If you encounter this situation, please start to be alone immediately! Right now!

Do you ever get annoyed by the smallest things?

1. I can’t concentrate when I hear a little noise;

2. Get irritated by the smallest things;

3. Suddenly get angry when someone touches you;

4. If the other party doesn’t reply immediately, you will be bombarded with messages…

Many people refer to these symptoms as sensory overload, believing that their psychological oversensitivity and reactions are caused by their senses being easily overloaded. What exactly is sensory overload? Does it really make us highly sensitive to so many things?

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What is sensory overload?

In psychology, sensory overload refers to the situation where the brain receives more information through the five senses (sight/hearing/taste/smell/touch) than it can handle, triggering the body's natural fight-or-flight response, such as aggressive behavior or avoidance, and sometimes the freeze response, which is a state of stillness when threatened.

Additionally, when people experience sensory overload, they may experience:

1. Anxiety or emotional agitation, even collapse;

2. Irritability, stress, fear or panic;

3. Physical tension and discomfort, heavy sweating;

4. Restlessness and difficulty concentrating;

5. Insomnia, poor sleep quality and fatigue, etc.

Generally speaking, sensory overload is not a psychological disorder, but a phenomenon that all of us may experience. Sensory overload can be caused by excessive stimulation of any sense, such as strong sensory stimulation such as loud sounds, bad smells, and bright lights. But this is obviously not the phenomenon we mentioned at the beginning of the article.

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In fact, stimulation below the normal range can also cause sensory overload. This may be because some people have a lower sensory threshold and are more likely to detect subtle environmental stimulation, or because their information processing ability is lower and they have difficulty processing even subtle stimulation.

However, it needs to be clarified that the sensory overload phenomenon is only limited to the situation where the information received by the senses exceeds the load. The discomfort caused by non-sensory information, such as "getting irritated by trivial matters" and "getting angry when messages are not replied immediately", is not sensory overload.

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Therefore, the various phenomena we mentioned at the beginning are not just sensory overload. To be precise, it is people's overreaction to some "small things", which may be some low-level sensory stimulation or some trivial matters.

Overreaction is a sign of hypersensitivity

Now, many psychologists agree that sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) is a stable personality trait in a person. About 20% of people are highly sensitive, and the other 80% are less sensitive.

For highly sensitive people, they are easily overstimulated by external information because they have a lower perception threshold and are more likely to notice subtle changes in the environment, resulting in sensory overload. In addition, highly sensitive people cognitively process stimuli at a deeper level than other people, which means that they will also have a deeper cognitive and emotional processing of some small things in daily life.

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In layman's terms, they think more, show more empathy, and are more emotional. Therefore, highly sensitive people are more likely to "make a mountain out of a molehill", such as bombarding others with messages if they don't reply immediately, or losing sleep because of some careless words.

The essence of overreaction is emotional problem

Many studies have shown that highly sensitive people are more likely to experience negative psychological states, such as depression, anxiety, and stress. For example, a study published in the Australian Journal of Psychology recruited 157 volunteers for a scale assessment, and the results showed that the more sensitive people were, the higher their anxiety, depression, and stress symptoms were, the more difficult it was for them to adapt to emotional pain, and the worse their emotional regulation ability was.

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Highly sensitive people are more emotional, prone to negative responses, and have difficulty controlling impulses and concentrating, which makes them upset and react violently even when faced with trivial matters. Of course, even low-sensitivity people may become as emotional and overreact as highly sensitive people due to anxiety, stress, lack of sleep, etc.

Therefore, whether you are highly sensitive or lowly sensitive, from a mental health perspective, overreacting to trivial matters may indicate that you are in a bad emotional state or have poor emotional regulation ability.

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When we find ourselves often reacting strongly to trivial things, what we should do is pay attention to our current emotional state rather than simply attributing it to some objective phenomena.

There is no need to feel frustrated or disappointed about your negative emotions, or be ashamed to express them and try hard to cover them up. Emotional reactions are a normal reaction of our human nervous physiological system.

Positive emotions can bring us motivation and motivation, while negative emotions are more like a distress signal sent by the brain, hoping that we can notice our current bad mood, excessive stress, lack of sleep, etc. from some of our abnormal behaviors, so that we can take action to care for ourselves and maintain mental health.

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If you are often in a state of high stress, you will become more fragile. Being alone can help you relax. There are many ways to get rid of negative emotions and improve your emotional regulation ability, such as:

1. Write an emotional observation diary frequently to cultivate emotional awareness;

2. Being close to nature and practicing mindfulness meditation can heal emotions and enhance tolerance to negative emotions;

3. Ensure adequate and regular sleep to allow the brain to get enough rest;

4. Eat a healthy and nutritious diet, do more aerobic exercise, and a good physical condition will also affect your emotional state.

References

[1]Aron, EN, & Aron, A. (1997).Sensory-processingsensitivityanditsrelationtointroversionandemotionality.Journalofpersonalityandsocialpsychology,73(2),345.

[2]Boterberg,S.,&Warreyn,P.(2016).Makingsenseofitall:Theimpactofsensoryprocessingsensitivityondailyfunctioningofchildren.PersonalityandIndividualDifferences,92,80-86.

[3] Greven, CU, Lionetti, F., Booth, C., Aron, EN, Fox, E., Schendan, HE,... & Homberg, J. (2019). Sensory processing sensitivity in the context of environmental sensitivity: Acritical review and development of research agenda. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 98, 287-305.

[4]Brindle,K.,Moulding,R.,Bakker,K.,&Nedeljkovic,M.(2015).Istherelationshipbetweensensory-processingsensitivityandnegativeaffectmediatedbyemotionalregulation?.AustralianJournalofPsychology,67(4),214-221.

Author: ACC Psychology Popular Science

Reviewer: Fan Chunlei, Associate Researcher, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences