Content

• To step
• Part 1 of 3: Explore your feelings
• Part 2 of 3: Examining your thoughts
• Part 3 of 3: Taking action
• Tips

Emotional sensitivity is healthy, but at some point it can turn out to be bad for you. Learn to control your strong emotions so that they become your ally instead of your enemy. Hypersensitivity can lead you to misinterpret things as offensive or annoying. Misinterpreting constructive daily interactions can cause you to lead a less happy life. Compensate for your sensitivity with common sense, confidence, and resilience so that you no longer overreact.

To step

Part 1 of 3: Explore your feelings

1. Realize that hypersensitivity is part of you. According to neurologists, our ability to be emotionally sensitive is tied to our genes. About 20% of the world population is highly sensitive. This means they are more aware of small incentives that most people don't even notice. They also experience these stimuli much more intensely. This increased sensitivity is linked to a gene that affects the hormone norepinephrine. Norepinephrine is a stress hormone that also acts as a neurotransmitter in your brain as a trigger for attention and reactions.
   • Sometimes emotional hypersensitivity is linked to oxytocin, the hormone responsible for the feeling of love and connection between people. Oxytocin can also cause emotional sensitivity. If you naturally have higher amounts of oxytocin, your innate social reasoning skills may also be increased. This in turn makes you more sensitive to noticing (and possibly misinterpreting) even the smallest signals.
   • Different societies react differently to very sensitive people. In many Western cultures, very sensitive people are often mistakenly seen as weak or people without inner strength. They are also often bullied. But it is not seen that way everywhere. In many cultures, very sensitive people are seen as gifted. Such sensitivity makes it possible that you have a very great ability to perceive things and therefore you can understand other people better. Something that is just a trait can be seen in many different ways depending on your culture, your gender, your family environment, and the type of school you attend.
   • While it is possible (and important!) To learn to regulate your emotions, you also need to learn to accept that you are a naturally sensitive human being if you are. You can learn to react less quickly to things, but you can never become a completely different person and you shouldn't try to. Just become the best version of yourself.
2. Test yourself. If you are not sure whether you are hypersensitive, you can test it yourself. You can do an online test, for example. If you google emotional sensitivity test, you will immediately find a few. These types of tests can help you reflect on your emotions and experiences.
   • Don't try to judge yourself while answering these questions. Answer honestly. Once you know exactly how sensitive you are, you can focus on better regulating your emotions.
   • Remember, this is not about how you think you should be. Answer honestly. Whether you are a sensitive person or a person who thinks he or she is more sensitive than they really are.
3. Examine your emotions with a journal. Keeping a journal of your emotions can help you better research and monitor your emotions and reactions. It will help you recognize the things that trigger an overemotional response in you. It will also help you recognize when your responses are appropriate.
   • Try to write down what you're feeling right now and then work back to find out what triggered your feelings. For example, do you feel concerned? What happened to cause this? You may learn from this that small events can elicit great emotional responses in you.
   • You can also ask yourself questions such as:
     • How am I feeling now?
     • What happened to make me feel this way?
     • What do I need when I feel like this?
     • Have I felt like this before?
   • You can also time your writing moment. Try writing “I feel sad” or “I feel angry”. Then turn on a two-minute timer and write down everything that is connected to that feeling in your life. Don't stop writing to judge or change your feelings. Just list them.
   • When you're done, take a look at what you've written. Can you discover patterns? The emotions behind the reactions? For example, anxiety is often caused by fear, sadness from loss, and anger from feeling attacked, and so on.
   • You can also further investigate a particular event. For example, someone on the bus looked at you in a way that you perceived as being judgmental about your appearance. This can hurt you or it can make you feel angry or sad. Try to think about two things: 1) you don't know what that other person was thinking about, and 2) how other people think about you doesn't matter. That dirty look could be about something completely different. And even if it was a judgmental look, that person still doesn't know you. He or she doesn't know about the many things that make you great.
   • Be kind to yourself while you're writing. Don't judge your own feelings. Remember that while you may not have control over how you felt, you can control how you respond to your feelings.
4. Don't label yourself. Unfortunately, very sensitive people are often insulted and called names. They are referred to as posers or pisses. It is even worse when these insults are then used by other people to describe a person. After a while it becomes easy to label yourself that way. And then you no longer see yourself as a sensitive person who does indeed cry sometimes but just isn't crying 99.5% of the time. When you do this, you focus entirely on one aspect of your personality (which may be problematic) until you begin to define yourself as this little piece of yourself.
   • Change negative labels by renaming them.Take the label, remove it, and now look at the situation in a broader way.
