Looking After Your Autistic Self: A Personalised Self-Care Approach to Managing Your Sensory and Emotional Well-Being

This is an idealistic choice of mine, because in an ideal world, the sensory environment would always be adapted to suit the needs of people with sensory processing differences. It is only when the environment is wrong that it becomes a disorder.

Your basic needs not being met. If your basic daily needs are not being met, including hunger, thirst etc., you are more likely to react to sensory stimuli.

Anxiety. When I am anxious, I need to work extra hard at regulating my sensory system. Anxiety hugely reduces my tolerance of sensory triggers, and makes me much more like to ‘over-react’ to sensory stimuli.

As autistic adults, we may learn to manage our sensory challenges better, but constantly working to manage an overwhelmed or stressed sensory system does take its toll.

Identifying which sense to soothe: • Is it obvious which sense is being triggered?

and a traffic jam of information blocks up your brain. This makes it hard (or impossible) to think how to respond appropriately to each piece of information.

Three steps to regulate the sensory system: 1. ‘How full is your cup?’ 2. What sense or senses need soothing or regulating? 3. What sensory soothing strategies can I use to ‘empty my cup’?

Hormonal changes. Hormonal changes can affect our sensory integration.

To support myself with this, I might sit in the car to listen to calm music with my eyes closed before I enter the house, so I can then enjoy my children’s chatter and touch rather than feel overwhelmed by it.