Advantages and disadvantages of being a person with high sensitivity

Highly sensitive people experience reality somewhat differently than the average citizen.

But… Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? The answer is, as is almost always the case in psychology, that it depends. Here we will see what they are the pros and cons of being a highly sensitive person.

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What is sensitivity in sensory processing?

The term "sensitivity in sensory processing" was coined during the 1990s by researchers Elaine and Arthur Aron, who used it to refer to a group of neuropsychological characteristics that predispose certain people to experience an intense response to relatively subtle stimuli and experiences with a certain emotional charge.

In short, this set of traits makes some people able to detect subtle nuances in the stimuli they pick up. and in the implications that this information has about what happens in the world, how others feel, how oneself is perceived, etc. But this detection process is not limited to extracting information that can be reduced to words, but

generates waves of feelings and emotions that a person who does not stand out for having a high sensitivity in sensory processing would not experience.

Thus, when we talk about highly sensitive people, we are referring to those who have a highly developed sensitivity in sensory processing.

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What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a person with high sensitivity?

Sensitivity in sensory processing is not a disorder, and in fact, as it has been described, it is neither a good thing nor a bad thing in itself; In any case, it is a characteristic that, depending on the situation, can bring benefits or drawbacks, as happens with many other psychological traits.

The benefits and drawbacks of being a highly sensitive person are summarized below.

Advantages

To what extent sensitivity in sensory processing is a qualitatively different element from the functioning of the nervous system of people without this aspect (instead of a simple quantitative difference, a question of the degree of development of a trait) is a debate not yet resolved. In any case, it has been seen that highly sensitive people are especially well equipped to carry out certain tasks and to solve some problems. So let's see what its advantages are.

1. Helps connect emotionally with others

highly sensitive people they are very predisposed to empathize with others, even with those who do not know anything. In other words, they do not take lightly the consequences that their actions have on the well-being or quality of life of others. This can make it easier for you to establish emotionally meaningful relationships.

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2. Helps detect subtle nuances in the emotional state of other people

In addition to empathizing and caring about what others are feeling, highly sensitive are good at interpreting the psychological states behind the actions of the rest, generating fairly accurate hypotheses about what emotions and moods those they observe experience.

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3. Allows for more creative solutions

As this trait has to do with the processing of information at a rational level and also at an emotional level, these people they are very good at associating concepts and images with each other that apparently have nothing to do with each other, which makes them very suitable for carry out creative tasks, whether related to arts and crafts or linked to philosophy or other ways of creating original ways of interpreting reality.

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Disadvantages

As for the disadvantages, most of them have to do with the fact that in key situations, circumstances can make highly sensitive people feel overwhelmed by what is happening around them, over-stimulated, since at certain times there are too many elements to process and a certain saturation is produced at the level neuropsychological Let's take a closer look at what this implies.

1. It can make it very difficult to deal with crisis situations

The moments in which there is a radical change in the way we should or can live, such as For example, the experience of migrating to another country or suffering the loss of a close family member, they can reach psychologically overwhelm highly sensitive people, because they must face many new situations with strong emotional implications. This means that they often need more help than the average person in order not to be paralyzed by circumstances.

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2. Work environments full of stimulation and/or social interactions can be very complicated

Highly sensitive people have a harder time constantly exposing themselves to environments full of stimuli and the need to constantly interact with other people, some of whom are unknown good. This does not mean that they are shy or necessarily introverted., but the level of mental exhaustion that this lifestyle or type of jobs generates affects their quality of life relatively quickly, since your nervous system remains in a state of high activation for many hours at a time and over several days with few interruptions.

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3. It can lead to insomnia problems

If effective strategies for managing feelings and thoughts are not adopted, high sensitivity makes it easier for people to suffer difficulties in falling asleep, since in those moments of tranquility your mind can keep running at full speed from the memories of what happened over the previous hours.

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Do you want to have psychological or psychotherapeutic assistance?

If you are interested in having the services of a psychologist specialized in intervention in emotional problems or those related to stress and anxiety, please contact me.

My name is Javier Ares and I offer face-to-face and online psychology sessions by video call, both for adults and adolescents, to from the strategies and techniques linked to cognitive-behavioral therapy, Mindfulness and Third Party Therapies Generation.