The concept of “extremely sensitive person” (HSP) was widely known thanks to Dr. Elaine Aron, a psychologist who pioneered the study of this phenomenon in the 90s. She estimates that 15% to 20% of the population number is HSP.

So what is HSP? What are the signs of a highly sensitive person ? Here are a few signs that you are an extremely sensitive person and how to overcome difficult emotions when you belong to this group of people.

Extremely sensitive person (HSP) concept

According to Katie Fracalanza, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor at Stanford University, “ A highly sensitive person is someone who has a strong tendency to perceive emotions, feelings, and perceptions of the world. than the average person. Meaning, this may cause you to feel pain or a pleasant or negative stimulus more strongly than other people .”

Hypersensitivity is not considered a psychological illness or symptom, it is simply a concept used to describe characteristics that a person may have. Through this concept, HSP will have more opportunities to express emotions, manage sensitivity and have better experiences in life. 

Sharing about each person’s sensitivity level, Fracalanza thinks this difference is very normal: “ Everyone has different levels of sensitivity. It can be roughly understood as our height. It’s like there will be some people who are taller than average, and some who are more sensitive than average ,” Fracalanza said.

Signs of an extremely sensitive person

1. You have deep feelings

The way you perceive and express personal feelings (both positive and negative) may be more intense than others. You always feel everything, everything in the most complete way. For example, you easily shed tears when watching a touching movie, excited when standing in front of majestic nature, or have a certain sympathy for works of art, music, etc. 

2. You have intense physical sensory experiences

You may have a clearer perception than others about physical sensations such as: better perceiving loud sounds or more sensitive to bright light… and it makes you feel uncomfortable. in noisy, crowded or flooded places. In addition, if you can clearly feel the material and details of each thing, you often prefer soft, comfortable clothes over those with rough materials and difficult to absorb sweat.

3. You think deeply

Extremely sensitive people are considered to be more receptive to information and consider it more detailed than the average person. This is what makes them take longer to make decisions or prefer to do each task carefully than to multitask.

4. You empathize easily with others

Extremely sensitive people can sense the emotions of others quickly and easily. Explaining this, Fracalanza suggests that sensitive people will have more neurons that govern empathy, which will be more active than other people.

5. You like to take things slowly

Since you – who are extremely sensitive – can receive and process information deeply, you want to handle work at your own pace and do not want to be rushed to be able to understand everything. carefully, ensuring the quality of work. 

6. It takes a long time to recharge

Because you have a greater ability to feel emotions than other people, you often fall into a state of fatigue and burnout from taking in too much information and emotions from others. This overwhelming feeling forces you to take certain breaks so you don’t fall into negative mental states. Therefore, you need a lot of time to rest and be alone after participating in exciting social activities. 

How to heal when being invaded by negative emotions for extremely sensitive people

1. Give yourself time to rest

Giving yourself time to rest is important when you feel that external factors are over-stimulating you. Depending on the personality and work of each person, your rest time may be different, such as taking a break when you feel tired in a working session, meeting, exchange … or a period of time. long to balance personal feelings. 

Nothing is wasted if you take the time to heal yourself. You should not wait until you feel extremely overwhelmed and tired to think about resting. Instead, do this before your stamina reaches its limit. You can try a few simple activities such as: being alone, away from crowded and noisy places, soothing yourself with good movies …

2. Improve quality of life

While you may not always have the freedom to choose your surroundings, you can enhance your living and living spaces in your home or work to bring comfort and productivity to you by using extremely simple activities such as: regularly cleaning the house, installing blackout curtains, planting trees… 

3. Practice rhythmic breathing

Rhythmic breathing can help reduce the feeling of being overwhelmed during a stressful situation. To practice paced breathing, psychologist Fracalanza recommends the following steps:

• Inhale for five seconds
• Hold your breath for two seconds
• Exhale for eight seconds
• Hold for two seconds
• Repeat the process at intervals of two to ten minutes or until you start to feel calmer

4. Stress management

Since highly sensitive people are prone to extreme stress, it’s a good idea to learn ways to control your mood to avoid psychological problems like depression or anxiety disorders. concerned. Some activities that you can refer to are:

• Exercise regularly
• Practice meditation
• Get enough sleep
• Healthy diet
• Learn to share with trusted, loved ones
• Write diary

5. Emotional regulation

Highly sensitive people often get caught up in emotional storms, so here are a few methods to help you practice regulating your emotions. 

• Mindfulness (Mindfulness):This method places a small buffer between our thoughts and our perceptions, allowing us to see if our initial thoughts, feelings, or behaviors make sense. From there, it gives us a full perspective of the problem we are facing. With regular practice, this method allows us to react more wisely than we used to think in a natural, emotional, reflexive way. This requires you to focus more deeply on the present moment. Mindfulness gives us a pause between our thoughts and how we see things around us, which helps us to consider more closely whether our initial thoughts, feelings, and behaviors about what’s going on. whether it is really true or not, or do we need to regulate all our thoughts, feelings, that behavior by observing the situation more objectively. This helps us to react to problems more wisely and less impulsively. 

• Self-compassion: This method helps you to be kinder to yourself. When you experience negative emotions such as sadness, self-loathing, or despair, remind yourself that there is no shame in facing such emotions. Instead of criticizing yourself when you have a problem, you can try to put yourself in the shoes of someone very close to you and think about how they would react to this in the situation you are facing.  
• Cognitive Appraisal: Cognitive appraisal requires you to consider the reasonableness of how you see the issues around you. This helps you to take a step back and be able to look back at your thoughts and feelings in a more rational way instead of letting your emotions dominate.

6. Set Boundaries

While you may feel guilty about saying “no” to others because you’re so sensitive to people’s needs, if you don’t set boundaries, this will burn you out.

So you need to learn to say no when you don’t feel ready. For example, you can decline party invitations when you’re feeling overwhelmed and drained of energy, or tell your partner that you can only attend for a certain amount of time.

7. Self-soothing

No one understands you better than yourself. So, instead of relying on other people’s understanding, you should learn to soothe your senses by letting go of negativity and doing things that make you feel good like:

• Curled up in a soft blanket
• Drink warm tea
• Look at the beautiful pictures
• Eat your favorite foods