   • For example, a teen is crying because of a situation and an acquaintance standing by mumbles "whiner" and walks away. Rather than internalizing this, she thinks, "I know I'm not a whiner. Yes, I sometimes respond emotionally to certain situations. That means I sometimes cry while less sensitive people shouldn't have to cry. I'm working on it. "To respond in a more socially acceptable way. Insulting someone who is crying is a silly thing to do. I care enough about people not to do that to someone."
5. Identify what triggers an emotional response. You may be well aware of what triggered your hypersensitive reaction. Maybe you don't know this. Your brain may have developed a pattern of automatic responses to deal with certain situations. After a while, this pattern becomes a habit until you eventually immediately react in a certain way to an event without even thinking about it. Fortunately, you can retrain your brain and learn new patterns.
   • The next time you experience an emotion such as panic, fear, or anger, try focusing on your senses. What do your five senses perceive? Don't judge your experiences but keep an eye on them.
   • This is called self-observation and it can help you to distinguish the different sources of information and thus better analyze experiences. Often times we feel overcome by an emotion and cannot tell the mix of feelings and perceptions apart. Calming down and focusing on individual senses and keeping these different sources of information apart will help retrain the habits of your brain.
   • For example, your brain can respond to stress by increasing your heart rate. This can make you feel restless and nervous. Knowing that this is just your body's normal response will make it easier to interpret your different responses.
   • Keeping a diary can also help with this. Whenever you feel yourself reacting emotionally to something, write down when you became emotional, what you felt, what your senses experienced, what you thought, and the details of the circumstances. With this information you can train yourself to react differently.
   • Sometimes sensory experiences such as being in a particular place or smelling a familiar scent can trigger an emotional response. This is not always hypersensitive. For example, she could be that if you smell the apple pie scent you get sad because you and your grandmother used to bake apple pies and she is now dead. Recognizing this response is healthy. Stay aware of it for a moment and consider why it is affecting you. “I feel sad because I always really enjoyed baking cakes with my grandmother. I miss her." Then, once you've respected your feelings, you can move on to something more positive: "I'm going to bake an apple pie today to commemorate her."
6. Consider whether you might be co-dependent. You are in a codependent relationship when you feel like your self-esteem and identity depend on the actions and reactions of someone else. You may feel like the purpose of your life is to make sacrifices for your partner. You may feel totally down when your partner disagrees with what you are doing or how you feel. Co-dependence is common in romantic relationships, but it can occur in any relationship. The following are signs of a codependent relationship:
   • You feel like your satisfaction with your life depends on a particular person
   • You recognize unhealthy behavior in your partner but you still stay with him / her
   • You go extremely far to support your partner, even if you have to put your own needs and health in second place
   • You constantly worry about the status of your relationship
   • You are not well aware of your limits
   • You feel really bad when you have to say no to someone
   • You always respond to the feelings and thoughts of others by agreeing with them or by becoming very defensive.
   • Co-dependence can be treated. Professional psychological help is best, but there are also group programs you can follow.
7. Take it easy. Exploring your feelings, especially the areas where you are sensitive, is hard work. Don't start too soon. Psychology has shown that stepping out of your comfort zone is necessary to grow as a person, but doing too much too quickly can even have negative effects for you.
   • Try making an appointment with yourself to examine your sensitivities. For example, examine them for 30 minutes every day. Then, when you are done with the emotional work for the day, do something relaxing or fun.
   • Watch for when you avoid thinking about your emotions because it is uncomfortable or too difficult. You often procrastinate because of fear. We fear an experience will be unpleasant so we don't do it. Remind yourself that you are strong enough to do this and then do it.
   • Set achievable goals for yourself if you are really having a hard time working on your emotions. Start with 30 seconds if that is feasible for you. You just need to think about your feelings for 30 seconds. You can. When successful, you can do another 30 seconds. All those small achievements make it easier for you to continue working.
8. Allow yourself to feel your feelings. Trying to get rid of your hypersensitivity doesn't mean you shouldn't feel anything right away. Denying or suppressing your emotions can actually do more harm than good. Find a good balance for your feelings.
   • Give yourself a safe place and time where you can say whatever you feel. For example, if you are grieving a loss, give yourself time each day to express your feelings. Set a timer and write about your feelings, cry or talk to yourself about your feelings. Do what you have to do. When the timer has ended, you can continue with the rest of your day. You will feel better because you have expressed your feelings and given them a place. That way you don't get stuck in the same feeling all day long. That can be bad for you. When you know that you have a safe time and place where you can express everything, it is easier to just carry out your daily tasks.

