Although sensitivity is not the same thing, it often goes along with introversion or even shyness.

[See my post: Shyness, Introversion, Sensitivity – What’s the Difference?]

Actor Scarlett Johansson has commented: “I think I was born with a great awareness of my surroundings and an awareness of other people… Sometimes that awareness is good, and sometimes I wish I wasn’t so sensitive.”

[From post Sensitive to others but staying safe.]

In her article Highly Sensitive People – Sounds, Smells and Sentiments, psychologist Susan Meindl writes that some highly sensitive people are still extroverts.

“Usually these are people who have grown up in supportive extended families where social interaction was a source of comfort and the family ‘ran interference’ protecting them from over-stimulation and anxiety until they had the skills to manage the world themselves.

“They still typically report needing a lot of ‘down time’ to recuperate after social encounters.”

But, she adds, “Highly sensitive children born into less supportive families which do not recognize their special vulnerability and protect them often grow up to be anxious, withdrawn or emotionally avoidant.”

Those are more reasons to take emotional care of yourself – choosing, as much as you can, friends and work situations where you can flourish as a highly sensitive person.

highly sensitive relationships, high sensitivity personality, emotional empaths, empaths and relationships

“An intuitive empath is someone who not only senses energy but also absorbs it from others and the environment. Their body takes on the angst of the world. It can be very draining.

“I’ve been an intuitive empath since childhood which prompted my exploration of this phenomena. I couldn’t go to shopping malls or crowded places because I’d get overwhelmed by the energy.”

Dr. Orloff also notes, “Creative people are extremely sensitive. Neurologically, they are very finely tuned and open to all kinds of energies from the outside, so it’s important they protect themselves and not be overwhelmed.”

From post Emotional Freedom by Judith Orloff – about her book, in which she details ways to help relieve the effects of sensitivity and “free yourself from negative emotions.”

Here is part of a testimonial letter addressed to Virginia Bonta Brown, M.S., O.T.R., Co-founder and President of BioElectric Shield.

“Upon receiving the shield I read the flyer that came along with it and as it specified that most people do not experience much of a response instantly, so I put it on anyway, not expecting to feel a response and to my surprise I felt it instantly.

“There was an instant calmness that I had not experienced in a long time. I felt protected and felt like I had come home to me. Over the years I have become quite an emotional person, being quite sensitive both to devices and to negative and abusive people…”

Continued in Energy Sensitive, Highly Intuitive Australian Woman Experiences Life Again!

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A large number of people who come to us are suffering as highly sensitive people. …

This sensitivity can dramatically impact your ability to cope with the ever increasing chaos and energy in the world today.

I get on the phone many days and the person on the other end starts talking about their challenges, sometimes even saying that they think they are either crazy or just very weak, unable to stand up for themselves. …

Often times people will have varied and mysterious physical symptoms and a wide variety of emotional and mental issues as well.

Physical symptoms can come from the stress of being sensitive to other people’s energy, and also from sensitivity to electromagnetic radiation. Often the two conditions go hand in hand.

> Continued in article Are you Crazy or Are you a Highly Sensitive Person?

[Image: a Spanish poster for The Snake Pit (1948) - Virginia (Olivia de Havilland) struggles with her insanity in a state asylum.]

BioElectric Shield is a new affiliate company for me, and I am just starting to collect articles and other information about their products. The site has a number of research papers on protecting against electromagnetic fields.

Learn more at BioElectric Shield.

You can also purchase BioElectric Shield products at Amazon.

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Have people always called you “too sensitive?”

Do you try to hide it, pretend it doesn’t exist, or work around it as much as possible?

Many Highly Sensitive Souls believe that our sensitivity makes us weak, weird, or different.

Actually, being sensitive makes us highly aware, caring, and perceptive.

In the workplace, the gift of sensitivity may feel like a handicap. As Sensitive Souls, we care passionately about our work and it tremendously impacts our well-being.

I am a fervent champion of work for Sensitive Souls where we can fully contribute and feel deeply satisfied by our efforts. So how is this possible?

> Continued in her article Work that Works for Sensitive Souls: Six Steps to Transforming Your Career.

{Photo: Google office, Zurich – from article Career Planning for Gifted Adults.}

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As a sensitive soul, good energy-management skills are a must.

This means tuning in to yourself on a regular basis and continually reassessing and adjusting what you take on.

It’s a real balancing act.

And sometimes, despite your best intentions, your energy gets drained and you feel out of balance.

The key, then, is to know how to quickly and easily recharge your energy.

Some of why this situation happens is that highly sensitive people are more susceptible to overstimulation than less sensitive types.

Being overstimulated ultimately drains your energy.

