(Why? Well, if you think of your brain as a supercomputer, the average brain takes in five or ten “tubes” of information. The highly sensitive brain takes in hundreds.)

Even though all highly sensitive people share this trait, the actual struggles they go through can be very different from person to person. Recently I asked the question of my readers: What are the biggest challenges of being a highly sensitive person? 

And the answers were astounding. 

The Biggest Struggles of Being Highly Sensitive, According to HSPs

Here are the responses of HSPs from all over the world about what they find challenging about being highly sensitive: 

• Crying easily when overwhelmed, especially when angry, then thinking everyone thinks you’re a crybaby.
• The overthinking (which comes from HSPs’ depth of processing) is the hardest for many people.
• The sensitivity to sleep deprivation.
• Picking up other people’s emotional “junk.” 
• Sensory overload. Uggh.
• As one person said: “Feeling EVERYTHING!!”
• Being misunderstood.
• Having your feelings displayed all over your face.
• Being hypersensitive to criticism.
• Wanting to “save” or help everyone.
• Dealing with people who don’t understand I’m an HSP and what that means.
• Simply watching the (super negative, often tragic) daily news.
• Being surrounded by people who “don’t take my sensitivity seriously; they think I’m weak or mentally off.”
• The anxiety: “Knowing something is about to happen and having no control over it. The sinking of my stomach. Walking into a room or house and feeling the tension of fighting no matter how much it’s hidden.”
• Handling the stress of work. As one HSP said, “I love my job most of the time, but Monday I was stressed for three hours straight with no relief, and by the time I was leaving, I was so frustrated/overwhelmed I wanted to cry.”
• Knowing when people aren’t being honest… but others can’t see it.
• Feeling exhausted from stimuli, and thus exhausted from trying to fit in in a very hectic, social world.
• Seeing other people be insensitive — especially about animals — a huge trigger for many HSPs that other people don’t always share.
• Loud noises.
• “One big challenge I have is other people’s bad moods rubbing off on me. I absorb their energy. When this happens, the other person can revert back to being happy very quickly, but I’m left with the bad mood for hours!”
• The difficulty of setting boundaries. For example: “I struggle with trusting what I need to be healthy, knowing other people will be hurt by my choices.”
• “Helping my highly sensitive son when I haven’t sorted myself out yet!”
• Or, as one person summed it up: “Work, parenting, life.”

But none of these on its own was as common as…

The No. 1 Challenge for HSPs

Across all HSPs, one of our biggest struggles, in general, is a nervous system that seems to be in overdrive by default. 

That makes us feel overwhelmed, emotional, hypersensitive, and reactive — and this can be very exhausting and difficult. 

In fact, most or all of the challenges above probably come from, or are related to, an overloaded nervous system. 

Think of your nervous system as a big bucket. The more full the bucket, the more your brain and body have to process. The majority of the population might dump 3 cups of information at a time into that bucket, but a sensitive person’s brain might have 100 cups dumped into that bucket — and that’s a lot to process! 

If we have too much in that bucket, our nervous system is too overloaded to process the things it’s supposed to process for the sake of our health — which means we might get sick more often, more intensely, and longer, and/or suffer from chronic conditions. Part of what gets dumped into that nervous system bucket is also our emotional experiences and sensory sensitivities. This is why emotional and physical strain seem to go hand in hand for HSPs. 

So, if we process and drain what’s in that bucket, we will feel more energy, patience, balance, calm, and joy, as well as have better overall health. 

As an HSP myself, I used to struggle a lot with this kind of overload. And the more HSPs I met through my work as a psychotherapist, the more I saw we all seemed to struggle in the same ways. I feel it is so important for us HSPs to understand our unique brains and the differences in our limbic systems. That’s why I’ve made it my mission to find out why and to develop tools and techniques to reduce the challenges and increase access to the positives of this trait.

Here are four ways HSPs can do just that, that I’ve seen work for myself and my clients.

4 Ways to Stop Overloading Your Nervous System 

1. Alone time to do nothing

I recommend 2 hours a day for the most sensitive people, and one full day off a week. Remember you have 100 cups of stuff to go through, so don’t compare your self-care needs to the majority that might only have 3 cups to go through! Your downtime is your key to your wellbeing — mind, body, and spirit.

(I know this is hard for many people to achieve. One huge source of help comes from having friends, a partner, or other close loved ones who understand and respect your needs. I help teach HSPs how to establish this kind of support and boundaries in my course — see details below.)

