The Secret Superpower of Being Highly Sensitive

Are you a highly sensitive person (HSP)?

Being highly sensitive just means that your brain and nervous system take in more from the environment and process it more deeply, which brings challenges, but also gifts.

The most common challenge for HSPs is overwhelm, especially in our increasingly loud and overstimulating world.

There also are wonderful gifts that often come with being HSP, such as creativity, empathy, and deep thinking.

But the most powerful gift - the HSP secret superpower - is that highly sensitive people react more strongly to everything in their environment, which includes the positive as well as the overstimulating.

At first this finding surprised sensitivity researchers.

They expected to see the negative results of being more sensitive to the environment, but they were surprised to find that the opposite is also true - being highly sensitive makes children and adults respond more strongly to any kind of positive environmental factors as well.

Jenn Granneman and Andre Solo, authors of Sensitive: The Hidden Power of the Highly Sensitive Person in a Loud, Fast, Too-Much World, coined the term “Sensitive Boost Effect,” and describe numerous research studies which show that:

“Sensitive people get a bigger boost from the same things that help anyone.”

This is such great news for highly sensitive people!

Whatever beneficial strategies we can use to create a positive, supportive environment for ourselves will have an even greater effect than those same strategies would for people who are less sensitive to their environment.

This includes our physical environment, social environment, and the environment inside our minds - our thoughts.

All of which is tremendously empowering.

We don’t have to be victims of our sensitivity, we just need to learn strategies that minimize the challenges and maximize the gifts of having a brain/nervous system that reacts more strongly and deeply to all aspects of our external and internal environment.

If you’re curious about where you are on the sensitive spectrum, there is a free quiz you can take at sensitivityresearch.com.

Love,

Liz