Recognizing stress sensitivity

- We all deal with stress in different ways, and how we deal is based on many different factors. These include things like genetic predispositions, early life experiences, and our ongoing lifestyle behaviors. This is actually one of my favorite topics to study and research because our tendency in the past has been to explore groups of people and then share the best practices of what's beneficial for the average or the majority. But when you really look at the data, you find that there's always outliers who are getting missed. So while this gives us a great foundation to learn from, if we're really going to make our practices as helpful as possible, it's important to learn what works for us individually. Now one of the areas I see this showing up most is with our differences in susceptibility or vulnerability to stress. Since I personally started struggling with severe anxiety as a young child, this has always been a focus for me. It wasn't until I learned about research by Dr. Elaine Aron and others looking at stress sensitivity that I realized I wasn't alone in my struggles and that I wasn't broken. It turns out that about 15 to 20% of people have a hardwired, genetically coded sensitivity to stress and stimulation. Dr. Aron pioneered much of this research, and now others, myself included, are expanding upon her ideas. I share this with you because, if you happen to be what Dr. Aron calls a highly sensitive person, you may feel overwhelmed much more often than other people. You may not even realize that your brain and your nervous system process stress and stimulation differently. And it's important to recognize this because, if you are stress-sensitive, you'll need to pay more attention to your daily routine. Getting into all of the details about stress sensitivity is beyond the scope of this course, but I felt it was important to include because it's so connected with feeling overwhelmed. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if most people who are taking this course are actually sensitive because highly sensitive people are also lifelong learners. They tend to be very creative and compassionate. And research has shown that when highly sensitive kids grow up in nurturing families, where their sensitivity is seen as a strength, they do better on scores of intelligence and really thrive in all aspects of life. The challenge is, because of our sensitivity, if we're teased or told not to be so sensitive, if we grow up in homes where there's a lot of stress or tension, or if we end up getting too wrapped up in being a perfectionist, we can really get overwhelmed and exhausted. And this is where overwhelm can easily shift into feeling anxious or panicky, and if it continues for too long, it can cause depression or burnout. So if you think you might be highly sensitive or if you want to learn more about it for someone else, I've provided you with some resources in the exercise files. You can look for the file called Stress Sensitivity. I've also included a few questions you can ask yourself or others to determine if you have this predisposition for feeling overwhelmed. I've also included some quick tips about how to navigate it more successfully. Whether you're stress-sensitive or not, it's good to be aware of our differences so that we can really personalize strategies for dealing with overwhelm in the moment and becoming more resilient to it over time.