About Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS)

Here’s some deeper level HSP-SPS info

What is High Sensitivity?

High sensitivity, or Sensory Processing Sensitivity, to give it its scientific name, is an inherited personality trait found in around 20% of the population – spread evenly across gender.

A highly sensitive person’s central nervous system is wired to absorb more information from the senses than is average and to process it more deeply. It is found in many species, not just people!

Is it a form of disability or a disorder?

No. It’s perfectly “normal” – just a different level of normal.

Dr Elaine Aron, psychologist and author of The Highly Sensitive Person has come up with the handy acronym DOES which stands for:

Depth of Processing      Deep level processing of sensory inputs
Overstimulation             Overstimulated, over-aroused brain
Emotional Reactivity    Empathy & Emotions felt and reacted to intensely
Sensing the Subtle         Sensitive to subtle nuances that others miss

Highly Sensitive People are typically intelligent, creative, intuitive, empathetic, compassionate, considerate, caring and giving – sometimes to the point of self-neglect.

Our culture, obsessed as it is with Performance and Productivity – always active, on the go, fully engaged, proactive, goal-setting, go-getting busyness can be, for an HSP, frankly exhausting.

  • The majority of HSPs tend to be introspective introverts (to varying degrees) with a rich inner world – whilst around 30% are more extroverted and sometimes High Sensation Seeking – HSS-HSP
  • Since the HSP brain works so hard, it reaches saturation and becomes overstimulated/over aroused more quickly than in people who don’t have the HSP trait.
  • Everyone work best at the optimal level of arousal – and HSPs can get beyond that state optimum arousal and into overwhelm more quickly than most.

So it’s all doom and gloom ….?

No! Even if it can feel that way sometimes

At first glance, high sensitivity might seem like a nightmare – and highly sensitive and introverted types can feel misunderstood, undervalued, ridiculed and dismissed by more extroverted types.

You may tire easily, you don’t always want to hang out and party, you may need more downtime and quiet spaces at school or at work.

It might feel impossible to ask for what you want and get your needs met. But it can be done

What is the plus side to sensory processing sensitivity and being an HSP?

Here’s some really good bits:

  • You know how you seem able to “learn by osmosis”? You find you know things without knowing quite how you came to know them. As if by magic – effortlessly.
  • You remember that ice-cream (or whatever) that tasted soooo gooood? For an HSP, the positive as well as more negative sensory experiences are amplified and magnified so you experience the pleasurable to a greater degree as well as the troublesome stuff.
  • You can appreciate the finest subtleties in art and music – and food. Your taste buds are primed and premium.
  • You most likely possess great intuition, have a rich inner life – great imagination and creative potential.
  • You are naturally empathetic and can sense how others are feeling.
  • You can handle paradox, perspectives and complexity. You can embrace diversity and hold space for more than one side of any argument.
  • And yes, you spot the things that others miss and sense early signs of danger. Your sensitive antennae mean you’re an early warning system that can be of huge benefit to yourself and others – sensing danger quickly and noticing things that others miss, HSPs are like the proverbial canaries in the coalmine, providing a counter-balance to impulsive flights of fancy and so help keep everybody safe.
  • HSPs make excellent thinking partners – someone to “run your idea by”- and advisors.

IF YOU SEEK WISE COUNSEL, THEN SEEK OUT AN HSP!

For yet more Q&As you are welcome to check out the FAQS page