Have you always been "a lot"? You might be a highly sensitive person

0:00Have you ever been told that you're too sensitive, that you need to toughen up, that you're overreacting, or that you feel things too much, or my personal favorite, that it's not a big deal? If any of those landed, if you felt even a small flicker of recognition in what I just said, then today's episode is for you. Because those phrases might feel like criticism in the moment, and maybe some of them were, but what nobody told you is that what they were actually describing has a name. And today we're going to talk about the 50 million Americans who share it. Have you heard of the term, highly sensitive person, or HSP? Well, this was coined by psychologist Dr. Elaine Aaron in the 1990s, after she discovered she herself had this trait. She was setting it academically and then had this aha moment. And the scientific term is sensory processing sensitivity. I know it sounds like a mouthful.

1:00It's not a diagnosis, it's not a disorder, it's not a pathology, it's a normal variation, a personality trait, and speaks a lot to how our nervous systems function. Dr. Aaron describes the HSP experience through an acronym, DOES, and I think it's a really useful framework. D stands for depth of processing. HSP's think things through more thoroughly, make more connections, take longer to make decisions, because they're processing on more level simultaneously than most people. Oh, stands for over simulation, because the depth of processing means that HSP reaches the point of overwhelm faster than most other people. E stands for emotional reactivity and empathy. That's a higher intensity across both positive and negative emotions, and a genuine ability to feel what others are feeling in a very visceral way. And finally, S is sensitivity to subtleties, noticing a faint smell, the slight shift in

2:02tone, the almost imperceptible change in someone's expression that others may filter out entirely. And who and how many people in effects will probably surprise you? We're talking 15 to 30% of the general population depending on the study. So that's between 50 to 100 million Americans. So the interesting thing is, even though it affects so many people, it's still not very well understood by the majority of people. And that's why so many people who have this HSP trait spend years thinking something is wrong with them when actually something is just different about them. So a few facts, HSP is equally distributed between men and women, and about 70% of HSP's are introverted, but 30% would define themselves as an extrovert. And HSP, as I just mentioned, is not the same thing as introversion. Introversion is all about how you recharge. You like to recharge when you're by yourself. Extroverts tend to feel charged up when they're with other people, but interestingly for

3:06people who are HSP and extroverts, they're drawn to that, they're drawn to these social environments, but they also burn out faster, so it's a little bit of a dual process for them. HSP is really fundamentally about how your nervous system processes everything that comes in. So again, for someone who is an extroverted HSP, they really do love getting together with their friends and family, but they just need a little bit more time to recover possibly, or they could just be having a great time and all of a sudden have a feeling like they just want to go away. So these are completely true experiences that may even confuse the HSP who is also an extrovert. So what I see in my clinical practice is that HSP's almost never come in identifying as highly sensitive. They come in describing anxiety that they can't manage very well, or sense that they pick up on things that nobody else seems to notice, or perhaps they're talking about feeling exhaustion from other people's moods and they can't really get a handle on it. So when this framework finally lands for them and when I explain HSP to them, and when

4:11they understand that this is a trait and not some kind of flaw, something shifts in the room. I remember recently when I explained HSP to one of my clients, they really felt like they had a huge moment of recognition. And I remember that this particular client told me that they had spent 40 years thinking that they were broken. And it's just that she didn't have the right term to describe how she really behaves in social environments, how she feels internally. It was so nice for her to be able to look up HSP to understand that, oh, there are some strengths associated with this particular personality trait. I think that was really rewarding for her to finally have an answer. So I want to clear up some confusion. Sometimes people think that people who have HSP, they're just really anxious, so that maybe that's synonymous with one another. It's not the same, but there is some research that shows HSP's are a little bit more susceptible to anxiety when they're in unsupportive environment. So the trait itself, as I mentioned, has strengths and areas that could be improved upon, but

5:14the context really shapes whether it becomes a liability or a strength. Sometimes people will also confound HSP with autism spectrum disorders, ADHD or some kind of processing disorder. And while there can be overlap in some features, they're really distinct ideas and constructs. I think one thing that really has put this in perspective for many people I talked to about HSP is that biologists have found sensory processing sensitivity in over a hundred animal species. So that would include birds, fish, primates, dogs, horses, you name it. And the fact that a subset of almost every species is more sensitive to the environment is clearly not an accident. There's something adaptive about being highly sensitive. The careful observers, the ones who notice the threats before other people do, the ones that tend to scan the room more proactively, and the ones who process and observe more deeply before acting, those are adaptive features.