Part 2 of 3: Examining your thoughts

1. Learn to recognize the cognitive distortions of your brain that may make you hypersensitive. Those distortions are useless habits, thoughts and reactions that your brain has taught itself. You can learn how to identify and address these distortions when they happen.
   • These deformations often do not happen alone. As you examine your thoughts, you will often find that you experience several of these distortions in response to a single feeling or event. You will learn which responses are useful and which are not if you take the time to research them.
   • There are many different forms of these deformations. Some of the most common distortions that cause emotional hypersensitivity are personalization, labeling, using sentences in which you say what you should or should be able to do, reason emotionally, and jump to conclusions.
2. Recognize and change personalization.Personalization is a common distortion that can cause emotional hypersensitivity. When you personalize something, you see yourself as the cause of something when it may have nothing to do with you or is out of your control. You can also take things personally while it actually has nothing to do with you.
   • For example, you may interpret criticism that a teacher has of your child as criticism directed against you. “Dana's teacher thinks I'm a bad dad! How dare she call me a bad parent! ” This interpretation can cause you to have a hypersensitive reaction because you see criticism as someone who blames you for something.
   • Instead, try to look at the situation logically (you have to practice this so don't get impatient). Examine exactly what is happening to you and what you know about the situation. For example, when Dana's teacher tells Dana to pay more attention in class, she's not calling you a bad father. She gives you information that you can use to help your child with school. It is an opportunity to grow. You do not have to be ashamed.
3. Recognize and change labels.Tagging is a kind of "all-or-nothing" mindset. It often happens in conjunction with personalization. When you label yourself, you generalize yourself based on an event or action. You do not recognize that what you do is not the same as who you are.
   • For example, you may start to see yourself as a "failure" or a "loser" if you get a bad mark for an essay. If you label yourself as a “failure” it means you feel like you're never going to get better so you don't have to try anymore. It can lead to feelings of guilt and shame. This also makes it very difficult for you to accept constructive criticism. You see any form of criticism as a sign that you are a "failure".
   • Instead, see mistakes and challenges as specific situations from which you can learn and grow. Rather than seeing yourself as a "failure" when you get a bad grade for an essay, you can learn from your mistakes and the experience. Think, “Okay, I didn't do this essay very well. That is disappointing, but it is not the end of the world. I will ask my teacher how I can do better next time. "
4. Recognize and change sentences with “should”. Phrases in which you use “should” are often bad because they try to get you (and others) to meet often unreasonable demands. They are often created based on ideas that come from outside and are often not really important to you at all. If you don't stick to a “should” phrase, you can punish yourself for it. This decreases your motivation to change things even more. These ideas can cause feelings of guilt, frustration and anger.
   • For example, you may say to yourself, "I really should be on a diet." or "I shouldn't be that lazy." You try to make yourself feel guilty so that you take action. But feelings of guilt really don't work well as motivation.
   • You can change “should” sentences by examining where they come from. For example, do you have to go on a diet because others have told you to? Because the standards in society make you think you should look a certain way? These are not healthy or good reasons for doing something.
