The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

The biggest cost to us of being highly sensitive, however, is that our nervous systems can only take in so much. Everyone has a limit as to how much information or stimulation can be absorbed before one becomes overloaded, overstimulated, over-aroused, overwhelmed, and just over!

E Is for Emotional Reactivity

2. Reframing. You must actively reframe much of your past in the light of knowing you came into the world highly sensitive.

S Is for Sensing the Subtle

O Is for Overstimulation

This brings us to emotional regulation—having the right emotion at the right time and in the right amount. (This does not mean learning to be bland. Intense awe, joy, or creative energy at the right time and place can be the right amount.)

D Is for Depth of Processing

Healing. If you have not yet done so, you must begin to heal the deeper wounds.

E is also for empathy. In the study by Bianca Acevedo and her associates that I mentioned earlier, HSPs and those not so sensitive looked at photos of both strangers and loved ones expressing happiness, sadness, or a neutral feeling.