How to Live Better With Sensory Overload

Julie Bjelland is a psychotherapist and author specializing in helping highly sensitive people (HSPs), host of The HSP Podcast, and Founder of the Sensitive Empowerment Community.

She explains:

Sensory Overload tends to be one of our biggest challenges as HSPs.

It is when our senses take in more information than our brain can keep up with processing.

You might be surprised that it is often the culprit of symptoms of emotional reactivity, anxiety, irritability, sleep issues, exhaustion, and even loss of productivity, creativity, and focus.

What makes it extra hard is that the world isn’t set up for those of us with high sensitivity.

Have you been challenged by your sensitivity and labeled as “too sensitive” or “overly emotional”? 

Do you know how Sensory Overload impacts you? Join me to learn more and uncover solutions that will help you thrive to your fullest level of wellness.
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This is a brief audio excerpt from a much longer video class by Julie Bjelland - Register free for Sensory Overload & The Highly Sensitive Person.

Also see my article with a related podcast episode of hers: "HSPs & Sensory Overload" plus videos and more: How to Live Better With Sensory Overload as a Highly Sensitive Person.
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Transcript

How to live better with sensory overload

Julie Bjelland: I'm a psychotherapist that specializes in high sensitivity. I founded Sensitive Empowerment, I'm author of the The Empowered Highly Sensitive Person and some other books too, and I have an online Sensitive Empowerment Ccommunity.

I'm the host of the HSP podcast. I am at the highest level of sensitivity. So this is where a lot of my drive comes from because I was extremely challenged by sensitivity. 

So it's been really part of my mission to share how do we live in this busy, modern world as highly sensitive people with all of these challenges?

So just a little bit of the trait of high sensitivity. We call it the highly sensitive person or HSP for short, but scientifically it's actually called sensory processing sensitivity. 

It's an innate trait. You're born with it. It's not a disorder it's found in 15 to 20% of the population equal in gender and found in over a hundred species and counting.

And we have brain differences. One of them being that many of us experience increased fight flight, which actually happens a lot with sensory overload as well. 

And we're challenged by sensory overload. So, what is sensory overload? Just a quick definition for it is when our senses take in more information than our brain can keep up with processing.

So this is our experience, especially if you're high up on that sensitivity scale, like me. You likely experienced sensory overload. 

And I know for myself, I didn't even know what sensory overload was or when I was experiencing it. I didn't understand that that's what it was and knowing about it has changed my life, because if I know about it, I can do something about.

Do you know how sensory overload impacts you? You might be surprised that it's often the culprit of symptoms, of emotional reactions, anxiety, irritability, sleep issues, exhaustion, and I want to add, burnout - a lot of HSPs experience burnout and even loss of productivity, creativity, and focus.

I have a story for you about shopping. I recently went to a grocery store on the weekend, which is something I don't normally do or ever do because weekends are filled with people and a lot of sensory overload and it was amazing. It was like the bright lights, the loud sound, the music was really loud.

There were so many people in this store and it was an instant feeling of sensory overload, and now I know what that is and what to do about it. 

So we're going to talk about this too. So some of the ways that HSPs describe sensory overload - which you guys would probably also see that you've written in the chat - too much of everything, sights, sounds, smells.

People's thoughts, pressure, feeling out of control. And you guys let me know if this sounds like you're resonating with this.

Overwhelmed, can't handle one more thing. Draining. Completely depleted. Feeling irritated, short tempered, overcome with anxiety, shut down. 

Can't concentrate, headache, feeling trapped, needing to escape, feeling raw, vulnerable, unable to relax, heart racing, crying, sometimes leading to panic attacks.

We've got lots of yeses coming up in the comments. Yeah, this is tough. This is challenging. And this is real. 

So I really think it's important that we normalize and validate these experiences. Migraines. Claire says yep. Overactive brain Lisa. Family. I can't listen to small talk. Yeah. I don't like smell talk there.

I want to dive down deep into the conversations instead. 

So the challenges for us as HSPs, and this is something that you've probably heard me talk about on the podcast a lot, if you're a podcast listener, the world is not set up for sensitivity and we received messages that something is wrong with being sensitive.

We are really in this busy on the go, you know, hustle, hustle, hustle. So many society pressures and expectations. 

Our nervous system has more data to process, which really means that we have an increased need for rest and restoration. 

We, you know, we just can't push through and, or we're not going to be well physically or mentally, and no one taught us how to manage sensory overload.

So no wonder we're challenged by it. We experienced this, we're getting invalidated. People don't understand our experiences. The people around us, the majority of people are not having these experiences. 

And I want to mention too, that, you know, we know sensitivity is on a scale. I, so I want to point that out that even if you're with another HSP, you might not have the exact same experiences.

And I also want to make sure we're saying that there wasn't something wrong with you. It's that the world's not set up for sensitivity and that's an important distinction. 

And you're going to hear me talk about that a lot. You know, we get those messages that something is wrong, but I want to make sure that we're, we're changing those messages.

And just to give you an information about what's coming up, we're going to talk about tips for preventing sensory overload, some solutions, a special gift. 

And I'm going to answer your questions at the end, too. Well we're here together live. 

So some tips to prevent sensory overload. Let's talk about that.

Go out at off-peak hours. Now this is something that has really helped me a lot when I didn't understand sensory overload. 

And like I was saying, going into that, you know, busy grocery store on a weekend or into a restaurant that's really crowded or anything. I love being able to go places during the weekday mornings.

That's my thing because there's less people out and it really cuts down my sensory overload. 

I want us to advocate for more quiet hours in spaces at stores, at home, at work. It's incredibly important. There's actually some stores that are offering quiet hours, where they don't have the loud music.

They have dimmer lighting. This is set up more for people with, uh, autism, but sensory overload for those at the highest on the scale of sensitivity can have a similar experience with sensory overload. 

And at home, you need a quiet place at home. I really believe if you're high on the scale of sensitivity, you have to have a place that's yours, that you can close the door and it's quiet.

And you're going to need that a little bit every day to have that. 

And at work I've I love seeing HSPs advocate for what they need at work. Maybe they are changing the fluorescent lighting above their desk, or they're changing where their desk is located. An open office floor plan is not a good idea for those of us high on scale of sensitivity.

We need private quiet spaces to really perform our best. So when you're advocating, that's what you're wanting to do is to say, this is how I'm going to perform my best. 

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