   • But if you feel that you should do a diet because you've discussed it with your doctor and you agree that it would be good for your health, you can change your "should" into something more constructive. For example, think, "I want to get healthier so I'm going to eat better to take care of myself." This way you are not too judgmental about yourself and you use positive motivation to achieve your goals and that is ultimately much more effective.
   • “Should” phrases can also cause emotional hypersensitivity when used against other people. For example, you may become frustrated if you have a conversation with someone who may not respond the way you want. For example, if you tell yourself she should be more enthusiastic about what you are telling her, you may feel disappointed if she doesn't do what she “should” be doing. Remember that you have no control over other people's feelings or reactions. Try not to expect specific reactions or actions when talking to someone.
5. Recognize and change emotional reasoning. When you reasoning emotionally, you assume that your feelings are facts. This distortion is very common, but if you work on it, you can learn to recognize it and you can do something about it.
   • For example, you may feel hurt if your boss points out a few mistakes in a big project you just finished. If you reason emotionally in this situation, you assume that your boss is being dishonest because you are experiencing negative feelings. You may assume that because you feel like a "failure" you are a worthless employee. These assumptions don't make sense.
   • To stop emotional reasoning, you can write down some situations in which you have experienced negative emotional reactions. Then write down the thoughts you had. Now write down the feelings you experienced after these thoughts. Now find out what the real consequences were in the situation. Are they the same as what you felt was "reality"? You will often find that in the end your feelings weren't good proof at all.
6. Recognize when you jump to conclusions too quickly and change this. Jumping to conclusions too quickly is a lot like emotional reasoning. If you jump to conclusions too quickly, you cling to a negative interpretation of a situation without any facts to support your interpretation. In extreme cases, you can go on and on until you come to the worst possible outcome of a situation.
   • “Reading minds” is a way of jumping to conclusions that can lead to emotional sensitivity. When you read thoughts, you assume that people think negative things about you without having any proof.
   • For example, you might think that if your partner doesn't text you right away when you ask her what she'd like to eat, she's ignoring you. You have no evidence for this, but you can feel hurt or even angry because of this.
   • Predicting the future is also a form of jumping to conclusions. This is when you predict that things will turn out badly whether you have proof or not. This is, for example, when you do not propose a new project at work because you assume that your boss is going to say no.
   • An extreme form of jumping to conclusions is assuming that something is going to be disastrously bad. For example, you may think that if your partner doesn't respond to your message, she is angry with you. After that you think she doesn't want to talk to you anymore because she has something to hide like she doesn't love you anymore. After that, you think your relationship is falling apart and you end up alone in your mother's basement. This is an extreme example, but it does show well what "logical" things you can assume when you jump to conclusions.
   • Stop reading thoughts by talking to people openly and honestly. Do not start accusing but ask what is going on. For example, ask your partner if there is anything they want to talk about. Believe her when she says no.
   • Stop predicting the future and assuming the worst by thinking logically about every step of your thought process. Do you have evidence for your assumption? Is there any evidence for what you are thinking? Often, if you think carefully about your thoughts, you will find the moment when you take a step for which there is no evidence. If you practice this well, you will become better and better at preventing this.

