Hello again Mast Cell 360 community.
Kam and the MC360 team here. Last time, we talked things that help set your nervous system baseline and the role of genetics, before you were born, everything you’ve lived through since, and what you may or may not know about how to support your nervous system in healthy ways along the way. It’s not something most of us are taught.
Today, we’re going to talk about what effect nervous system regulation or dysregulation has on your mast cells, and vice versa. Because the conversation between your nervous system and mast cells is constant. And it has a big impact.
Here’s one example of what that connection looks like in real life. Researchers asked healthy volunteers to do something most people dread, public speaking, as part of a controlled stress experiment. Within a short window, their gut lining measurably changed, becoming more permeable than it was before the stress. When a separate group was given cromolyn sodium, a drug that specifically stabilizes mast cells in the gut, it prevented that increase in gut permeability entirely.
No allergen. No new food. Just stress, and a real, measurable physical change driven by mast cells. Isn’t that wild?
The effect was strongest in participants who had a measurable cortisol response to the stress. The nervous system, the stress hormones, and the mast cells are all part of the same conversation.
Your brain registers stress and sends a signal down your nervous system, your nervous system relays it straight to your mast cells, triggering them to release chemicals into your body. And that changes how your body works.
Clearly, your nervous system isn’t a bystander when it comes to your mast cells and your health.
In this post, you’ll learn:
How mast cells and nerves talk to each other
A few everyday examples of this conversation in action
Why this pattern can build on itself, and why calming one side calms the other
A few of our favorite tools that start shifting that conversation toward calm
Let’s get into it.
This post is for informational purposes only. To read our full disclaimer, please scroll to the bottom of this post.
Before we get specific to mast cells, it’s worth stepping back for a second. Stress doesn’t just affect how you feel emotionally, it touches nearly every system in your body:
Your heart
Your immune system
Your blood sugar
Your digestion
Your brain
Even how fast a cut heals
**Doctors and researchers have studied stress and health for decades. Mast cells are just one piece of the picture. A very important one when you are living with MCAS. **
You’ll remember from part 1 that stress is anything that creates a demand on your body’s resources.
It can be exciting (a wedding, a new job) or difficult (an injury, a stressful commute). It can be mental, physical, or both. And stress can be either acute (a sudden challenge) or chronic (an ongoing demand).
Chronic illness is itself an ongoing stressor, and it can raise your sympathetic nervous system activity all on its own. Here’s how that happens...
