Hi everyone, my name is Aditi Gupta.
I am a HSP coach, healer and a YouTuber and today we are going to discuss who is an HSP. So we will understand what is high sensitivity and what it is like being a highly sensitive person.
Who is a HSP?
This term was coined by Dr. Elaine Aron in 1996.
Highly sensitive person is someone with an increased sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) to social, physical or emotional stimuli, meaning they have heightened awareness to subtle stimuli and feel emotions more intensely than others.
So you can also say highly sensitive person is a high sensory person or they have high sensory intelligence. 15-20% of the total population are HSPs and this trait is inherited. It is by birth, like there are introverts and extroverts there are HSPs. So this is not a disorder. This is not something you need to fix. It is a personality trait and Dr. Elaine Aron has over 30 years research and they have also found that more than 100 animal species also have 20 percent of their species as highly sensitive so if you average out all of this and consider all the species on planet earth then it’s about 20-25 % or even 30 % of the whole animals humans and every species are highly sensitive so this is a scientifically backed personality trait and it is too many to consider it like a disorder yeah because 100 species of animals also have this besides humans so it is proven that it is a personality trait not a disorder or something that you need to fix.
Let’s understand sensitivity a little more.
What is sensitivity?
We can understand sensitivity more by this acronym called D.O.E.S. in which D stands for depth of processing.
So HSPs are deep feelers and deep thinkers. What does that mean? When you think about, so many people are overthinkers, right? But not many people will be deep thinkers.
When you’re overthinking, you’re just overthinking a particular scenario and it comes out of fear. But deep thinking is when you analyze a situation on various levels and you go into depth about it. So HSPs think very deeply on subjects that they like.
Many of them can be philosophers, scientists and good at analysis because they love finding out trends, patterns and things.
And also they are deep feelers and have very complex emotions sometimes because they’re feeling multiple things at the same time that is what is what you mean by depth of processing.
Then O stands for overstimulation. Overstimulation you can understand like you can imagine a scale and at one tip there is boredum and other tip is overstimulation right and then in the middle you have optimal level of stimulation where you are feeling good right so everyone has this but for hsps the window is very small so they can easily go from boredom to overstimulation so they have to take particular care of themselves and have a very strict self-care routine so that they don’t go unbalanced a lot because they can easily get overstimulated and especially since we are in the age of social media and there are so many distractions you can get easily overstimulated and you are if you are not connected to nature if you are not taking care of yourself. You are just surrounded by all this technology, radiations and distractions everything so it is very easy to get overstimulated even for a non-hsp. So that is a downfall uh or you can say a weakness of their sensitivity overstimulation they can get easily overstimulated.
Then E stands for emotional sensitivity. Many HSPs are empaths. Now here I would like to you to understand the difference between empathy and being an empath so empathy is when you try to understand the other person’s perspective you put yourself in their shoes and you actually are trying to understand them deeply it’s different from sympathy where you show them sympathy for the situation but empathy is where you are actually trying to understand the situation from their point of view.
Now an empath is when you actually feel what they are feeling so as an empath because I am also an empath I actually feel the sadness which the other person is feeling.
I remember there was my friend who is chill. She’s very jolly on the surface. But she was really sad underneath. But we didn’t talk about it. So when I hugged her, actually felt so many emotions, so much darkness. And it was like a big...black cloud I felt at that time and it was like i was feeling so depressed but I could understand that this is not my emotion because i’m okay i was feeling okay. But suddenly this all these emotions came to me when I hugged her so i understood that it is her feelings and she is actually really depressed right now.
So that is what it is like being an empath. You actually feel what the other person is feeling and if you don’t have strict boundaries and you are not self-aware, you sometimes also take in other people’s emotions and make them your own. So you absorb other people’s emotions.
So many hsps are also empaths which is a very big superpower, one of their strengths because of this they understand people so deeply they are very compassionate kind souls. They can be very good coaches, counselors, therapists and they will they have strong intuition. It is a big superpower if you know how to work with this strength.
Then S stands for sensory sensitivity. So sensory sensitivity you can say our senses are more heightened. That does not mean my eyes will be more sharper than a non-HSP, but I will perceive more than a non-HSP. So if I am observing my surroundings I will observe more things. I would pay attention to more details. I will be able to categorize into 10 different things instead of 2. So that what it means by heightened sensory processing or sensory sensitivity. Many HSPs do wear specs or glasses but what i’m trying to say is that being a HSP doesn’t mean you have sharp senses but it does mean you have a heightened perception of the reality so sometimes the things people miss you will notice. You may have vivid memory, you remember more details when you see a thing. So many HSPs also have a very rich inner life, are very imaginative they are visionaries.
Let’s discuss some science behind the HSP and Non-HSP brain because it’s very easy to just dismiss that high sensitivity is not true that this is not something you should acknowledge in yourself or other people.
But it is scientifically proven, there are three differences in the HSP and Non-HSP brain based on research.
* Research suggests that HSPs have a heightened mirror neuron system, meaning their mirror neurons are more active than those of others. This increased activity contributes to their heightened empathy and emotional sensitivity. It gives them the ability to pick up on what others are thinking and feeling. Everyone of us has mirror neurons in our brains but if you are hsp mirror neurons have heightened activity and because of that they are more emotionally sensitive and they are able to pick up on people’s moods their expression small changes in people’s expressions.
* Another difference is how their insula works. So HSPs have more activity in this is the part of the brain that integrates movement to movement knowledge of inner senses, emotions, bodily positions and other events. So there is a greater activation in insula due to which HSPs is noted subtle cues in people’s facial expression, body language, be deeply moved by music or art or feel a strong sense of it. so what it means is the same as we discussed sensory sensitivity. You can imagine it as our antenna more active so it is taking a lot more information than usual so it’s taking more frequencies and we are more open to receiving more information xo we are able to process more because our insula is more active and it’s noticing everything. So that’s why it can lead to overstimulation as well.
* And lastly, there is the gene difference, difference in the gene of a HSP person as well. They have a gene variant in the neurotransmitter called the neuro. Neonoprenfine is a transmitter that helps the body with the stress response and is also linked to emotional vividness. This variant is what amplifies the emotional vividness and the perception of how HSPs experience life along with an elaborate emotional enhancement. Okay, so, they see life in full color, they are very imaginative. They are dreamers, they love to dream and be in the head a lot.
Your sensitivity is your superpower and this is what it means to be a highly sensitive person. Sensitivity does not mean that you are weak or shy or fragile or whatever has made you feel flawed.
Yes, you are different but that does not mean you are less.
You are different.
But that does not mean you are less.
Remember the opposite of sensitivity is insensitive. Being insensitive. Which is not a good thing, right?
So own your sensitivity. And live the life you were meant to be.
I’m going to discuss how trauma can also make you sensitive. But it is different than what high sensitivity or sensory processing sensitivity is.
So we will talk about it in the coming week. But thank you for watching today’s video.
And do leave a comment below by commenting a heart leaving a heart in the comments below if you stick with me till the end of this video.
If you want to find out that if you are a highly sensitive person, if you are curious, then you can take the test. You can take the test by Dr. Elaine Aron on her website and see if you are a highly sensitive person. Link - https://hsperson.com/test/highly-sensitive-test/
Thank you.
Bye.
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