The Survival Guide for Highly Sensitive People
Reduce mental stress, manage negative emotions, stop overstimulation, and build resilience with your inner strengths
Image generated by Tongyi Qianwen
In my previous post, “Why Do Highly Sensitive People Suffer”, I explored the biological, psychological, and social reasons why highly sensitive people (HSP, used loosely as both singular and plural) endure shame and fear triggered by environmental stimuli. According to scientific studies, this is related to sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), “a genetically based trait associated with greater sensitivity and responsivity to environmental and social stimuli”. HSP tend to unintentionally collect excessive information from the environment, they also pursue perfectionism, exhibit high-level empathy, and have a low tolerance for sensory-related stimuli such as sound, light, and smell.
Is it fragility, or a self-protection mechanism?
Wikipedia says “Sensory processing sensitivity is a temperamental or personality trait involving ‘an increased sensitivity of the central nervous system and a deeper cognitive processing of physical, social, and emotional stimuli’”.
Well, if it’s “greater responsivity to environmental and social stimuli”, your brain must be working its ass off to process all the possible risks you will encounter and all the impact the world has on you, in real-time. Think about it: you noticed the tension in the air at work that no one else seemed to care, perhaps it’s your brain sensing something out of the normal and trying to remind you to stay alert, so you won’t end up embarrassing yourself or taking the blame for others; your friend seemed as if she wanted to say something but never opened her mouth, that might be your brain analyzing her facial expression, comparing it with her usual behaviors, and telling you the possibility that you two might need to sit down and have a heart-to-heart conversation; you can’t stand the slightest bad odor, that’s handy in the wild, and you leave the world no chance to ever smell it from you.
Is it a talent?
Your seemingly “over” processing of the physical, social, and emotional stimuli, actually produces a richer and more detail-oriented output, which contains information that non-sensitive people can’t fathom. Your brain is a CPU with higher specs. Of course, it consumes more, and it can be exhausting, but it produces a generous amount of results, and these results are not useless! Quite the contrary, they might be the source of talent.
Have you ever noticed how easy it is to immerse yourself in a novel, imagining the protagonist's surroundings and feeling deep sorrow for his/her struggles or indescribable euphoria for his/her triumphs? And when you go hiking, do you find yourself less likely to get a twisted ankle or be bitten by suspicious insects? And of course, you always remember to turn off the fire and close the door when you leave the house, right?
You also tend to notice a factor neglected by the presenter in a group meeting, or get to the conclusion faster than others even though you always keep quiet. You seem to have a natural ability to make fewer mistakes at work.
Your high sensitivity rewards you with high survival rates, helps you feel the world more exquisitely and vividly, and even makes you think and work faster (if you won’t let yourself be interrupted by other thoughts). That is a talent.
How to keep the talent but stop the suffering?
Talent and suffering are the two sides of the same coin for HSP. One can’t accept one without the other. However, there are certain ways to focus on the bright side while living with the negative side to reduce the pain.
Information Filtering
One of the key sources of HSP’s sufferings is the overwhelming amount of information they process. Information is omnipresent in our world and we have no choice but to live with it and adapt to it.
Most of the information we receive every day doesn’t contain crucial values, so setting up a filtering mechanism will create an environment with fewer distractions and stress. Here are some easy tips:
Set restrictions to your daily use of gadgets and apps
Set your phone to automatically switch to “Do Not Disturb” mode during certain periods of the day; turn off new message notifications; and set detailed and clear auto-replies to direct people to leave you in peace. It’s difficult and scary at first, but people will eventually learn to respect your boundaries. Eventually, this benefits you in the long run.
Get clear meanings out of words
If you are not sure what people REALLY mean and it bothers you, ask them politely to clarify or explain themselves; if no future context is provided, you can come to terms with that and move on. Do not dwell on it.
Build your judgment system
Instead of paying attention to all the details, you can trust your own instincts, knowledge, experience, and principles, to decide what is worth your attention and time and what is not, so you can prioritize and allocate your energy accordingly.
Use physical separation
Eye masks, earplugs, noise-cancellation earphones, white noise…whatever works best for you, use it.
Perfectionism
The world is not perfect, nor are we.
Living in an imperfect world means living with the imperfection of yourself. You are designed by this world to make mistakes, learn from them, and move on as a better (not perfect) person. Pursuing perfectionism means you want to go higher, but the obsession over perfection will hinder you from going longer.
Instead of fidgeting over possible flaws and failures, you can also choose these alternatives for a change:
Set realistic standards
Unrealistic standards do nothing to help you grow, they only feed your ego. Make your standards attainable, which you can always set higher afterward if there is room.
Stop procrastinating. Do it
Dreams won’t come true until you push them hard, just as fears won’t become reality if you stop them with actions. Instead of letting your imagination take over and get the best of you, you can tip your toe into the water to feel the temperature and get yourself ready. And once you get started, you will sort out solutions for the obstacles along the way.
Be fact-based
HSP tend to use overly critical self-evaluation (and the evaluation of the world) to fuel an “over-achiever”-like spirit, yet overlooking that there are other factors besides catering to critical judgments. Facts such as changing conditions of the same task and environmental impacts can alter the outcome of your effort. Chances and odds play important roles as well. Or, you were just doing it in an alternative way. So, include more facts before you judge yourself.
Enjoy the process
Results shouldn’t be your only gain. Your entire journey, including efforts and feelings during the execution, your hesitation and doubts, the troubleshooting and problem-solving skills you used, and your recollection and dwellings afterward, are all the treasures you can gain from a seemingly imperfect experience. These factors that seem unrelatable to success will eventually be connected like pearls in a necklace to contribute to your future success.
Benefit from failures, don’t fear them
Success is a man-made terminology, it’s temporary, undefinable, and elusive. Failures, however, are recurrent, constant, and worth our close studies. From the failures, you can get valuable insights into both the world and your thinking, identify patterns, pinpoint the flaws in your plans, and make improvements. You will eventually find courage from your failures for the coming challenges.
Empathy
As discussed in my previous post, HSP developed empathy into altruism, as a symbol of high moral standards. High morals are worth respect, but higher-than-usual morals are worth caution. Before suppressing your true feelings and needs to cater to others’, think, realistically, (about the example in the last post of possibly upsetting someone at work if not doing what he asked), if the following are true:
Everybody gets upset or disappointed.
He might get upset even if I did everything he wanted or nothing at all.
I’m not the real reason why he is upset. I shouldn’t hold it accountable.
There should be boundaries for everyone, and I should draw the line too.
Of course, you are well aware of these facts. You just have to conjure up enough courage to take actions, and it’s not too difficult:
Draw the line
“This is where I start feeling uncomfortable, and this is where I absolutely can’t stand it”. Feel yourself, be honest, and draw the line to yourself first.
Say no, practice it
Do it by looking at yourself in the mirror. Say it out loud, politely, but clearly and firmly, and say it feeling offended too.
Don’t overthink
You have the same rights to reject others as they have to reject you. Rejection is completely fine and it happens every day. Get over it, because the person you reject will have to do so to others as well.
Build healthy relationships, fix unhealthy ones, and give up on hopeless ones
I know this sounds cliche, but it should be the 1st principle of a comfortable social life. If a relationship is already imbalanced, be honest to yourself and the other person, and start drawing lines. Toxic relationships that can’t be fixed should be thrown into your mental garbage can. You don’t need them and moving on from them only helps you progress further.
You will still be a highly sensitive person, and keep all the merits and talents your highly developed brain awards you. Even though none of the negative facts about your high sensitivity will be diminished or eliminated, you will outsmart and overpower them, and focus on life with less interruption. I am working on it. You can too.