As aHighly Sensitive PersonI always felt like my brain never stopped. And that, even when I'm at rest. If I understand how my hypersensitive brain is resting (or not resting instead) I would find a suitable solution. My name is Paul and myHigh potentialAnd my hypersensitivity was detected more than ten years ago now. Today, I share what I learned through my blogConnect The Dotsto help young people discover and better accept.
So in a previous video that I made we talked about what's happening in the hypersensitive brain when in motion. How it works when you're awake and there's an emotion that happens. And then I wondered what happens when the brain is at rest. So it's not necessarily when you sleep, but when there's less emotional load rather.
NB: This article is the transcript of the above video.
Scientific study on the hypersensitive brain
To do this, to answer it I found a study of the journal called Neuropsychobiology which was conducted by several scientists, including Bianca Acevedo. It is fairly known in the universe of hypersensitivity. She is a researcher at the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Santa Barbara, and she is the author of a well-known book on hypersensitivity which is "The Highly Sensitive Brain". Then why this study and not another one? Why is she very important? This is because usually the brain's responses to external stimulation are observed. And there they observed what happens at rest, when the brain is not stimulated. We really see how sensitivity impacts the brain at rest, later, after stimulation. And that's never before seen.
The experimental protocol
Before we go further, I'll tell you a little bit about the experimental protocol. How did they experience them? They first passed on to volunteers ahypersensitivity testto give them a hypersensitivity score to (after) compare those who were not and those who were, to have a scale after to be able to compare. You can also have a free one below if you wish.
Once the volunteers had their test and score, they were shown photos of happy, sad or neutral events. And then, once they showed them these photos of events, they showed them photos of emotional faces. It was either the faces of their partners, or they were unknown faces.
Then, once they had seen all these photos and emotionally strong events, they had to count. They were sent from a large number and they had to count backwards 7 by 7. 100... 93... 86... and so on. It allowed them to focus on something other than emotions. Try to count seven by seven backwards, it's not necessarily super obvious. That way, scientists said it would "reset" their emotions and make them think of something else. It should be noted that this technique (to tell or think about something else) is fairly regularly used in the scientific world.
Then they put all these people in MRIs to see what was happening in their brains.
Results
So they noticed in the results, that there were three important things, or three main things.
1- Hypersensitive patients have deep treatment at rest
The first is that in the most hypersensitive people sensory data are processed in depth and for a long time. That is, areas associated with emotional treatment were still active, whether it was an hour, a day or a month after the moment of emotion. The emotional charge stays there, and it is always analyzed constantly. The more hypersensitive people, the more active these areas were. Acevedo herself, Bianca Acevedo the scientist, concluded on this part that the brains of hypersensitive people do not rest. Emotional treatment is all the time, do it, constantly.
2- Hypersensitives have greater connections to memory
The second thing they noticed was that the more hypersensitive the person, the higher the score, the more interactions between two parts of the brain that are the precuneus and the hippocampus. And this interaction between these parts is used for consolidation and recovery of memories. So what we can conclude is that hypersensitive people use their memory more easily and anchor sensory and emotional information in their memory. When you have an emotion, you will find it easier to get memories related to that emotion. And above all, we're going to get this emotion into our memory more intensely.
3- Hypersensitive people are more stressed
And third point: so we had seen that the more hypersensitive people were the more they had connections between the two previous parts. There, on the contrary, the more hypersensitive they are and the less there is interaction between several things. There is less interaction between the amygdala and the periaqueductal grey. This circuit is a circuit that is crucial to regulate anxiety and pain. There is also less connection between the insula and the hippocampus. And this connection is involved in managing stress and treating emotions. Acevedo concluded that hypersensitive people are more stressed and stimulated than others. That explains why hypersensitive people are usually more stressed and emotionally stimulated. So we're going over the results that I mentioned in the study of the previous video.
Applications
So what can we conclude from this study for hypersensitive people?
Hypersensitivity makes it more reactive
Unsurprisingly, hypersensitive people are more reactive in general. In this study, although participants had an activity where they had to count things to try to reset the emotional load a bit, their brain continued to process the information. This is certainly why it is often said that hypersensitive people need more rest. In fact, they are more overloaded with things that less reach other people.
Hypersensitive people are more stressed
Second point: hypersensitive people are more affected by emotional situations and all events that will have implications for empathy and stress.
Take the time to rest (and not feel guilty)
Third point: it is already known that hypersensitive brains are more active during periods of activity, they are also more active even at rest. As a result, it is necessary to use this information to understand each other better and to deculpabilize when you feel that you need to rest. I can feel very quickly exhausted when he's had a lot of people around me all the time. So I needed, after a social moment, to ask myself to be alone. And this study allows me to "deculpabilize" this because it's just that I take more time to process all the information I've had about empathy and all my emotions. We have hypersensitive hangovers and we really must not hesitate to rest, to take time for ourselves.
Hypersensitivity exists
The next point, which I think is very important, is that there is growing scientific evidence that hypersensitivity exists. We're not just complicated people as I see on some articles. It's something that exists.
Learning to rest
And finally, you have to learn to rest. It's not all about having moments of rest. During our rest, we are still treating the emotions we had before. So it's important and we have to give ourselves time. But we must also learn to rest so that our rest moments are truly relaxing. For this (yet speaks very regularly) I recommend meditation. Try even two minutes a day and you gradually increase. Frankly, it's madness!
Conclusion
There. A small sentence to conclude is that overall this study still confirms that the hypersensitive brain treats sensory information in depth (no surprise!). We finally put scientific evidence on what we feel so it's more like super news is a great thing. You really have to learn to rest because our brain, of itself, is not wired to rest. Find your thing, I'm talking about meditation, it could be drawing, whatever you want. But find your thing and learn to rest.
Sources:
- Acevedo B., Aron A., Aron E., Marhenke R., Santander T., (Neuropsychobiology),Sensory Processing Sensitivity Predicts Individual Differences in Resting-State Functional Connectivity Associated with Dept of Processing, 2021