2. Be in nature every day…

…even if it means a park or your backyard garden. Yes, a small grassy park with a few trees makes a difference! Take your shoes off and feel the grass so you can connect to the earth. Spend some time noticing the trees, birds, sky, and all the brilliant colors of nature around you. Nature is incredibly restorative for every HSP and is the fastest way to clear out that bucket!

3. Meditation and mindfulness practices

These practices slow the nervous system “motor” down, therefore giving it a chance to process and drain all those cups that got dumped in. In addition, they strengthen the brain’s ability to emotionally regulate, and that’s something that really helps HSPs!

4. Learn all you can about the trait of high sensitivity

It is incredibly healing and reassuring to learn and see how NORMAL you are. This kind of learning makes you understand yourself, and it normalizes and validates your experience, which helps you speak clearly about your needs — and feel safe and confident even when others don’t understand. 

There Is Help for Overwhelmed HSPs

HSPs, do you relate to the challenges listed above? I want you to know that life can get better, and you can truly thrive. You are needed in this world, and your gifts are valuable. We are fortunate because we now understand why we HSPs experience things the way we do, and we have access to powerful techniques to change the way we experience our sensitivity — without “turning it off.” 

The most effective of these methods work at the level of the nervous system itself — they actually train our brains and transform our experience. This is good for everyone, not just us, because everyone around us benefits when we are living well. 

I teach these techniques, and I use them successfully with my clients and in my own life. They work. If you would like to learn these techniques with me, I am offering a FREE introductory session to my upcoming course for HSPs. It focuses on the challenges that HSPs face, how to overcome those challenges, and real techniques you can use to access your positive traits and start to truly thrive and be happy. 

You can join us live or download the session at your convenience. 

Click here to sign up for the FREE introductory session. 

You might like:

• The 7 Best Careers for a Highly Sensitive Person 
• Do Highly Sensitive People Attract Narcissists?
• The Difference Between Introverts, Empaths, and Highly Sensitive People

This article contains affiliate links. We only recommend products we truly believe in.

The post How to Overcome the Biggest HSP Challenges, According to a Therapist appeared first on Sensitive Refuge.

I like to think about mental energy in terms of a point system. Imagine you had 100 points of energy for the day. Let’s start tracking where those points are going:

• Had a call with a family member or friend that talked nonstop and you kept giving and giving because that’s the established pattern between you?
  Subtract about 20-40 points.
• Do you usually skip your breaks at work — and maybe you even do a portion of your coworker’s job?
  Subtract about 30 points.
• Did you say yes to going to something you didn’t want to attend because you didn’t want to disappoint someone?
  Subtract about 40 points.
• Do you work AND do most of the chores at home without help?
  Subtract another 30 points. If you have children and you do most of their care, subtract 60 points.
• Do you skip self-care and downtime because everyone else’s needs seem more important?
  Subtract about 75 more points.

Those 100 points go quickly, don’t they? When our points are chronically low, our entire system gets impacted. Here’s some of what we will experience:

• Sensitivity levels increase
• Emotional reactions increase
• Stress and anxiety increase
• Lose patience, get more irritable, or anger quickly
• Build up resentment, which disconnects and destroys relationships
• We lose access to creativity and focus
• Immune system weakens
• Long term, our body systems start breaking down, and chronic conditions arise and increase
• We feel tired all the time and can’t catch up, often feeling unwell
• We enter survival mode just trying to get through the day, and we can’t have fun or feel joy

What have we learned? We cannot be at the bottom of our priority list anymore. Everything is impacted.

4 Ways to Break the Cycle of Exhaustion

As HSPs, we may be giving by nature, but it doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice the things we personally care about, or that we need. In my 8-week online program for HSPs, I teach that there are specific habits many of us fall into that create this cycle of putting others first and crashing with fatigue. And, likewise, there are specific habits we can teach ourselves that break the cycle.

These habits not only help us start prioritizing what really matters most to us (including our loved ones, in a balanced way). They also, as a side effect, mean we have more energy for those priorities and spend less time frazzled, overwhelmed, or irate.

Here are four strategies I’ve used and taught other HSPs to prevent exhaustion in a healthy way.

1. Be intentional with your own energy.

Intentionally choose where your energy points go, and make sure you get enough for your own self-care. As an HSP, you know that every “yes” or act of service to others will cost you mental energy, but we often don’t stop to think about that when deciding what to do. Get in the habit of pausing and asking, “Is this worth spending energy points I won’t have for something else?”