You may not notice the drain right away because it can also produce an adrenaline rush, which creates a sense of urgency or even panic that’s hard to shake.

Continued in her article Recharge Your Energy

Jenna Avery is a highly sensitive coach and intuitive who offers these programs:

Self-Study Classes for Sensitive Souls – “These self-study classes are the product of my many efforts to find ways to be a happy, healthy, highly sensitive soul.”

New workshop series: How to Quiet Your Inner Critic So You Can Stop Holding Back On Your Soul’s Mission.

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Highly sensitive people can be considered “weak” “soft” “pathetic” and “cry babies”.

That comes from the following article, and reminded me of when I was a kid in Boy Scouts.

At one of our meetings, some of the other boys got the idea to have some fun by pantsing someone.

I was the chosen victim, and when several boys had grabbed me and pulled my pants down, within less than a minute I was feeling traumatized, and cried.

So the adult scoutmaster stopped the “entertainment.” But I was still called a “cry baby” by one or more of my “friends.”

I really don’t get how this can be considered “fun” – but then, some of the most popular YouTube videos are people being humiliated, according to some news reports.

This image of Johnny Depp is from one of my favorite John Waters movies: Cry-Baby (1990) [trailer].

Also see my video: Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp and other sensitive men.

In her article below, therapist Noreen Barron brings up some of the characteristics that may be affecting us as highly sensitive people – including potential medical and psychological issues.

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Being Sensitive

By Noreen Barron

Highly sensitive people can be considered “weak” “soft” “pathetic” and “cry babies”.

Have you ever been called too sensitive, too nervous, too highly strung, too many feelings, too deep, too analytical, too, too, too…?!

While being sensitive has its advantages, it’s also difficult being “too” sensitive. Sometimes we feel like we feel too much and we’d like to be able to switch our self off sometimes!

I switch off when I become aware and silent. In Italian, the word for sensitive is “sensible”, which means ‘to be aware of’.

Being aware of others, our self, nature, music, beauty, art, being kind to our self and others, treating others as we would like to be treated is being sensitive.

It does not mean fixing everyone, being responsible for everything and everyone, absorbing others’ energies, feeling depleted, feeling bad, feeling overwhelmed, feeling too much of everything and anything!

I think everyone has the capacity to be sensitive, it is a sign of emotional health to be aware of you, others and what is around you.

Being considered sensitive is not the prerogative of a few “chosen ones”. My belief is that being highly sensitive, as it is generally understood, is actually an overloaded and overwhelmed nervous system.

Common signs of being considered highly sensitive are hypervigilance, anxiety, nervousness, digestive problems, restlessness, sleeplessness, anger/rage etcetera.

These signs are strong indicators, not of being sensitive, but of undischarged traumatic imprints on the nervous system.

Energy that the nervous system generates to deal with threat to the organisms survival, and, for whatever reason, is not able to release and discharge, is called the freeze response. It is this frozen energy or imprint that causes these symptoms and that give rise to people being called highly sensitive.

Many highly sensitive people suffer from chronic conditions like IBS, CFS, depression, anxiety, autoimmune conditions and so on because of these repressed or unconscious imprints on the nervous system.

Trauma expert, Dr Robert Scaer calls these, “dis-eases of the freeze response”.

A dis-ease means a lack of ease. One of the most defining characteristics of being termed highly sensitive is a lack of ease. There is a nervous energy that always seems to be humming away in the background, and which can, very easily, be triggered into a ‘bigger’ response.

There are no reserves or what is termed resilience in the nervous system. It’s all just too much and the person often feels overwhelmed by what others can usually take in their stride.

Highly sensitive people can be considered “weak” “soft” “pathetic” and “cry babies”.

They are often shamed and criticized for their “over the top” responses, so they swallow and stuff many, if not all, of their needs, experiences, feelings, thoughts to keep “it all in” and contained, so as not to feel so overwhelmed or criticized by others.

So, an already overloaded nervous system becomes more overwhelmed and eventually this excess undischarged energy may manifest, and usually does, as there is nowhere else for the energy to go, in dis-ease.

EFT helps this frozen energy soften and move so it can be discharged from the overwhelmed nervous system.

Author: Noreen Barron M.A. EFT-Cert1 (Certified EFT Practitioner, Ireland)

EFT Practitioner http://energyandintention.com

Visit my blog http://noreenbarron.blogspot.com for tips, scripts and articles on how to use EFT more effectively.

