A highly sensitive person can quickly detect dangers in their social environment. Their tolerance for being offended is lower. As a result, they are frequently described as being oversensitive and having thin skin by others.
High sensitivity appears to be influenced by both environmental and genetic factors. Highly sensitive people tend to be introverts and those with high neuroticism scores.
Early childhood trauma makes a person’s nervous system more sensitive to dangers in their social environment. Consequently, having a high threshold for stimuli helps a person recognize and react to social threats.
This article will discuss the benefits and drawbacks of high sensitivity as well as suggestions for becoming less sensitive.
Table of Contents
Pros and Cons of High Sensitivity
One of the most fascinating types of people is the highly sensitive person. Some of their positive qualities include:
1. Feeling Things Deeply
People who are highly sensitive have lower thresholds for stimulation, making them more susceptible to stimulation. To process information and avoid being overstimulated, they require time. They have the capacity to explore topics in greater depth than others might.
This explains why books and movies have a greater impact on highly sensitive people. While others may be like “Yeah that was a good movie”, good art transforms highly sensitive people. Likewise, songs and music have a greater impact on them.
2. High Self and Other Awareness
Overly sensitive people are acutely aware of both themselves and other people. They engage in a great deal of self-disclosure and show a keen interest in the thoughts of others. They can interact with people more readily as a result. They have a natural capacity for empathy and sympathy.
3. Intuitive
Their high levels of self and other awareness have led to this. They have a better sense of intuition than the average person. They listen to and value the advice provided by their intuition. Compared to the average person, they are able to place more emphasis on intuition when making decisions.
4. Passionate
People with high levels of sensitivity seek out activities that will make them feel good. They make decisions that others may view as “irrational” in their career and relationships because they are emotion-driven.
Now let’s look at some cons of high sensitivity:
1. Being Thin-skinned
Highly sensitive individuals are vulnerable to injury, as was previously mentioned. They might perceive social dangers where none exist. A non-threat may be perceived as a threat due to their high sensitivity, which does help them detect subtle social threats that others cannot.
2. Unable to Control Emotions
People who are highly sensitive often struggle to restrain their emotions. In many situations, it’s preferable to keep one’s emotions under control. People who exhibit excessive emotion are seen as weak. People with high levels of sensitivity are aware of this and constantly battle it. It encourages them to look for information on how to be less sensitive.
3. Unable to Handle Criticism
an indication of sensitive individuals. As a result of their persistent defensive mode, their brains interpret criticism as personal attacks rather than constructive criticism.
4. Overthinking
The ability to think things through is given to someone who is highly sensitive, but this gift comes at the expense of overthinking things they shouldn’t focus on. For instance, they might put off getting work done at the office because they spend too much time rearranging their desk. Their attention is drawn to the specifics by nature.
How to Be Less Sensitive
Following are the strategies you can try to tone down your emotional responses and ‘become less sensitive’ in your own eyes and in the eyes of others:
1. Learn Self-Acceptance and Self Compassion
The more you struggle against your sensitivity and the situations that set it off, the more oversensitivity you exhibit. You need to learn to love yourself and accept who you are as you are while concentrating on becoming less sensitive.
So how can we do it?
Here are self-acceptance statements for HSPs:
- “There’s nothing wrong with me being sensitive.”
- “Someone might call me “reactive” or a “crybaby” and that’s okay. Although I personally wouldn’t describe myself in such terms, I can say that I am a very sensitive person.”
- “I’ve come to realize that my high level of sensitivity helps me be a better friend and perceive the world more fully. I do recognize, though, that at times it can be overwhelming for others.”
- “As is common for highly sensitive people, I frequently experience emotional triggers from a variety of situations. Nevertheless, I’m making progress toward more balance by learning to become less sensitive.”
- “As an HSP, I’m trying to become less reactive, but I can never completely change who I am because I wouldn’t want to. The best version of myself is all I want to be.”
You must have empathy for yourself and treat yourself as you would a friend while accepting who you are as an emotionally sensitive person. By doing so, you can quickly pick up effective techniques for controlling your emotional sensitivity for increased productivity.
