#138 Can Trauma Cause Chronic Inflammation? The Body Connection#138 Can Trauma Cause Chronic Inflammation? The Body Connection
The Trauma Recovery School
Bonita Ackerman du Preez explains how trauma can alter stress, nervous and immune systems in ways that fuel chronic inflammation. The conversation also touches on how unresolved trauma affects families and long-term health.
3:29•2 Nov 2026
Trauma, Inflammaging and the Body: Why Your Nervous System Might Be Keeping You Unwell
Episode Overview
- Trauma can drive chronic low-grade inflammation by affecting the stress response, nervous system and immune system together.
- Flattened cortisol levels in trauma survivors reduce the body’s ability to keep inflammation under control.
- Reduced anti-inflammatory signalling via the vagus nerve and hair-trigger immune cells create an overreactive inflammatory state.
- Long-term inflammation is linked with conditions such as fibromyalgia, autoimmune issues, cardiovascular problems, chronic pain and potentially cancers.
- Unresolved trauma and PTSD influence family members through reactive behaviour, making trauma recovery important for future generations.
“Trauma does more than affect the mind. It produces measurable ongoing inflammation in the body.”
What drives someone to seek answers when their body feels inflamed, exhausted, and yet all their tests come back normal? This instalment of The Trauma Recovery School tackles that frustrating gap between how you feel and what the medical results say. Bonita Ackerman du Preez, award-winning master trauma recovery therapist and founder of The Trauma Recovery School, breaks down the science behind a powerful idea: "Trauma does more than affect the mind.
It produces measurable ongoing inflammation in the body." She explains how trauma can quietly disrupt three major systems – the stress response, the nervous system, and the immune system – creating chronic low-grade inflammation that researchers are now calling "inflammaging".
You’ll hear how flattened cortisol levels mean your stress response can no longer keep inflammation in check, how the vagus nerve’s anti-inflammation signals get turned down to a low setting, and how immune cells become "hair triggers" that overreact to small issues. Put together, Bonita describes a body "quietly producing inflammation every single day, each week, each month, and each year", which may be linked with conditions like fibromyalgia, autoimmune disease, chronic pain, and cardiovascular problems.
She also raises a tough but important point about family impact: unresolved trauma and PTSD don’t stay neatly contained within one person. Patterns of reactivity ripple through relationships and across generations, which is why clearing trauma matters not just for you, but for those around you.
The style is straight-talking yet compassionate, mixing science with relatable examples and a clear message: if chronic inflammation keeps getting in the way of your life, it might be time to look at what your nervous system and past experiences are still carrying. It’s an episode for anyone wondering whether their emotional scars could be contributing to physical pain. Could understanding this body–trauma link be the missing piece in your long-term health puzzle?
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