High Environmental Sensitivity: Signs And Characteristics

Strong sounds or smells, bright lights, crowds of people … High environmental sensitivity characterizes all those people who experience high stress in the face of certain social, physical and emotional stimuli that inhabit their closest environment. Far from being something anecdotal, this condition can alter both our productivity and psychological balance.

John Dewey, a well-known American pedagogue and psychologist, used to say that our well-being always depends on how adjusted we are to our social setting. Any alteration, any small irregularity or friction, generates in us an immediate psychic and physiological instability.

For example, if we are in a room that is very hot, we will feel bad, and therefore, we will try to adjust the temperature of that place to our needs. Another example: if we walk at night on a dark and lonely street and we hear footsteps behind us, we will experience a feeling of threat, a stimulus to which our brain will force us to emit a response: run, make a phone call or give ourselves the back to face the situation.

Now, when we talk about high environmental sensitivity, we are dealing with a more particular type of experiences.  Consider a scenario where a group of people (for example, a work environment) feel comfortable. All, except one, someone with a threshold more sensitive to sounds, conversations, the light of that office and even that invisible veil where everything emotional is suspended …

High environmental sensitivity: why do we suffer from it?

The issue of high environmental sensitivity is not new. As curious as it is to us, ecological psychology has spent decades studying the way in which we relate to our closest environment. In this interaction, our organism, our mind and also our culture are taken into account.

Thus, authors such as Lazarus, Folkman and Cohen developed a theoretical model where they explained that this sensitivity is based on a series of very specific conditions. Each of us has tolerance thresholds for certain stimuli, those that we cannot control and against which we lack personal strategies to reduce their impact on us.

On the other hand, there are also other approaches that take our personality into account. Thus, and as an example, Harvard University was able to demonstrate that the brain of introverts was precisely characterized by high environmental sensitivity. On average, an introverted personality style shows greater attention to everyday details, a fact that often creates an overload if the environment is overstimulated.

Likewise, this excess of stimuli, whether auditory, visual, tactile, etc., generates in them a higher level of stress and exhaustion. Not to mention another relevant fact: his high sensitivity to the emotions of others, anxiety, worries, fears that others leave impregnated in that atmosphere before which not all of us know how to place filters. This emotional contagion is another frequent fact in people with high environmental sensitivity.

What characteristics does high environmental sensitivity have?

A relevant fact that we must consider about this psychological condition is that it falls within a spectrum. That is, there will be people with greater sensitivity and others with a slightly more resistant threshold to these psychosocial stimuli from their environment. Let’s see what are the most common characteristics:

• Discomfort with bright lights, loud sounds, and certain smells.
• Startled by sudden sounds, such as a car braking, a door closing, a glass falling …
• Discomfort in scenarios where there are a good number of people continuously. Likewise, stress is also experienced when one is in a place where several things happen at the same time (television on, conversations, children playing, telephone ringing…).

• The highly sensitive person is often very affected by negative news in the media.
• Likewise, it is common for them to feel anger, sadness and disappointment when they see or read facts where humanity is unjust or violent.
• All these emotions are manifested through psychosomatic processes: headache, fatigue, skin problems …

Ways to manage environmental sensitivity

Well, we already know what environmental sensitivity is; now what can we do when this is too big? The answer to this condition is not to avoid what causes us stress. Moreover, it is not in our hands to control everything that surrounds us. We cannot, for example, lower the sound of traffic, ask people to stop talking or to vacate spaces. We cannot, in essence, put order in environments characterized by hyperstimulation, unpredictability and anarchy.

The answer is not on the outside, it is on the inside, in minimizing the impact that these stimuli have on our mind and body. Therefore, to handle hypersensitivity, there is nothing better than working on our emotional and sensory immunity.

• Identify what your stressors are and idea how to defend yourself against them (if it is light, put on glasses, if it is sound, put headphones…).
• Apply relaxation and mindfulness techniques. For example, if you are distressed by crowds of people, put your gaze on a fixed stimulus (the light from a ceiling, a window, a painting, a street advertisement …) While you do it, try to work your breathing.
• Establish rest times throughout your days. Sometimes it takes just 5 minutes every 40 minutes to relax the mind. It is enough to walk a little, go to a space where there is silence or even meditate for a few moments.

• Finally, and to avoid emotional contagion, it is necessary that we stop focusing on the outside to place our own gaze on ourselves. Become aware of your own emotions and set up a wall. Avoid permeability, let nothing disturb your calm, focus on your own mental state.

To conclude, we are all, in a way, sensitive to our environment. However, the limit is that all these stimuli affect us as little as possible to allow us mobility, productivity, efficiency and above all well-being. Let’s learn to put adequate filters to that sea of ​​stimuli that always surrounds us.