Article source for links: Being Sensitive

~~~~~~

NOTE by Douglas Eby: Also see my info page(with video) on EFT – Emotional Freedom Techniques.

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The North American (U.S. and Canada) HSMs (highly sensitive males) who reported that they had supportive parents as boys and who played group sports as a boy were “never” or “rarely” teased for being sensitive.

However, the North American HSMs who reported that neither parents were supportive of their sensitivity, and who never played team sports as a boy were “usually,” or “always” teased by other children.

Dr. Zeff found that sensitive boys who participated in team sports had higher self-esteem, and, regardless of physique, were “never” or “rarely” teased.

Most HSMs “always” or “usually” avoided fighting as a boy, and “did not like watching violence on television or in movies.”

Cultural differences

The HSMs from India, Thailand and (most from) Denmark stated that they were “never” or “rarely” teased as a boy for their sensitivity regardless of the variables of supportive parents or participation in team sports.

The HSMs from Thailand and India indicated that they “usually” or “always” had many friends growing up, while virtually all of the HSMs who grew up in North America indicated that they had few if any friends except those who participated in team sports.

Other items from his research include most sensitive boys in all countries indicated they “usually” or “always” thought there was something wrong with them during their childhood, and didn’t fit in with other boys.

They have been intuitive, gentle, responsible, a peacemaker, good at counseling people, and most (94 percent) are heterosexual.

From the news section of his site drtedzeff.com

Books by Dr. Zeff :

The Strong, Sensitive Boy

The Highly Sensitive Person’s Survival Guide: Essential Skills for Living Well in an Overstimulating World

Highly Sensitive Person’s Companion: Daily Exercises for Calming Your Senses in an Overstimulating World

Photo from thaifootball.com

Also hear our audio interview: Dr. Ted Zeff on how people can benefit from being highly sensitive

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Stony Brook University

Building on previous brain imaging research that revealed cultural influences play a role in neural activation during perception, Arthur Aron, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at Stony Brook University, and colleagues, completed a study that suggests individuals who are highly sensitive have cognitive responses that appear to not be influenced by culture at all.

“Our data suggest that some categories of individuals, based on their natural traits, are less influenced by their cultural context than others,” says Dr. Aron.

“The influence of culture on effortful perception was especially strong for those who scored low on the scale measuring sensitivity, but for those who scored high on the measure (highly sensitive individuals), there was no cultural difference at all,” says Dr. Aron.

Continued in article: Highly sensitive people less influenced by culture.

Eccentricity

“When I met her [Scarlett Johansson], OK, she’s 15, but she could easily pass for 30.

“She’s a very attractive girl, but she’s sort of a weirdo. I like that about her.”

- Terry Zwigoff – her director for “Ghost World” (2000) [From "Young heart and old soul" by John Clark, LA Times, Nov 9 2003]

“His confidence [Daniel Radcliffe] has really grown. He’s great company.

“And he’s quite eccentric for his age, really batty. Great taste in music, he got me into some great bands I’ve never listened to before.” – David Thewlis   [from moviehole.net interview] – about his co-star Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – David Thewlis plays Professor Lupin.

Related:

Eccentricity page

post: Einstein and other non-conformists – the creative potential of eccentricity

article: Eccentricity and Creativity by Douglas Eby

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Part of my motivation in researching and creating my series of sites is to better understand a variety of social and psychological issues that affect talent development and creativity – including the issue of mood challenges like anxiety: how it affects people, and what we can do about it.

Elaine Aron, PhD thinks “high sensitivity increases the impact of all emotionally tinged events, making childhood trauma particularly scarring.” [From the post Elaine Aron on High Sensitivity and the Undervalued Self - about her new book.]

That is a helpful concept, I think: that being highly sensitive increases the potency of any experiences with emotional elements.

I just came across a news release about research at Penn State indicating that “Anxiety sensitivity, or the fear of feeling anxious, may put people who are already above-average worriers at risk for depression.”

Andres Viana, a graduate student in psychology, explains, “Those with anxiety sensitivity are afraid of their anxiety because their interpretation is that something catastrophic is going to happen when their anxious sensations arise.”

For more details about this research, see the article Anxiety sensitivity may put people at risk for depression.

The impacts of anxiety

In her book The Highly Sensitive Child, Elaine Aron notes that some sensitive adolescents may drink and use drugs to try to overcome anxiety or depression through self-medication.

Also see my article Gifted, Talented, Addicted.

But even if anxiety doesn’t get so extreme we feel a need to self-medicate or get professional help, feeling anxious adds to our unease and general discomfort with situations and other people – and ourselves.

Dealing with anxiety

In her Spring 2010 newsletter, Jenna Forrest writes (and links to a video) about the Tapas Acupressure Technique (TAT) -  “For clearing emotional pain, traumatic flashbacks, anxiety triggers, and unwanted mental images in 2-3 minutes.”

I don’t know about TAT, but it sounds like EFT – see my post Counselor Rue Hass on using EFT to help highly sensitive people celebrate their positive qualities.

Also see my post Ten Tips For Relieving Anxiety.

I haven’t used either of those techniques, but have benefited from occasional use of the herbal preparation PureCalm, and the Holosync CD from Centerpointe Research, which I have used irregularly for about six months, and find very calming.