2. Practice Assertive Communication
Speaking up with confidence while still being respectful of others is known as assertive communication. We all want that, don’t we?
However, highly sensitive people tend to go aggressive or suppressive on their emotions. If you’re one of them, you can confirm either of these statements:
- It can be difficult to express your feelings to others because you don’t want to offend them. You frequently feel misunderstood, unheard, or underappreciated.
- You frequently react excessively to situations.
- Because you don’t know how to express your needs without making a scene, you avoid conflict altogether.
This way of life is so annoying, don’t you think? There is, however, a better approach.
You can start handling conflicts like a pro without having to change who you are if you communicate with someone in an assertive manner. And here are tips to help you out:
- Use “I” instead of “You” statements: For instance, instead of, “You’re always on your phone while we’re supposed to be having just “Us” time!” say, “When you check your phone nonstop while we’re together, I usually feel abandoned and unappreciated.” powerfully makes the point while being less confrontational.
- Validate other people’s needs and your own: Take your time to analyze highly sensitive situations and come up with validating statements such as, “Unfortunately, I learned about this too late and have to meet my family for dinner. I am aware that you need the work finished by tomorrow.”
- Practice working out win-win solutions: For the example above for instance you can add, “What if I come in the morning and work on the project?”
- Letting go will help your body language and tone of voice to match.
By reading our article on assertive anger, you can find out more about assertive communication.
3. Use This Rare Insight to Stop Obsessing over What Others Think
Since you pick up on the majority of details in your stimuli, you might be much more aware of passive aggression and disapproving looks than someone with low sensitivity.
However, there is a drawback to this quality. You end up obsessing over what other people think of you, which worsens your sensitivity and lowers your self-esteem.
However, you need to realize we’re all affected by the spotlight effect – the tendency to overestimate how much people notice and remember about our looks and behavior. Therefore, the looks you receive do not necessarily indicate that those nearby are watching your every move. They don’t recall your mistakes nearly as well as you believe.
So when tempted to ruminate on some thought that people are thinking ill of you because of your hyper-sensitivity, remember you’re probably being fooled by the spotlight effect and that just as you’re thinking of how people are viewing you, others are thinking about themselves and therefore don’t have time to think about you.
May this realization set you free.
4. Learn to Take Time Outs
Directly entering a situation that is emotionally charged only serves to increase rather than lessen your sensitivity.
So, in order to respond to something rationally, you must first calm down. Timeouts not only assist in calming down overly sensitive emotions but also in assisting in situational analysis for a more thoughtful response.
Walk away from the situation whenever you feel angry or like you’re about to do something crazy. You may need to make an excuse to use the restroom, simply explain that you need some time to think or take any other necessary action to step away from a situation.
After some practice using time outs, you can master smart emotional sensitivity for better emotional well-being and healthier relationships
5. Remove the Labels
“Why can’t I stop crying already? I’m such a whiner!”
“I’m a sissy, and everyone is right. Why do I have to act like such a sensitive man?”
When you’re annoyed by your excessive sensitivity, you’re aware of the labels you give yourself. And these labels don’t help you at all; they just make you feel bad. And instead of making you more sensitive, these feelings make you overly sensitive.
You must get rid of them because of this. You have to tell yourself:
- “I’m just extremely sensitive, not a crybaby, a whiner, a freak, or a failure.”
6. Learn to Hide Your Emotions
When I realized that reducing your emotional response is more about hiding than controlling, I changed the title from “Learn to control your emotions” to “Learn to reduce your emotional response.” Our emotions being triggered is something we can’t really control.
We do have some degree of control over how we choose to express our emotions. Even if you are offended, you don’t have to show it through your words, body language, or facial expressions.
If you don’t show it, nobody will know you’re feeling emotional. You have the ability to silently and internally feel your emotions. Feelings should only be expressed when necessary. You’re not repressing your emotions if you feel them in private. You are aware of them but decide not to voice them.
