Is your body stuck in a state of high alert?
Sensitisation
Our bodies have evolved to be good at noticing things that might be harmful to our health and bodily safety.
This sensitivity helped our ancestors stay safe in a world full of threats.
Our threshold to react to something as a threat can go up and down. When we’re stressed, our body’s alarm system can become more sensitive, making it react to things that normally wouldn’t be a problem.
Over-time, the body can shift its baseline so being hyper-reactive to threats becomes our new autopilot. This process is called “sensitisation.” It can happen in different body systems.
For example, our senses can become hyper-sensitive. This can cause problems like ringing in our ears, being bothered by bright lights, or feeling pain more intensely.
Our immune system, which reacts to harmful chemicals and diseases, is one system that can become sensitised. It can learn to respond to everyday things as a threat. This gives us symptoms like we are allergic to many different things or like we are always getting sick.
Explore Interactions
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Co-regulation.
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Inflammation and Autoimmunity.
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Exercise and Inflammation.
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Sensory sensitisation .
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The microbiome.
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The neuroimmune system.
Build tolerance to reverse sensitization
Why?
The good news is, sensitisation is not a one-way process. There are things you can do to help the body learn to tolerate triggers and shift out of the state of high alert.
Help Your Body Relax
When you are stressed, the body is automatically more sensitive to things that bother it. To build tolerance, you need to learn how to shift into physiological rest. This means slow, deep breathing and a quiet mind. Through relaxation we allow our body to switch off the state of high alert.
Let Your Body Know It’s Okay
Your body needs to know when illness or danger is over. Doing things like gentle movement, spending time outside, eating nutritious food, and hanging out with friends helps your body understand that the worst is over.
Introduce Triggers Gradually
You cannot build tolerance by avoiding triggers. Avoidance of triggers prevents the sensitised system from updating its reactions. Exposure is one of the most effective methods of working with symptoms of sensitisation. You can start by exposing your body to a tiny bit of the thing that bothers you, and then little by little, increase the ‘dose’, giving your body time to adapt.
Support
If you have symptoms coming from the immune system that are new or worrying, it is important to discuss these with your GP. Your doctor should assess and examine you and may recommend further investigations. This is so that an infection or autoimmune disease is not missed. These types of illnesses cause many similar symptoms as people with a sensitised system experience.
It may be tempting to think that we can just take medications to switch off sensitised responses. Anti-inflammatory medications, for example anti-histamines or NSAIDs, help some people to manage flare ups of a sensitised immune system. However this strategy is often less helpful than it seems. For example opiate painkillers help us to avoid pain in the short term, but in the longer term can increase sensitisation.
If you have sticky symptoms that fit with a pattern of sensitisation, it’s a good idea to work with a healthcare professional to come up with a personalized plan to build tolerance. The best plan depends on your body and what’s causing your sensitivity. For example, if exercise triggers symptoms, a physical therapist can help come up with a personalized program of exercise that is safe for you. If certain foods or chemicals bother you, you might need to see a dietitian or an allergy specialist. If fear is getting in the way, a psychologist can support you to work through anxious feelings during exposures. If you have very severe symptoms, you might benefit from a team of different healthcare experts to help you tackle the problem from multiple directions.