6:19Evolution does not keep things around for a hundred million years across a hundred or more species because there's some kind of weakness. So why does HSP develop in some people? Well, there's been some imaging studies that show measurable differences like greater activation in regions associated with empathy, awareness and action planning compared to people who are not identifying as HSP's. And this actually shows up these types of findings show up even when HSP's are just viewing the faces of complete strangers. So this is not people saying I feel like I process more. This is actually showing up on FMRI and other imaging scans. There's a part of our brains called the Ventral Medial Prefrontal Cortex. It's highly involved in emotional processing, deciding and acting on values and integrating the senses. Well, these areas show heightened activities in HSP's. This is part of why HSP's often described knowing something is wrong before they can articulate

7:22why. The brain is integrating multi modes of data, emotional, social, other sensory data much more intensively than most average people. Dopamine-related genes also contribute, which also gives the trait a biological basis. Though environment does matter enormously. So people who I know who are HSP's who grew up invalidating, calmed, attuned environments, they develop very differently from ones who might have grown up in a more chaotic or critical one. A recent study showed that people who had aesthetic sensitivity, which is a core feature of HSP, actually correlated with better mental health outcomes and greater life satisfaction. So that's the depth of response to music, art, nature, beauty. These are things that when these individuals really tap into their feelings and their experiences when coming into contact with the arts. This actually showing to be a protective factor for their psychological health.

8:27So when I explain some of these strengths to my HSP clients, they usually get excited and they start to think that something that maybe made them feel different or even deficient is actually something that they can tap into to be more productive, to be more connected to other people and to feel better about themselves. So I know we've talked a lot about HSP traits, how they develop and how they relate to evolutionary and biological psychology, but let's talk a little bit more about some things that HSP's are especially good at. HSP's are often really creative, really attentive to detail, and highly perceptive about social dynamics. In other words, they just notice things a lot of people miss. They also tend towards traits of conscientiousness and enjoy depth in their work. They're often drawn to helping professions, creative fields, and leadership roles that highly

9:29value emotional attunement, and they tend to be very good at those things. HSP's because they experience more activity in empathy and social awareness, they can connect with people a lot easier than some people would describe, especially when they're just trying to get to know somebody, and also in environments that are more suited to the way they like to make decisions. So they don't love to be rushed in terms of time, but if they have time to gather information and have a little bit of leeway, they tend to make really sound and solid decisions. So this is what's really cool about the HSP brain, the really good at picking up subtleties. This is so beneficial in both relational and professional contexts. This is a real functional advantage. The main problem is that most HSP's have been told for so long that their sensitivity is more of a liability that sometimes they stop trusting their intuition. They start to second guess what they notice or apologize for what they feel, and in doing

10:33so they lose access to one of the most useful skills that they have. So when I talk to people who have HSP and when they start to really understand what this is all about, they start to understand that this kind of mismatch between the trait and the environment is what causes them to sometimes feel less than, but that if they can try to alter the environment, to get other people to understand what HSP's are, to try to cultivate relationships and environments where they can thrive more, then they really hit the jackpot in terms of how they respond and further develop this really cool trait. So I want to move to the practical tools of the day. Like I said already throughout this podcast episode, the goal is not to stop your HSP trait or to be less sensitive. The goal is to stop spending all of your energy fighting a trait that could be good and

