High Sensitivity or Anxiety?
Here’s the million dollar question… is there a difference between high sensitivity and anxiety?
Short answer: yes. These are two very different things. High sensitivity is related to deeply processing information and stimuli, while anxiety is caused by fear-based thoughts and emotions, High sensitivity is an innate neurobiological trait, a deeper way of understanding the world.
Longer answer: While they are not the same, there can be overlap. You can be highly sensitive and also be anxious.
Some common reasons that a highly sensitive person might feel anxious are:
deep awareness of physical sensations
overthinking
prioritizing others at expense of own needs
overstimulation from too much sensory input
Let’s talk about these in a bit more detail.
Deeply Aware of Physical Sensations
Many typical physical sensations can mirror the experience of anxiety as felt in the body. Pizza last night didn’t agree with you? An upset stomach can mimic anxiety, which so often involves our gut. Being overly warm in a stuffy room is another physical state that mimics some aspects of anxiety. If you’re really aware of physical sensations, as highly sensitives tend to be, it can be easy to overthink the cause of a sensation or to misattribute it to anxiety.
Picking Up Signals
Since those with the trait of high sensitivity tend to be deep thinkers, empathetic and highly attuned to their own (and sometimes other people’s) physical sensations and emotional shifts, this can easily lead to feeling overwhelmed and anxious.
Sensitives are neurologically wired to prioritize noticing verbal and non-verbal cues. There are studies to indicate that brain activity is more heightened in highly sensitive brains when looking at other people when compared to non-sensitive folx. This deep awareness, consciously and subconsciously, can result in self-doubt or overthinking social interactions. It can also look like second-guessing someone else’s motives or inner experience. For example, a highly sensitive person might notice that the person they’re talking to looked away for a second, and may interpret this as lack of interest in the conversation. It’s more likely that someone less sensitive might not even notice this subtlety. Sensitives and empaths tend to overextend themselves because they are acutely aware of other’s feelings and may try to avoid a situation where they anticipate someone will be upset.
Overthinking It
Sensitive people analyze situations, their experiences and feelings from all sides. This leads to the interesting and often insightful perspectives that sensitives are known for, but can easily lead to overthinking and difficulty making decisions. Sensitives are deep thinkers by nature, which is great for creative solutions at work, not so fun at 1:00 am when laying in bed wide awake theoretically preparing for apocalyptic scenarios. Overthinking decisions is a common issue many HSPs face, reading allllll the Amazon reviews for hours for fear of making the wrong choice.
Sensory Overload
Sensory input might not be something most of us consider much. For highly sensitive people, levels of sensory input can be the difference between a decent day and feeling completely overwhelmed. This varies by person, but common sensory stimuli that can easily feel overwhelming include: loud noises such as sirens, concerts, children crying and alarms, pungent smells, bright or fluorescent lights and sometimes clothing that is scratchy or not breathable. It can be hard to identify feeling overwhelmed by too much going on, especially if you’re used to a busy schedule. People with high sensitivity often feel really drained by the end of the day and find they need more recharge time than others. This is not a bad thing, however, if recharge time isn’t happening, it can lead to burn out and anxiety due to elevated levels of cortisol (a stress hormone).
So there you go- no, being highly sensitive and anxiety are not the same, but there are many reasons why a highly sensitive person might also experience anxiety. This can range from occasional, situational anxiety to typically feeling highly anxious. It’s important to consider lifestyle choices as a HSP and how they may impact some of the areas we talked about in this post.