If you repeatedly engage in this behavior, your body will eventually become neutral while your mind experiences a conflict. As the mind dislikes inconsistency, this may eventually cause you to have a lower threshold for the offense. It wants our emotions to be conveyed through our physical movements.
When you decide not to express your emotions, your mind becomes less likely to trigger you because it is less likely to do so.
7. Delay Your Emotional Reaction
Delay your response whenever you feel emotionally triggered. Although I am aware that it is difficult, with enough practice, you will become proficient. Whenever your mind pushes you to be emotional, say to yourself, “Okay, let’s see what this is all about”.
You want to postpone your emotional response to giving yourself time to consider it. Your emotional response might turn out to be unjustified after careful consideration.
When your girlfriend doesn’t respond to your texts right away, for instance, you might become upset. Delaying your response will give you time and space to think before you lash out at her. Eventually, you might come up with a more realistic alternate explanation, such as:
“She is currently studying.”
You can better understand situations from the viewpoint of another person if you hold off on your emotional response. You’ll probably discover if you do that that their motivations had nothing to do with you.
8. Use Reflection Breaks to Process Your Interactions
Reflection is the main approach to dealing with interactions between highly sensitive people. With reflection, you can:
- Discover the reality of the situation rather than the distorted reality formed by emotions
- Understand why you felt certain emotions
- Understand the other person’s perspective
- Help you know what you need to improve on
- Help you come up with the best way to work out a situation
This is why you need to take reflection breaks whether:
- During an emotionally charged situation (i.e you can excuse yourself to the bathroom and reflect on the situation you’re dealing with in real-time)
- After a situation (you can reflect on how you carried out an interaction so you can improve on being less sensitive)
- Following the day, you can reflect on how you performed and monitor your emotional sensitivity.
To evaluate how you’re doing with your goal of being less sensitive, you can do self-reflection on a daily, weekly, monthly, and so forth basis. Journaling can make it much easier to process information and keep track of your emotional health.
9. Welcome More Criticism
Being defensive when criticized is a common trait of those who are highly sensitive. But the brutal truth is that the thing that scares you most is the thing you need to face most if you want to overcome your insecurities and control your emotions better.
Here’s how you can welcome criticism more and leverage it to become less sensitive:
- Separate your mistake from your identity: When someone criticizes you for something you did, take a step back and see the mistake for what it is rather than making it your identity. You can avoid personalizing situations by doing this.
- Analyze the criticism by putting yourself in the critic’s position to try and understand it from their point of view.
- Inquire: Where you don’t understand, inquire for clarification to get the most out of criticism. This enables you to stop assuming it is a personal attack and enables you to recognize when the criticism is unjustified.
- Set goals for improvement: Even if you feel bad, the best way to accept criticism is to create a change action plan.
- Did someone give you amazing feedback? If so, request more helpful criticism. Furthermore, this invites more sincere feedback rather than hate comments, which increases your confidence and lessens your sensitivity.
10. Avoid Taking Things Personally
People have a tendency to overreact. This tendency is worse in those who are extremely sensitive.
They can “more effectively” defend themselves against imagined threats by constantly being on the defensive and taking things personally. But a lot of times those threats are just that- perceived.
It is generally not advisable to assume that someone has malicious intent based on isolated incidents. They’ll keep acting badly toward you if they truly want to hurt you. Prior to declaring someone your enemy, always gather more information.
11. Challenge What Offends You
This also has to do with facing your fears.
Many people with high levels of sensitivity make the mistake of staying away from anything that makes them feel uncomfortable, like conflict. While this is beneficial in some ways, it doesn’t encourage growth in many areas.
You have to ask yourself,
- “Why do I hate it when this person does X”
- “Why do I feel more emotional around Scott?
- Dana gives me that look, and I wonder why I react defensively.
Knowing your own personal triggers for offense enables you to identify and address insecurities, which makes you less sensitive to things.
12. Stop Exaggeration in Its Tracks
Exaggeration is a blessing and a curse for those with high levels of sensitivity.
Highly sensitive individuals frequently overthink relatively unimportant issues due to their vivid imaginations because they are able to see through many lies, discern many meanings from others’ words, and sense many things that the average person cannot. They are stressed and anxious because of this tendency, though.
