productive but perpetually tired, or only recognising tension when it spills over into sleep disruption, gut symptoms, pain, hair shedding, or immune flares.
Physiologically, the cost accumulates quietly. When baseline stress is high, recovery takes longer. Inflammatory signals don’t resolve as efficiently. Hormones struggle to stabilise. Sleep may look acceptable on paper but fail to restore. The immune system remains vigilant long after the original threat has passed, reacting where it doesn’t need to.
This is where nervous system dysregulation often lives — not in obvious breakdown, but in chronic adaptation. Quiet, persistent, and easy to miss, especially when it’s all you’ve ever known.
Signs of a Dysregulated Nervous System
The signs are rarely dramatic, which is precisely why they’re missed. People often tell me they’re “fine,” yet their body tells a more nuanced story.
You may not feel stressed in your mind, but your body behaves as though it is — tight jaw, shallow breathing, digestive tension, difficulty winding down at night, appetite suppression under pressure. You may notice that recovery from exercise, travel, socialising, or a busy week takes longer than it used to. Energy becomes something you manage rather than something that renews itself.
Many people in this state remain highly productive, but perpetually tired. They can push through, yet energy feels brittle, easily fractured by minor demands. Tolerance drops — noise, interruptions, decisions, conversations that once felt manageable now feel oddly taxing. Even rest can feel effortful, as though stillness doesn’t quite reach the nervous system.
These are not personal failings. They are adaptive responses to a system that has learned to stay “on.”
And if health anxiety is contributing to elevated stress levels, I explore this in more depth in a separate article: 5 Steps to Managing Health Anxiety with an Autoimmune Condition.
When Stress Becomes Normalised
One of the most striking things about the nervous system is how well it adapts. If you’ve lived in a high-stress environment for years — or grown up in one — your physiology calibrates to that level of activation. It becomes your reference point.
I remember when I first saw a nutritionist and was asked whether I was stressed. I genuinely didn’t think I was. I was busy, yes, but coping, functioning, getting on with things. Looking back now, I can see how disconnected I was from what my body was actually doing. That level of activation had become so familiar that I couldn’t feel it anymore. I dread to think what my Oura data would have looked like back then.
This is why asking “Are you stressed?” often misses the mark. Physiology doesn’t negotiate with perception. Your nervous system still registers load, even if your mind has learned to minimise it. When baseline activation is high, stress isn’t experienced as distress — it’s experienced as normality.
And this is why baseline matters far more than peak stress. A short spike of pressure layered onto a calm system is very different from the same spike added to a nervous system that’s already operating on high alert.
Noticing the Signals From Your Body
One of the most helpful shifts for me — both personally and clinically — has been learning how to notice nervous system signals, rather than trying to override them. Data can support that process, but it isn’t the starting point.
There are many simple, natural ways to monitor nervous system load: how quickly you fall asleep and whether you stay asleep; whether you wake feeling restored or already tired; how your appetite, digestion, or breathing change under pressure; how you feel after social or cognitively demanding situations; and how long it takes your body to settle once the day is over. These cues are often there long before we label ourselves as “stressed”.
For those who like objective feedback, I’ve also found wearable data useful. Personally, I use Oura — not to chase scores or optimise endlessly, but to observe patterns with a little more objectivity. Oura doesn’t measure stress directly, but it reflects nervous system tone through markers such as heart rate variability, resting heart rate, sleep depth, recovery trends, and overall resilience.
Over time, patterns become difficult to ignore. What became clear to me was that certain situations reliably pushed my stress markers up — even when I felt mentally fine.
Networking was a perfect example.
Networking and Hidden Stress
On the surface, networking didn’t feel stressful. I enjoy conversation, I’m comfortable speaking to people, and I’ve done it for years.Yet my Oura data consistently told a different story, showing stress rising in the moment — even when I felt mentally fine.
Once I could see that pattern, the goal wasn’t avoidance. It was preparation and regulation. I stopped asking, “How do I cope with this?” and started asking a more useful question: What helps my nervous system feel safe in this situation?
That subtle shift changed everything.
Regulation Is Built Through Consistency
This is where nervous system support has to move out of theory and into daily life. Short, repeatable practices matter far more than occasional big interventions. Simple things like steady breathing, regular light exposure, predictable routines, and clear start-and-end points to the day all help — but it’s the consistency, not the intensity, that actually changes baseline.
For me, daily, consistent use of Nurosym became part of that regulation toolkit. Not as a quick fix before stressful moments, and not as something to reach for only when overwhelmed, but as a way of gradually lowering baseline over time. You can learn more about the Nurosym here, and use my code VJ10 for 10% off at checkout.
Stress still showed up — I could feel it in the moment — but I was able to respond to it differently. A few slow, deliberate breaths, bringing my attention back to where I was, feeling my feet on the ground, were often enough to stop it escalating. That’s what increased vagal tone does: it doesn’t remove stress, but it gives your body a quicker route back to the parasympathetic state, so you’re not carried away by it.
And that’s where meaningful change actually happens.
If stress feels normal, it’s easy to assume it’s harmless. But a nervous system that’s always on quietly influences everything — how well you sleep, how steady your energy feels, how your digestion behaves, how reactive your immune system becomes, and how quickly you bounce back from illness, pressure, or change.
For many people, the turning point isn’t doing more or trying harder. It’s realising that their body has been holding itself together for years — braced, alert, coping — and that this state has a cost. Healing begins when the nervous system is given repeated proof that it’s safe to stand down.
That doesn’t mean avoiding life or eliminating stress. It means learning how to notice when your system is tipping into overload, and having simple, reliable ways to bring it back — whether that’s through breath, grounding, rhythm, data, or targeted support used consistently rather than occasionally.
For many, this is the missing piece. Not another protocol, but the moment the body stops fighting and finally has the conditions it needs to repair.
If you’re reading this and recognising yourself, you don’t need to overhaul your life or add another complex protocol. Small, consistent shifts make the biggest difference — especially when they’re done in the right order.
I’ve outlined those early steps inside The Autoimmunity Recovery Plan, which includes practical guidance on supporting your nervous system alongside immune, gut, and hormonal health. It’s designed to help you move out of constant coping mode and into a state where your body actually has the capacity to repair.
You can download it here and start gently — without pressure, perfection, or doing more than your system can handle.
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.