Advantages And Disadvantages Of Being A Person With High Sensitivity
Highly sensitive people experience reality in a somewhat different way compared to 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 advantages and disadvantages of being a highly sensitive person
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 emotionally charged experiences
In short, this set of traits makes some people capable of detecting subtle nuances in the stimuli they capture and the implications that this information has about what is happening in the world, how others feel, how it is perceived. oneself, etc. But this detection process is not limited to extracting information that can be reduced to words, but rather 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 highly developed sensitivity in sensory processing.
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 nor a bad thing in itself; In any case, it is a characteristic that depending on the situation can provide 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 (rather than a simple quantitative difference, a question of the degree of development of a trait) is an unresolved debate. In any case, it has been seen that highly sensitive people are especially well equipped to perform certain tasks and solve some problems. Let’s see, then, what its advantages are.
1. Helps connect emotionally with others
Highly sensitive people They are very predisposed to empathize with others, even with those they know nothing about That is, 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.
2. Helps detect subtle nuances in the emotional state of other people
In addition to empathizing and caring about what others feel, highly sensitive people are generally good at interpreting the psychological states behind the actions of others, generating quite accurate hypotheses about what emotions and moods those they observe experience
3. Allows you to find 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 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 perform creative tasks, whether related to art and crafts or linked to philosophy or other ways to create original ways of interpreting reality.
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, overstimulated, since in certain At times there are too many elements to process and a certain saturation occurs on a neuropsychological level. Let’s look in a little more detail at what this entails.
1. It can make it very difficult to deal with crisis situations
Moments in which there is a radical change in the way we should or can live, such as the experience of emigrating to another country or suffering the loss of a close family member, can become 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 to avoid being paralyzed by circumstances.
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2. Work environments full of stimuli 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 they do not know well. This does not mean that they are shy or necessarily introverted but the level of mental exhaustion generated by this lifestyle or type of jobs takes its toll on your quality of life relatively quickly, since your nervous system remains in a highly activated state for many hours in a row and throughout several days with few interruptions.
If effective strategies for managing feelings and thoughts are not adopted, high sensitivity makes it easier for people to suffer difficulties falling asleep, given that in those moments of tranquility your mind can keep running at full speed from the memories of what happened during the previous hours.
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