When you create healthy boundaries around your energy points, they go to areas that align with what you value.

2. Slow your roll.

Slow down your internal “nervous system motor” several times a day with mindful breaks. This practice will help you reserve points and even gain some extra ones. If you can take a moment next to a tree or have your feet in the grass, even better. Nature is healing.

This time also allows you to become aware of how you are doing and what you might need. Are you hungry? Did you drink enough water? Do you need to get up from your desk and take a little walk outside? This break helps you notice what you need, and that bit of nature time outside (if possible) will give you extra energy points for the day.

3. Practice self-compassion.

Remind yourself that you can do anything, but you can’t do everything. One thing I recommend is developing a self-compassion practice.

My favorite technique is to notice the critical self-talk you give yourself, and start to name what you’re feeling instead (“I feel lonely,” or “I feel unworthy”). You can then validate and normalize that feeling (“I feel unwanted because I haven’t had a partner in nearly a year. A lot of people would feel that way if they were going through the same thing”). Once it’s labeled and put into context like this, you can ask yourself what you need — anything from a moment of giving yourself validation to seeking out support from others.

When you practice self-compassion, you preserve points instead of losing them by being hard on yourself. Click here for my complete guide to this practice.

4. Prioritize sleep.

If you sleep well, you get extra points to use. If you don’t, then you don’t even get the full 100 points of energy for the day. Starting out with a full amount of points after a good night’s sleep will make an immediate difference in your wellness.

What’s amazing, though, is that when you start prioritizing your wellness and balance, your health improves, you get more focused and creative, your resentment decreases, relationships improve — and you even feel less sensitive and reactionary! Yup, you heard that right. You can decrease the intensity of emotional reactions and move from a reactionary place to an ability to pause, reflect, and respond when you have extra points. You can even heal old wounds with those extra points. Moving out of survival mode and into empowerment is possible.

If you want some help navigating all of this, it’s one of my favorite things to do with the HSPs in my online program. I LOVE guiding HSPs toward a life they love, and can feel joy and have fun again.

We need more HSPs thriving in the world. Imagine what your life would look like if you felt energy and space and joy. Who in your life would benefit if you were aligned in your balanced self?

Do you find our chaotic, modern world to be VERY challenging? HSPs frequently struggle with high stress, overwhelming emotions, low energy, or having our boundaries ignored and run over. I work with HSPs to help them feel better — starting with simple brain training techniques to break the cycle. Read more about my 8-week online program for HSPs.

You might like:

• Why Highly Sensitive People Get Mentally and Emotionally ‘Flooded’
• How Highly Sensitive People Can Stop Saying Yes When They Want to Say No
• ‘Forest Bathing’ Is a Thing, and It Can Heal Highly Sensitive People

This article contains affiliate links. We only recommend products we truly believe in.

The post How to Stop Feeling Exhausted All the Time as a Highly Sensitive Person appeared first on Sensitive Refuge.

Most highly sensitive people (HSPs) spend more time in the emotional brain than non-HSPs.

While anxiety can be a normal experience for most people, it can be elevated for an HSP. For example, our stress levels may skyrocket when we have to meet new people, go for a job interview, attend a social gathering, or go to a new school or event. Sometimes, it even happens when we’re unable to pinpoint the exact cause of our anxiety.

In my work with HSPs around the world, I have developed brain training techniques to help get us out of an activated limbic system. It’s our limbic system that usually makes us feel like we’re overwhelmed or have emotional experiences that feel out of control. Learning the difference between what the brain sees as a potential threat and what the real threat is can help us manage the brain’s false alarms.

First, let’s look at how you can identify your emotional triggers. Then, I’ll share the simple mental trick that has helped thousands of HSPs bypass emotional overload.

How to Identify Your Emotional Triggers

Managing the brain’s false alarms starts by learning to identify emotional triggers. Triggers are moments when you realize you’re “reacting” to something. You might notice a tightening in your chest or shallow breathing or an increased heart rate. Pay attention to when you notice stress levels rising, and write down the things that cause it. Maybe you feel stressed every time you’re around a particular person or when you aren’t listened to in your relationship or at work.

The common neural pathway response to stressors is to go directly to our limbic system. We experience the stress and/or trigger, and our limbic system gets activated. This happens if we do nothing, but every time we notice we’re being triggered, we begin the process of creating a new neural pathway that will allow us to bypass the automatic limbic system activation.

