What is High Sensitivity and how does it impact your life?

Around 20-30% of people are highly sensitive, including me and – since you are reading this – potentially you or someone you know as well.

High sensitivity is often talked about as if it was a disorder, but it isn’t. Sensitivity is actually just a personality trait that exists on a scale and HSPs (HSP = Highly Sensitive Person) are simply more sensitive in a number of ways than people with average or low (or everything in between) sensitivity.

Research suggests that sensitivity is impacted by genetics. Still, it is also dependent on a variety of other factors, such as upbringing or experiences.

Highly Sensitive Person

According to Dr. Elaine Aron, who coined the term “Highly Sensitive Person” in 1996, there are also different aspects of sensitivity:

Overstimulation (response to external stimuli)
Sensitivity to Positive Experiences (how deeply you experience positive things, even small ones)
Social Sensitivity (empathy)
Depth of Processing (depth of thinking and reflection)
Emotional Reactivity (how strong your emotions are, even in seemingly small matters and how you respond to the emotions of others)
Sensitivity to Details (awareness of environment)

Dr. Aron created a test as well to see where you are on the scale of high sensitivity and also in each of these aspects.

https://hsperson.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/New-Self-Test-PDF.pdf

But I think you don’t have to score high on each of these categories in order to be highly sensitive. I scored average overall sensitivity, but my scores in “Overstimulation” and “Depth of Processing” are pretty high and my “Social Sensitivity” score implies high sensitivity in that area as well. However, I am incredibly bad at noticing details and didn’t score so high on “Positive Experiences” and “Emotional Reactivity” either. So I personally think this is very nuanced and even if you are only highly sensitive in one area, it can still have an impact on your life.

Common Traits of HSPs

Let’s get to common traits in highly sensitive people (which are however not universal for all HSPs).

affected by external stimuli

This would be the overstimulation part. Highly Sensitive People can get quickly overwhelmed by loud noises, bright lights/colours, strong smells or other external stimuli. Especially busy environments, crowds or situations where too many things happen at once can be challenging.

overwhelmed by having to do multiple things at once

Multitasking is no fun as someone who is highly sensitive. As soon as I have to do more than 2 things at once, I get SO slow. At some point, my brain just completely ignores a few tasks and focuses very deeply on only one automatically, no matter how simple the tasks may be.

This is a trait that introverted people have as well. Just like HSPs, they quickly lose energy when being around other people and need a little time to prepare mentally before going to a social event or meeting up with friends. I like meeting up with friends as long as I know beforehand, but if anyone should ever consider throwing me a surprise party: Don’t.

empathy

HSPs are often very sensitive to other people’s feelings and emotions, but how deep this goes depends on the person. Some people can recognise and understand very quickly how another person feels and some are deeply affected by other people’s feelings, even when that person is no longer present. HSPs are also likely to adopt the mood of people in their environment.

REALLY hating violence

I would guess that most people hate violence (although watching the news does make you doubt it), but when you are more sensitive, you often get physically ill when hearing about violence or being otherwise confronted with it, even when there is no blood or wounds. HSPs also have the tendency to be emotionally affected by violence for a long time.

rich inner world

During my research, I frequently read that the “inner world” or HSPs is vivid and active. They tend to have realistic dreams, think very deeply about things and usually have an ongoing inner monolog (to anyone reading this who does not have an inner monolog: Please let me know what it’s like, I’m curious!). In my opinion, this is one of the best parts of being a highly sensitive person: Put a white wall in front of me and I can stare at it for hours just thinking without getting bored.

further possible traits

moved by art
scaring easily (because nervous systems are constantly dialed up)
taking things personally and feeling hurt easily
physical symptoms (e.g. headaches) when stressed or overwhelmed
lower pain tolerance
sensitive to what they wear (texture of fabrics)
noticing details
deeply affected by conflict
disliking change

Why being highly sensitive is great

It can be difficult to deal with heightened sensitivity sometimes, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its upsides!

Being this in touch with your emotions can really help with self-reflection and getting to know yourself. HSPs are often also very creative and appreciate beauty more than people who are less sensitive. I also find that personal relationships can benefit, because you understand others better and tend to know what they need (even though you can’t get it right all the time).

The brain of a highly sensitive person also spends more time interpreting things, which can help understand art as well (I was killing it in school whenever I had to write an interpretation of a poem).

So even if I do have my struggles, I wouldn’t want to lower my own sensitivity level one bit.

How to live with high sensitivity

To be honest, I am still figuring a lot of this out myself, but here are some things that help me in everyday life:

getting enough sleep and staying hydrated (sounds basic, but is often overlooked and it helps you to stay calm in stressful situations)
journaling (I think I wouldn’t be able to cope with all the thoughts in my head without actually writing them down. I always carry my journal with me too so that I can write stuff down if I want to)
earplugs/noise cancelling headphones (always in my bag)
deep breaths whenever you start feeling overwhelmed
phone on greyscale (I don’t have it entirely on gray, but definitely strongly reduced colours)
keeping environment tidy (I normally don’t mind a bit of chaos, but when stuff comes up and I get stressed and then my room is messy, it just overwhelms me even more, so I try to keep it tidy to begin with)
brown noise when your mind gets too busy

That’s it for today, I hope this helps and if you’ve got any more tips or experiences, let me know 😊

See you next week!