9 signs you're a highly sensitive person and how to embrace it (2023)

FAQs

9 signs you're a highly sensitive person and how to embrace it? ›

Highly sensitive people may be more affected by certain situations such as tension, violence, and conflict, which may lead them to avoid things that make them feel uncomfortable. You might be highly touched by beauty or emotionality. Highly sensitive people tend to feel deeply moved by the beauty they see around them.

Highly sensitive people may be more affected by certain situations such as tension, violence, and conflict, which may lead them to avoid things that make them feel uncomfortable. You might be highly touched by beauty or emotionality. Highly sensitive people tend to feel deeply moved by the beauty they see around them.

Sights, sounds, smells, and other forms of sensory input may cause a heightened experience for HSPs. A sound that is barely perceptible to most people may be very noticeable, and possibly even painful, to an HSP. There's more to being a highly sensitive person than just being sensitive to stimuli.

To the rescue of emotions

HSPs, therefore, need a lot of empathy and understanding, as well as space to express their much stronger emotions. According to Elaine Aron, a psychotherapist dealing with highly sensitive issues, such people tend to cry more than others and are unable to express what they feel.

Most highly sensitive people display rare strengths in key areas of emotional intelligence, also known as emotional quotient (EQ) — the ability to recognize and understand emotions in themselves and others. These strengths including self-awareness and social-awareness.

Overall, sensitivity is a heightened “ability to perceive, process, and respond deeply to one's environment,” which means sensitive people absorb more sensory information (often unconsciously), think more deeply, and find more interconnections among disparate things than less sensitive people typically do.

Someone who knows how to have an authentic connection — they like deep conversations about feelings, emotions, and aspirations. Superficial relationships made up of small talk hold no value to highly sensitive people.

The introverted (I) intuitive (N) types (“INs”)—INFJ, INFP, INTJ and INTP—are among the most “sensitive” of the personality types. This is especially true of those who are more turbulent than assertive.

The three subtypes of highly sensitive people include Aesthetic Sensitivity (AES), Low Sensory Threshold (LST), and Ease of Excitation (EOE). Before we explain what each of these means, it's important to note that HSPs can fit into more than one subtype, each subtype has its own characteristics.

How do you fix a highly sensitive person? ›

When highly sensitive people (HSPs) confide about love, there is notable depth and intensity. They fall in love hard and they work hard on their close relationships. Yes, sometimes non-HSPs sound similarly enthralled and confused by love, but on the average, HSPs have a more soul-shaking underlying experience.

Highly sensitive people (HSPs) need daily downtime that is alone, unstructured, and unplugged.

One of the main reasons that HSPs might feel lonely is that their interactions and relationships are lacking substance — and our constant sense of being an “outsider” only makes this worse. Unless we can stop withdrawing and get the meaningful interactions we crave.

HSPs' emotions are extra vivid due to a part of the brain called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). The vmPFC is involved in emotion regulation, especially the vividness of emotions. The emotional vividness is not of a social nature (unlike mirror neurons).

Due to traits of their personality, heightened empathy or childhood conditioning, many highly sensitive people have repressed anger, and do not know how to deal with their emotions healthily.

2. No, we don't read minds, but do read emotions. The word “empathic” is used often in highly sensitive people, but that doesn't mean we can read minds. We have a higher sense of the emotions we and others around us feel.

Feeling things very deeply

An HSP may be very sensitive to other situations and other people's feelings. A child that is an HSP may cry a lot, and that may be their emotional response to a bunch of different unpleasant feelings (anger, frustration, sadness, stress).

Most HSPs need at least 8 hours, and many sleep over the average -- 9 or 10 hours nightly. If you're not getting enough sleep you WILL burn out and edge towards depression, anxiety and become less capable of functioning.

How do highly sensitive people deal with criticism? ›

Take a mental step back and assess the situation before responding. This will help you process the criticism and form space for you to think clearly. You can also choose not to react at all. You might think you're the one who's done something wrong but that's not always the case.

The 5 Love Languages (Chapman, 2015) include: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch. Words are powerful for HSPs, who tend to replay conversations over and over again.

Groups of HSPs are nearly always compassionate, empathetic, and able to move forward toward goals that have been negotiated by everyone and mutually agreed upon. As a psychologist, I recognize these behaviors as examples of emotional intelligence.

Sensitive people have a higher likelihood of having low self-esteem. As a highly sensitive person, you may have learned to hide the depth of your emotions or your propensity to become overwhelmed.

1. ESFJ. People who fit the ESFJ personality type can usually be recognized by their big hearts and kindly manner. ESFJs are warm and welcoming and their love of tradition means they value good old-fashioned manners highly.

#1 Most Sensitive Type: INFJ

They are incredibly sensitive to suffering and are unable to just turn away from someone who is in pain. They tend to experience sadness about the cruelty they witness in the world which can lead them to have isolated periods.

Seeing the world through another person's eyes is central to the experience of being a highly sensitive person (HSP). There is now a documented, replicable fMRI study showing that HSPs demonstrate stronger empathy than do others in tests involving reactions to images.

Highly sensitive people are easy to love and easy to live with—as long as you understand our unique needs. They say we can't help who we fall in love with, which I think is true. So you may very well fall in love with a highly sensitive person (HSP).

Why is it hard to date as a HSP? ›

For HSPs, who exist in a world that doesn't always understand our needs and neurodivergence, dating can be especially overwhelming. The uncertainty makes the process inherently risky, especially for people who experience feelings on a more intense level than most.

1. Jealousy. The dictionary defines jealousy as "feelings of worry over the potential loss of something valuable." In business, experiencing jealousy is fairly common, but those feelings are amplified if you're a highly sensitive person.

An HSP can be fulfilled in their relationships even if they have only a few close friends, so long as those friends are a good match for the HSP's unique needs. An ideal friendship for an HSP is a truly meaningful one. We thrive on strong, solid, and deep connections.

HSPs thrive on love and affection.

For the highly sensitive person, emotional support and affection aren't just nice — they're necessities. Because they easily pick up on the moods of others, expressions of caring are important (like a hug or kind words) because it creates a sense that all is well in the relationship.

You may not be able to change the fact that you are highly sensitive, but you can absolutely change your lifestyle and habits so that you're less affected by those stressors you can't control. After a while, this approach will become second nature and you will feel more resilient toward stress in general.

There is often a misconception that highly sensitive people have low self-esteem, as if the two are one and the same. But high sensitivity does not cause low self-esteem, nor are highly sensitive people born feeling insecure.

Most HSPs are empaths, and vice-versa, but this is not necessarily the case. Additionally, many confuse both of these traits as introversion. About 70% of HSPS are introverts, meaning a good number are actually extroverts. However, an introvert is not necessarily highly sensitive or an empath.

Many HSPs are happy, confident people who have managed to use their sensitive qualities to their advantage. But there are also HSPs who struggle with how they feel about themselves, not as a result of their high sensitivity, but as a consequence of living in a less than sensitive world.

Can HSP control their emotions? ›

As HSPs learn to embrace their sensitivity, they'll easily be able to regulate their emotions by stating their needs rather than trying to fit in with the 80 percent non-HSP culture.

Highly sensitive people (HSPs) tend to get overwhelmed or over-stimulated because they “process more information from their environment and from within than others do,” said Jean Fitzpatrick, LP, a psychotherapist who specializes in working with HSPs.

As it turns out, there is research on this innate trait of high sensitivity. The scientific term is “sensory-processing sensitivity" (SPS). Highly sensitive people are born that way; it is not something they learned. As children, they might be described by teachers as shy or inhibited, especially in Western countries.