When we think about anxiety, we usually think about the brain: racing thoughts, excessive worry, fear, or feeling unable to “shut our mind off.” But anxiety doesn’t happen only in the brain. Our mental health is connected to the rest of our body, including our nervous system, hormones, immune system, digestive system, sleep, and stress response. One area researchers are paying increasing attention to is the relationship between inflammation and anxiety.

And interestingly, that relationship appears to go both ways. I don’t know about you, but when I’m extra anxious, my digestive system gets out of whack, I experience stomach aches, I often get more headaches.

What Is Inflammation?

Inflammation is part of the body's natural defense system. When you get sick, become injured, or encounter something your immune system considers a threat, the body releases inflammatory chemicals to help protect and repair itself.

In the short term, inflammation is necessary and helpful. The problem can occur when the body's inflammatory response remains activated for long periods of time. This is sometimes referred to as chronic or low-grade inflammation. Here is the wild part…researchers have found associations between certain anxiety disorders and higher levels of inflammatory markers, including C-reactive protein (CRP) and inflammatory chemicals called cytokines, such as IL-6 and TNF-alpha. That does not mean inflammation causes every case of anxiety. It does suggest that, for some people, the immune system may be one piece of a much bigger mental-health puzzle.

How Can Inflammation Affect the Brain?

Inflammation isn’t limited to sore joints, swelling, or physical illness. Inflammatory signals produced by the immune system can communicate with the brain and influence systems involved in mood, stress, sleep, motivation, and emotional regulation. One way this can happen is through cytokines. Cytokines are chemical messengers used by the immune system. When inflammatory signaling remains elevated, it may influence brain functioning and the body’s stress-response system.

This can potentially contribute to symptoms such as:

Feeling on edge or unusually tense
Difficulty relaxing
Sleep disturbances
Fatigue
Difficulty concentrating
Irritability
Increased sensitivity to stress
Feeling physically “wired” or restless

Of course, these symptoms can have many causes. Inflammation is not a diagnosis for anxiety, nor should someone assume inflammation is responsible simply because anxiety is present.

Anxiety Can Also Increase Inflammation

The relationship may work in the opposite direction, too. When we experience chronic anxiety or stress, the brain repeatedly activates the body’s stress-response system, including the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Your body releases stress hormones, including cortisol, to prepare you to respond to danger. When stress becomes chronic, it can affect sleep, digestion, hormones, immune activity, blood sugar regulation, and inflammatory processes. In other words: Inflammation may influence anxiety, and chronic anxiety and stress may influence inflammation. This can sometimes create a cycle in which the body and brain continually send each other signals that something isn’t quite right.

Your Gut May Be Part of the Conversation Too

Another fascinating area of research involves the gut-brain axis. Your digestive system and brain constantly communicate through the nervous system, immune system, hormones, the gut microbiome, and substances produced by intestinal bacteria. Research continues to explore how disruptions in this communication may be related to anxiety and depression. Inflammatory signaling appears to be one possible pathway involved. That’s one reason mental health is increasingly viewed as a whole-body issue rather than simply a brain issue.

What Can You Do?

If you’ve been struggling with anxiety, the answer isn’t to begin trying to eliminate every possible source of inflammation from your life. It is to start looking at your health more comprehensively. Mental-health treatment might include counseling, learning strategies for regulating the nervous system, improving sleep, increasing physical activity, strengthening social connections, addressing chronic stress, and working with a medical provider when physical symptoms or health concerns are present.

Therapy can also help identify the thoughts, experiences, relationships, fears, or past trauma that may be keeping the body’s stress response activated. At Two Roads Wellness Clinic, we believe good mental-health care means looking beyond symptoms and getting curious about the whole person behind them. Call us today and begin your journey down a road to feel whole and good again!

Disclaimer:

This article is intended for educational purposes and is not a substitute for medical diagnosis or treatment. If you have concerns about inflammation or other physical symptoms, talk with your healthcare provider.

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About Two Roads Wellness Clinic®

Two Roads Wellness Clinic® is an integrative wellness clinic. We truly believe in whole-person wellness and see more than just a list of symptoms.

At Two Roads Wellness Clinic®, we want you to experience the difference of personalized health care. We’re an integrative health clinic offering a vast array of services including, mental health treatments such as EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), family therapy, medication management, primary care, integrative nutritional support, personalized health reports and precision medicine with DNA testing, weight management program, life coaching, physical therapy, infrared sauna services, community education and outreach, and more.

The Two Roads Wellness Clinic® team of therapists, medical and nutrition staff, life coaches, physical therapists, and emotional support animals are ready to help you find an integrated approach to your wellness. To schedule an appointment, visit our contact page to get started at one of our convenient locations in Champaign, Danville, Mahomet or Covington, or learn more about Online Therapy and Medical Sessions.

Like the Robert Frost poem our name is based on, we want to help you find the path that makes a difference in YOUR life.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by.
And that has made all the difference.”
Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”

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