11:34start designing a life that works well with it. The first tool is to recognize your over stimulation threshold and respect it before you cross it. As I mentioned, HSP's have a lower threshold for over stimulation, not lower tolerance, but a genuinely earlier point at which the nervous system reaches their capacity. Ignoring it really does have costs like anxiety, irritability, physical symptoms, emotional flooding, burnout, and emotional shutdown. So the practice is to start noticing what consistently proceeds overwhelmed for you. Is it certain environments like places that are too many people, too crowded or unpredictable? Is it certain types of interactions like very high conflict, rapid fire, or maybe certain times of day? The goal is to identify your personal over stimulation pattern before it becomes a crisis and build a recovery plan around it rather than pushing through and paying for it afterwards. So practically, deliberately scheduling lower stimulation time after high stimulation demands

12:39because we can't always avoid all high stimulation in our lives. So this is something that you need to build into your schedule. Perhaps if you know that you're going to have a meeting where it's going to be very high stimulation, you have to build in a half hour where you're just working at your desk or taking a breather. And you're not being difficult when you need to leave the party a little earlier, when you're asking for a quieter space, when you're saying you need a little bit more time to process before a response, you're meeting a genuine biological need. The second tool is to reframe the sensitivity and stop apologizing for this trait. Most HSPs have spent years apologizing for what they noticed, feel, and perceive because they were told repeatedly that it was too much. So this tool is a deliberate reframe. The sensitivity that people comment on and how you feel is data. It's not a weakness. So when you walk into a room and you immediately sense attention, that's your nervous system

13:39doing something other people's don't quite into it as quickly. When you notice a shift in someone's tone before they've said anything differently in words, that's also information. When our moves you to tears or music stops you cold, that is depth of processing and not fragility. So here's a clinical exercise to try. For one week, every time you notice something subtle that turns out to be accurate, like a mood shift, a relational dynamic, or detail nobody else caught, write it down. Just track this information and treat it as data. Most HSPs when they start doing this are genuinely surprised by how often their sensitivity led them to correct information that other people missed entirely. And one really honest note, this reframe doesn't eliminate the hard parts of being an HSP. Over stimulation is still real. Emotional flooding is still exhausting. But having language for the trade and starting to see its legitimate strengths changes your

14:40relationship with it. You stop fighting yourself and you start working with yourself instead. The third tool is to build a recovery protocol. Remember, HSPs need more deliberate recovery time than non-HSPs, particularly after high stimulation. The brain does more processing in the same amount of time as other people who don't identify as HSP, and therefore it needs more time to return to baseline. So what can we do? Well, the research supports HSP recovery to be environments or activities that are quiet and low sensory. So time in nature, for example, because that helps your nervous system down-regulate. And this effect, by the way, is amplified in HSPs so you get extra benefits from being in nature. Also creative activity of different kinds, physical movement at a more manageable and relaxed intensity. And anything that lets the brain process singular moments without taking a new demanding input

15:44or forces you to have to try to multitask. So the main thing is to identify your top two or three recovery activities that really make you feel relaxed and calm and to schedule them deliberately when you know that there might be a high sensory day, a high stimulation day coming up. Make sure you build these in before you finalize your schedule for that day. Even for things that are enjoyable like family time and friend time. Make sure you build an enough downtime when you get home before you go to bed so that your nervous system can return to its baseline. Try these tips out and let me know how it goes. Leave a review on Apple podcasts or email our team as psychologists at quickanddirtytips.com. That's a wrap on today's savvy psychologist. Remember, you are not too sensitive. We know that HSP carries so many important strengths and hopefully listening to today's podcast gave you some ideas on how to develop them.

16:46And insight without action is just interesting. So take one thing from today and do something with it. Savvy psychologist is a quick and dirty tips podcast. Thanks to the QDT, Mcmillan team. Subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. We can also find the show on YouTube and follow us on socials. I'll meet you back here next episode. Before I let you go, a quick but important note. This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It's not a substitute for working with a licensed mental health professional and nothing care constitutes clinical advice or establishes a therapeutic relationship. If you're struggling, please reach out to someone who can truly support you.