Histamine, Anxiety, and Nervous System Dysregulation
A common pattern I see here in the clinic that tends to baffle and truly frustrate my clients is when anxiety symptoms and histamine symptoms show up together. What could mild to moderate allergic responses from the wisdom of the body have to do with anxiety? And more importantly, how are they feeding one another?
First, we have to understand something about histamine in the body from two perspectives. The first is histamine in peripheral where mast cells and basophils create allergic and immune system responses to perceived threats. These responses cause the common allergy symptoms we all know: itching, flushing, hives, gastro-intestinal upset, vascular issues, headaches, nasal and sinus issues, food reactivity, and heart rhythm disharmonies. These are all about as standard s it gets when we think about allergic responses… but wait, there’s more! The second perspective is the one that gets overlooked the most- histamine as a central nervous system neurotransmitter. You read that right; histamine is a communication medium like all other neurotransmitters in the body. Here, histamine works on the wakefulness and arousal promoting system in the body helping to keep us awake when it’s time to be awake and engaged when we need to be engaged. This is one reason why some forms of anti-histamine pharmaceuticals cause drowsiness: they suppress the body’s arousal response.
Since histamine is an arousing and excitatory neurotransmitter, its presence interacts with the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) which stimulates corticotropic releasing hormone (CRH) leading to the experience of anxiety symptoms. Ultimately, our bodies release the stress hormone cortisol just like it would if our sympathetic nervous system activated in a fight-or-flight response to perceived danger. This leads to difficulty in settling down, disrupted sleep, anxious thoughts and feelings, and all the issues that come from chronically elevated stress.
When anxiety symptoms and histamine responses show up at the same time, there’s often an underlying pattern that we seek to explore as part of a clinical herbalism consultation. These patterns are usually based on hormonal cycles, seasonal cycles, high histamine or histamine liberating foods, and specific allergies in the individual. Once we have some idea about the pattern, we can take the important steps leading to a breaking of this cycle. Many of the folks I see who experience anxiety and histamine response are extra frustrated because they’ve tried many of the relaxing and sedating herbal formulas with no success. This is simply because those are not the right herbs for that individual and don’t address the root issue. It’s easy to separate anxiety from allergies into clean categories, but generally they’re intertwined and need to be addressed with nuance and direction.
An interesting flipside to this pattern is that folks who experience mid to high levels of chronic stress and anxiety then become more susceptible to overactive histamine responses. The nervous system is on high alert and becomes hypersensitive to even small challenges and triggers. Thigs that never used to both the person like pollen, certain foods, skin products, or fragrances become overwhelming to a depleted and inflexible nervous system causing a full histamine response. Here we see a feedback loop where chronic stress and nervous system dysregulation lead to elevated histamine responses which in turn raises stress hormone levels causing more stress and anxiety.
A common pattern I see in the clinic is that folks navigating chronic stress and anxiety no longer have the resources for good gut health. This leads to a buildup of histamines in the gut that should be degraded by specific enzyme complexes- but a depleted and deficient body will defer energy to the stress response and away from gut health in no time.
The Solution to Chronic Stress & Histamine Sensitivity
From an herbal medicine approach based in the ancient languages of whole-person wellness, our goal is less about addressing either end of the axis of anxiety and histamine response and more about breaking the feedback loop between them. I generally find that breaking the pattern first, then attending to strengthening and resourcing the nervous system and whole being, then supporting any remaining patterns that linger is the best protocol. I work with gentle, nourishing, and affirming herbs chosen and compounded for each individual client that are also safe for any medications they may be taking or other health concerns they may have. Traditional herbal medicine is radically personalized and the herbs I would choose for one person dealing with allergies and anxiety might be completely different to the next person with a similar pattern.
If you’re curious about the connection between chronic stress, gut health, histamine activation, and anxiety, I would love to chat with you. Use the button below to grab a spot on my schedule and we can meet here in our herbal apothecary in Salt Lake City, Utah or virtually.