So, if you notice your mind starting to think negatively about something you don’t know, stop it.
13. Explore Your Emotions Without Judgement
If you’re an HSP, you probably have the propensity to repress your emotions because you evaluate yourself based on them. However, this makes you more sensitive.
Just sit and pay attention to your feelings as if you were a child taking in the world for the first time, especially when you are reflecting.
Accepting your emotions because they reveal your worldview is the goal of non-judgmental emotional exploration. Avoid telling yourself, “You should feel X” but instead with compassion say, “You are permitted to feel that way.”
When you are aware of how you are feeling, you can then work to ascertain why you are feeling that way.
14. Celebrate Yourself
You probably need to be less sensitive if you frequently try to win people over with compliments and feel hurt when they don’t notice you or when they give you negative feedback.
Get your own approval first, and then enjoy it, rather than trying to win others’ approval.
- You must congratulate yourself on your qualities and accomplishments.
- You need to take a break and just take care of yourself
- You need to practice self-care in all its forms
- You need to do stuff that makes you extremely happy just for you
Celebrating yourself gives you enough self-assurance that you won’t need to be sensitive about receiving or rejecting validation from other people.
15. Confidently Embrace Your Progress in Patience
Finally, it takes time to become less sensitive.
You’ll be successful in many endeavors, but some will be extremely difficult (such as those that require restraint, which is easier said than done). Instead of aiming for instant perfection, you must accept the clumsy process.
When you crumble like before, it might seem as though you’re not moving forward some days.
But believe me when I say that it will be worthwhile to take each step you take in using these techniques to become less sensitive. that you are moving forward with each step you take.
And keep in mind that while being sensitive isn’t a bad thing, having trouble controlling your emotions is risky. These techniques will help you better control your extremely sensitive nature.
With patience.
FAQs
What Causes a Person to Be Too Sensitive?
High sensitivity is thought to have genetic roots, and some specific gene variants have been associated with the trait. However, the environments of early childhood may also be important; research indicates that early experiences may have an epigenetic impact on the genes linked to sensitivity.
I want to stop being so sensitive, but how?
Although controlling how sensitive you typically feel is possible, it can be challenging to stop someone from being overly sensitive. By lessening how much you concentrate on other people’s needs and how much you allow their behavior to affect you, you can stop being so sensitive.
How do I manage my feelings in a relationship?
You must believe in your own self-sufficiency and tell yourself that you can manage your emotions without a man in order to control your feelings in a relationship. You won’t let what your partner does negatively affect you if you keep this in the forefront of your mind.
What Are the 8 Signs of Being Highly Sensitive?
8 Signs You May Be a Highly Sensitive Person:
- You seem very sensitive. …
- You’re incredibly kind and giving. …
- You take criticism very personally. …
- You occasionally feel alone and different from everyone else. …
- You are susceptible to outside stimuli. …
- You fret and overthink. …
- You’re intuitive. …
- You frequently feel worn out and overburdened.
How Do You Date a Highly Sensitive Person?
First, you must realize that he cares deeply about you and that you shouldn’t abuse his affection for you if you want to date a highly sensitive person. He most likely prioritizes your needs over his own and will go to any lengths to keep you content. The drawback of dating a highly sensitive person, however, is that he may become so overwhelmed that you will also feel overwhelmed by extension.
Is Being Sensitive a Weakness?
Not all of your weaknesses come from being sensitive. The majority of the time, even though sensitivity can sometimes become overwhelming for both giver and receiver, it feeds intuition, which can spare you from a lot of pain if you don’t give in to how you feel.
The Bottom Line
Remember that the goal of these techniques is to help you control your sensitivity so that you can make and take more emotionally neutral decisions and actions, not to completely transform you.
Your potential is limitless, you just need to put in some effort to reach it.
Therefore, which tactics do you believe would be most effective for you? Please share with us in the comments section below. In order to change lives, don’t forget to share this article with the HSPs in your circle.
Thanks for reading!