~~~~

Video: Being Highly Sensitive – With Anxiety — includes clip: testimonial by Donna Meyers about experiencing shyness and other feelings that may go along with high sensitivity, and about getting relief for her anxiety using The Linden Method [info page on Anxiety Relief Solutions].

~~~~~~~~~~

Related:
Anxiety articles
Anxiety Relief Solutions site

~~~

Photo: Tell Me it’s not True by active metabolite – taking a break

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The term ‘savant’ may be most often used for people such as Daniel Tammet, who is autistic and can recite more than 22,000 digits of pi from memory. [See my post Savant abilities and learning differences relate to developing multiple talents]

In his book Islands of Genius: The Bountiful Mind of the Autistic, Acquired, and Sudden Savant, Darold A. Treffert, MD writes about both autistic and “normal” savants: neurotypical persons who have some savant-like skills and capacities, but without developmental or brain disabilities.

The savant label seems to be mostly used for cognitive abilities like prodigious memory, such as Tammet’s, or calculating the day on which a random date falls, or recalling a name and phone number after memorizing an entire phone directory.

But what about other exceptional sensory processing abilities?

In the 1980′s, Arthur B. Lintgen, M.D. could look at the groove patterns in vinyl records and correctly identify the piece of music.

A TIME magazine article (Read Any Good Records Lately?, January 4, 1982) reported:

Lintgen simply holds a disc flat in front of him, turning it slightly this way and that and peering along its grooves through his thick glasses. After a few seconds he calmly announces, as the case may be, “Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring” or Strauss’s Atpine Symphony,” or “Janacek’s Sinfonietta.”

A passionate music buff and audiophile, Lintgen (pronounced Lint-jen) has been regaling friends with the stunt for five years, ever since being challenged at a party and finding, to his surprise, that he could do it.

He has also been put to the test by skeptical musicians and critics, as well as by James (“The Amazing”) Randi, a professional magician who specializes in debunking claims of “paranormal” phenomena.

Performing recently for a television crew from That’s Incredible! he scored 20 for 20 in a demonstration set up by Temple University Musicologist Stimson Carrow.

[Image: Record grooves under an electron microscope, from the SynthGear blog. The description notes "the little bumps are dust on the record." Click to see it larger.]

he post “vinyl vision” on the The Skeptic’s Dictionary blog by Robert T. Carroll, Ph.D. – author of the book The Skeptic’s Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions – provides a good overview of Dr. Lintgen’s talent, plus links to other articles, and notes, “Once it was disclosed that he used ordinary sense perception, his vast knowledge of orchestral music from Beethoven onward and of recordings of such music, and deductive inference from general rules about such music, the mass media and the public lost interest.”

A New York Times article (A Man Who Sees What Others Hear, by Bernard Holland, November 19, 1981) described his attention to detail.

First, Dr. Lintgen is a dedicated audiophile with an extensive knowledge of the record catalogue past and present. He can identify only music that he knows, and he guarantees a high rate of success only in orchestral music ranging from Beethoven to the present.

Earlier music has a less demonstrable contrast of dynamics, he says, and chamber and solo instrumental music create erratic patterns to the eye. He also prefers newer recordings to the narrower sonic range of early LPs. “I get a lot of these right,” he said. “But I’m much surer within my own limits.”

This range excludes excerpts or suite arrangements, because the length, structuring and order of different movements are part of the doctor’s deductive processes. “I have a knowledge of musical structure and of the literature,” he said.

“And I can correlate this structure with what I see. Loud passages reflect light differently. In the grossest terms, they look silvery. Record companies spread the grooves in forte passages; they have a more jagged, saw-tooth look. Soft passages look blacker. I also know how the pressings of different labels look, so I can often figure out who is conducting.”

Fragrance signature archeology

I was reminded of the Lintgen story, which I heard about some years ago, after listening today to a PRI/The World radio program The sweet smell of literature.

From their site:

In the not too distant future the majority of readers might read their books electronically, on Kindles, iPads, and the like.

In the meantime, though, the paper kind populates bookstores and libraries.

And the older a book is, the smellier it is.

Here is an audio clip from the program, with Alex Gallafent – about how some librarians and conservators are able to detect fragrances from book pages that sometimes indicate age, country of origin and other facts about them.

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