Part 3 of 3: Taking action

1. Meditate. Meditations, especially mindfulness meditations, can help you regulate your emotions and reactions. It can even help make your brain less likely to respond to stressors. Mindfulness focuses on acknowledging and accepting your emotions in the moment you experience them without judging them. This is very helpful in reducing your emotional hypersensitivity. You can go to a class, do a guided meditation on the internet or you can learn mindfulness meditation yourself.
   • Find a quiet place where you will not be disturbed or distracted. Sit upright on the floor or in a chair. When you are slumped, breathing is more difficult.
   • Start by focusing on a part of your breathing such as the sensation of your chest rising and falling or the sound your breath is making. Focus on this part for a few minutes while breathing deeply, evenly.
   • Expand your focus to more of your senses. For example, focus on what you hear, smell or feel. Keeping your eyes closed helps. We get easily distracted when we see things.
   • Accept the thoughts and feelings you are experiencing but don't see anything as "good" or "bad". It helps in the beginning if you express or think them consciously. For example, say or think: "I feel that my toes are cold." or "I feel distracted."
   • If you feel distracted, return your focus to just your breath. Meditate for about 15 minutes a day.
   • You can find guided mindfulness meditations on the internet. and BuddhaNet.
2. Learn to communicate assertively. Sometimes people experience emotional sensitivity because they don't communicate their needs or feelings clearly to others. If you are too passive in your communication, you will find it difficult to say no and you will not express your thoughts and feelings honestly and clearly. Learning to communicate assertively helps you express your feelings and needs clearly to others. This allows you to feel heard and validated more.
   • Use I phrases to express your feelings. For example, say, "I felt hurt when you were late for our appointment." or "I prefer to leave too early if I have an appointment because I get nervous if I may be late." This will avoid people thinking you blame them and only focus on your own emotions.
   • Ask questions when you have a conversation with someone. Especially if it is an emotional conversation, it is useful to ask questions so that you find out what people really mean and prevent you from reacting too strongly. For example, when the other person has finished talking, ask, “I heard you say this_____. Is that right?" Then give the other person the opportunity to explain further.
   • Avoid using "categorical imperatives." Words such as “should” or “should” make moral judgments about other people's behavior that can make it seem like you are blaming or demanding something from them. Rather say "I want" or "I want you." For example, instead of "You have to remember to put the trash can out," say "I want you to remember to get rid of the trash or else it feels like I have to take all the responsibility."
   • Don't make assumptions. Don't assume you know what's going on. Ask others to share their thoughts and experiences. Use sentences such as, "What do you think about this?" or "Do you have any suggestions?"
   • Recognize that other people have different experiences.Arguing about who is right can make you feel over-stimulated and angry. Emotions are subjective. Remember that there is usually no right answer when it comes to emotions. Use phrases like "I experienced that differently," and acknowledge the other person's emotions so that you make room for everyone's experiences.
3. Wait to respond to things until you cool down. Your emotions can change your reactions to situations. You may regret it later if you overreact to things. Give yourself a break, even if it's just for a few minutes, before doing anything in a situation that has made you very emotional.
   • Ask yourself a "if ... what" question. "If I do this now, what will happen next?" Think of as many consequences, both positive and negative, of your behavior as you can. Then see if the action is worth the consequences.
   • For example, you may have just had a really big fight with your spouse. You are so angry that you think you want a divorce. Take a break and ask yourself the "if ... what" question. If you say you want a divorce, what happens? Your spouse may be hurt or think you don't love him / her. He or she may think back to it later and take it as a sign that he or she cannot trust you when you are angry. He or she can agree if he or she is in his or her own anger. Are these consequences worth it?
4. Be nice to yourself and others. You may start avoiding certain situations because they stress you out or you find them uncomfortable because of your hypersensitivity. You can avoid relationships or only enter into superficial relationships because you think every mistake is disastrous. Be nice to yourself and others. Take the best of people. Especially from the people who know you personally. If someone hurt you, don't immediately think it was on purpose. Think with people and try to understand them and know that anyone, including your friends and family, can make mistakes.
   • If you are hurt, express it assertively and talk to your friend or family member about it. He or she may have no idea that you have been hurt and if he or she loves you, he or she will want to know how to avoid hurting you in the future.
