Highly sensitive: what you need to know and how to deal with it

A highly sensitive person is someone who is sensitive to subtle cues from the environment. These can include things you see, feel, smell and hear. In addition, someone who is highly sensitive can also become quickly overwhelmed by stimuli in his/her environment. Unfortunately, this high sensitivity can sometimes lead to additional stress, which in turn can lead to a greater degree of unhealthiness.

So how do you know if you or someone is highly sensitive? There are certain tests that doctors perform, questions that are asked, to determine if someone is highly sensitive. These include statements and questions such as:

• Are you easily overwhelmed by stimuli you pick up with your senses?
• Do you have a rich and complex inner life?
• Do you get deeply moved by art and music?
• Are you usually more sensitive to pain?
• Need to get away sometimes to recharge?
• Does it feel uncomfortable or uncomfortable when there is a lot going on around you?
• Does loud noise make you feel uncomfortable?
• Do you make sure to minimize crowded spaces in your life?

People who are highly sensitive are often also introverts, but someone who is introverted is not automatically highly sensitive.

Highly sensitive children are often somewhat shy and are more likely to experience negative feelings[1].

What is a fun fact is that highly sensitive people are more likely to achieve alternative consciousness in a floating tank, a type of saltwater pool without stimuli, than people who are not highly sensitive[2].

Things to watch out for if you are highly sensitive

Highly sensitive people are at a higher risk of experiencing anxiety and developing depression. It’s important to be mindful of this and to seek help early on if you notice that your anxiety or negative feelings are preventing you from living a fulfilling life.

Adults with high sensitivity are especially at higher risk for depression if they had little care in childhood.

In addition, highly sensitive adults more often feel that their work or life isn’t enjoyable enough. In any case, there is more dissatisfaction among them than among people who do not experience high sensitivity.

What is interesting is that being highly sensitive also makes you more suited to try out a life abroad. Expats are therefore more likely to be highly sensitive than people who remain in their home country. This is also because people who go about where personnel work find it more convenient to send people with more empathy and conscientiousness to establishments in other countries. These are precisely characteristics of someone with high sensitivity.

General dissatisfaction with work may be related to the fact that highly sensitive people find it difficult to manage their stress, regulate their emotions, and are more prone to panic attacks.

In addition, you are more likely to have borderline and avoidant personality disorder.

What is positive if you suffer from high sensitivity is that it makes you more creative than the average person. This is partly because creativity is somewhat dependent on emotionality and the connection you can make with your own emotions; and this is something you can do well as a highly sensitive person.

Also, there are genetic factors that can contribute to high sensitivity. So you can have a child who is also highly sensitive.

Highly sensitive children

Highly sensitive children can begin to internalize fears. They then find it difficult to indicate that they are afraid of something and do not talk to people about their problems. Children who are very shy as toddlers are often more likely to have social anxiety when they are older. As a parent, it is important to know this so you can watch for certain signs to identify fears and help your child overcome them.

For example, a child may withdraw socially, have a negative mood and/or low self-esteem if they suffer from social anxiety.

Highly sensitive children are also at greater risk of developing depression, but only if environmental factors are also negative—such as an unfavorable home environment or if they are being bullied. A lack of social support increases the risk of depression. If you support your child and have a positive parenting style, this can counteract the negative effects of, for example, bullying.

For example, a positive style of parenting means consulting with your child, providing warmth, offering support and allowing your child to be autonomous. The latter means allowing the child to make his or her own choices. In addition, you promote empathy and social behavior in your child.

Highly sensitive adults

As an adult, your high sensitivity can also affect your way of parenting. Depending on your attachment style, you can either give your child a free upbringing or be more controlling. For example, if you have an anxious attachment, this can cause you to want a little more control over your child, and that can be detrimental to the impact that high sensitivity has on your child.

But if you have an avoidant attachment, then again, you may leave your child too free and not give any boundaries at all. Again, this can turn out to be awkward.

Speaking of attachment, being highly sensitive can also affect your relationship, both positively and negatively. For example, you’re good at picking up on how your partner is feeling, which is helpful for showing empathy toward them. However, you can also get swept up in your partner’s emotions. If he or she is happy, you are too; but if your partner isn’t happy, neither are you.

That going along with your partner's feelings is not always a recipe for success in your relationship[3].

Mindfulness and its effect on highly sensitive people

If you’re highly sensitive, you may be more prone to stress and negative emotions than people who aren’t highly sensitive. One way to cope with this is by practicing mindfulness meditation . This offers all kinds of benefits for highly sensitive people.

In fact, problems such as stress and social anxiety are reduced through it.

While you actually experience more emotional empathy, more personal growth, more self-acceptance and can transcend yourself more.

In the study, participants received eight 2.5-hour mindfulness training sessions[4].

Hypnosis Against Social Anxiety

In addition, hypnosis can be used to address specific problems you may have as a highly sensitive person. For example, hypnosis works well against anxiety[5]. Social anxiety can also be eliminated well with hypnotherapy.

Using hypnosis to address social anxiety and panic attacks allows you to focus on improving your self-confidence and setting goals[6]. For example, you might set a goal to meet up with friends at a bar to watch a soccer game. This is something that can trigger social anxiety. With hypnosis, you can find ways to alleviate that anxiety so that you can still set and achieve these kinds of social goals.

Improving self-confidence can be done in multiple ways. For example, with guided visualizations in which everything goes well, so that you can at least imagine that you can be successful in social situations and so that you know how it can also feel when you are doing something socially, without suffering from anxiety. This alone can do a lot for your subconscious.

In addition, you can get exercises to repeat certain suggestions, such as:

"I can do anything."

"I am good the way I am."

"I get to be a part of it."

"People want me in their lives."

These are just examples. Depending on your fears and insecurities, you may receive other suggestions from a hypnotherapist to boost your self-confidence.

In addition, positive feelings can be anchored within you, giving you the tools to feel better during difficult times. You can then bring this positive feeling to the surface—through a movement, a tap on your wrist, or something similar—when you feel yourself starting to get anxious. This alone can go a long way toward reducing your anxiety.

Hypnosis against depressive symptoms

In addition, hypnosis can also be used against depressive symptoms[7]. Because depression is more common in highly sensitive people if they have had little care in childhood, there is a chance that you will apply regression.

This is a technique where you go back to the moment in your life when you first started feeling a little depressed. You then work with that moment—for example , by having a conversation with your inner child— so that you can reassure your inner child that the situation from back then is over and that your life is very different now than it was then.

So hypersensitivity can have a lot of impact on your life, both positive (good relationships, traveling for work) and negative (easily stressed, greater chance of depression). Fortunately, there is a lot you can do about it. For example, you can get started with mindfulness or hypnosis.

Would you like to learn more about how hypnosis works and how you can use it to help yourself and/or others? Then join the free online masterclass.

Or register for one of our seminars or trainings .

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