Most people go through three stages when creating this new pathway:

1. The first stage is you sometimes notice your triggers — and sometimes you don’t.
2. The second stage is you notice your triggers and know you have this choice to go on the new path or slide along the original one. And, since it’s so slippery and well-worn, you watch yourself head directly to the limbic system. That’s okay — that’s part of the process. The success is that you noticed!
3. The third stage is you create this pause-and-reflect ability just before the new sprout. You notice you’re being triggered, and you practice self-care tools that help you bypass the original default pathway. The more you successfully do this, the clearer that new neural pathway becomes. Soon your sprout begins to grow, and once it grows, you get to keep it.

Here’s where we check in about our HSP perfectionist tendencies — those high expectations of ourselves that are impossible to meet. This training does not mean we always bypass our limbic systems. It means that with practice and training, we can get good at it, but we sometimes will still have it activated, especially if there’s sensory overload, if we haven’t slept enough, if we’re sick, or if we’re going through a time of extreme stress.

As with anything in life, we get better at it with practice.

The Simple Trick to Bypass Emotional Overload

Now, let’s learn the trick I developed that turns our cognitive brain back on so it can help our emotional brain out of its “funk.” Take a look at this diagram:

The circle on the left represents your emotional brain’s message, which is our irrational and false messages. The three circles on the right represent the cognitive brain, where we find rational thought, memory, and facts. Only the cognitive brain is able to come up with facts and rational messages.

When you feel overwhelmed, grab a piece of paper. Inside the circle on the left, write down the emotion you’re feeling. Then, on the right, write down cognitive facts (more on this below) in the three circles that support the emotion. The process of coming up with the words you use inside the circles will help turn your cognitive brain back online.

This is an amazing tool to use when you notice you’re activating your limbic system and becoming irrational or overwhelmed. I still practice this method in my own life, and it continues to work for me and my clients that practice it. As an HSP, you can be good at reading your internal world, so you’ll be able to notice when you’re going into your emotional brain.

The more you practice this, the sooner you can respond. When I get emotional about something, I can feel it, so I take out a piece of paper — or I have my partner remind me to do this if I forget (because in our emotional brain, we can lose access to memory).

Thinking of Facts Turns Your Cognitive Brain Back On

How do we identify the core emotions we’re feeling? This part can take time, and often, working with a good therapist can help you identify them. Most of us only have three to four main core emotional messages, and once we learn our main ones, we can better target them more successfully. These cores may be covered in many layers, and you may have a hard time identifying what they are at first, but with continued mindfulness, you will get better.

Some main core emotional messages are:

• I don’t feel safe.
• I fear abandonment.
• I fear judgment.

Let’s use the common “I’m not good enough” core as an example. Maybe you were triggered and felt bad about yourself, and then you peel off the layers and realize that what is underneath all of it is the feeling of not being good enough. Then, you can ask yourself to name three facts that counter that message.

For this example, we’ll use these facts:

1. I performed well on a task (fill in your own task example).
2. Other people told me I did a good job.
3. Friends and family care about me and see my worth.

The act of trying to come up with facts is going to help you turn your cognitive brain back on. By using this tool to get out of your limbic system, you start to trust that you can handle any emotion you experience. Try it the next time you feel very emotional about something. Sometimes, when you first start this, it’s hard, so you may have to wait until after you’ve calmed down a bit. That’s okay. Still use the opportunity to learn by practicing this tool anyway.

Remember, if you’re hard on yourself about your emotions, this tool will be nearly impossible to create and use. So you must practice compassion for your emotions without judgment in order to allow yourself to explore your personal triggers. Only then can you begin to create a new neural sprout, gain control of your reactions, and begin living the life you were meant to live.

The world needs HSPs — it needs you! — living your best life.

Do you find our chaotic, modern world to be very challenging? As an HSP, you might feel misunderstood, have high-stress levels, and are overwhelmed a lot. Fortunately, there is a way to feel better. To learn how, check out my new eBook, The Empowered Highly Sensitive Person.

You might like:

• How I Learned to Stop Absorbing Other People’s Emotions
• 21 Signs That You’re a Highly Sensitive Person
• How to Calm Down When You Feel Crazy Stressed
• The 21 Things That Stress Out Highly Sensitive People the Most
• Why HSPs Get Mentally and Emotionally ‘Flooded’

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The post This Simple Mental Trick Has Helped Thousands of HSPs Stop Emotional Overload appeared first on Sensitive Refuge.