   • Don't criticize the other. For example, if you were meeting someone for lunch and that friend forgot, don't say, "You forgot me and it hurt me." Instead, say "I felt hurt when you forgot our date because the time we have together is important to me." Then invite your friend to share his or her experience. For example, ask if something is going on and if he or she wants to talk about something.
   • Remember, people may not want to talk about their emotions or experiences. Especially when something just happened. Don't take it personally if your friend or family member doesn't want to talk right away. It is not a sign that you have done something wrong. He or she just needs some more time to process his or her feelings.
   • Treat yourself the same way you would treat a friend or loved one. If you weren't talking to a friend in a hurtful or judgmental way, why would you talk to yourself like that?
5. Seek professional help if you need it. Sometimes you can work very hard to control your emotional sensitivity, but you can't do it yet. Working with a professional in this field can provide you with a safe and supportive environment in which to further explore your feelings and reactions. A trained professional can help you discover negative thinking patterns and teach you how to deal with your feelings in a healthy way.
   • Sensitive people may need extra help to deal with negative feelings and emotional situations. This is not necessarily a sign that you are not mentally healthy. It only helps you develop skills to sustain yourself in this world.
   • Lots of people get help from mental health professionals. You don't have to be mentally ill or have experienced something terrible to benefit from help from therapists or psychologists or other counselors. These are healthcare providers, such as dentists, opticians, general practitioners or physiotherapists. Although mental health care is often treated as a taboo and as something other than the treatment of, say, arthritis, a cavity or an injury, it benefits many people.
   • Some people also believe that people should just learn to deal with it and just be strong. This belief can be very bad. While you should of course do what you can when it comes to your emotions, getting help from someone else can be very helpful. With some illnesses such as depression, an anxiety disorder or bipolar disorder, it is not physically possible to do anything about it yourself. When you seek help, you are not weak. It shows that you take care of yourself.
   • Most care providers are not allowed to prescribe medication. But most care providers know when it is time to refer you to a psychiatrist or doctor who can diagnose you with an illness such as depression or an anxiety disorder and then treat you for it.
6. High sensitivity can be due to depression or other ailments. Some people are very sensitive from birth. That is noticeable from the moment they are a baby. This is not a disease and there is nothing wrong with it. It's just a trait. But if someone was never very sensitive and suddenly becomes very sensitive, tearful, or easily irritated, it could be a sign that something is wrong.
   • Sometimes hypersensitivity is a sign of depression and can cause a person to be overpowered by feelings (sometimes negative but sometimes also positive).
   • Chemical imbalance can cause hypersensitivity. For example, a pregnant woman can react very sensitively. A boy in puberty can also be an example of this. Or a person with thyroid problems. Some medications or treatments can also cause emotional changes.
   • A medical professional can help you find out if you are depressed. Diagnosing yourself is easy, but in the end it is better if a professional finds out if you are depressed or if your hypersensitivity is caused by other factors.
7. Be patient. Emotional growth, like physical growth, can take a long time and be uncomfortable. You learn by making mistakes. Setbacks and challenges are necessary to grow.
   • Being hypersensitive is often more difficult to deal with as a young person than as an adult. The older you get, the more you learn to deal with your feelings and the more valuable skills you learn.
   • Remember not to act without gathering as much information as possible first. Otherwise, it is like going for a walk in an unfamiliar area after looking at a map very briefly and not understanding it. You don't know enough about the area to walk through here safely and you will almost certainly get lost. Explore the map of your mind. This will help you develop a better understanding of your sensitivities and how to deal with them.

Tips

• Understanding and compassion for your imperfections reduces shame and increases your empathy for others.
• Don't feel compelled to explain your fears to everyone to justify certain actions or emotions. It's totally okay to keep this private.
• Deal with negative thoughts. Negative internal dialogue can be very bad. If you find yourself criticizing yourself too much, ask yourself how someone else would feel if you said those things to them.
• Emotional triggers are purely personal. Even if you know someone who has the same response to the same topic, it still doesn't mean they will be affected in the same way. It really is not the same for everyone.