Highly sensitive individuals (HSPs) have a sensitive nervous system. Thus, they are more strongly stimulated than other people. High sensitivity is innate and about 15 to 20% of the population is highly sensitive. Yet many HSP-ers do not know this about themselves. They often feel they are different but often do not know why. If you discover that you are highly sensitive, then you can better place things and accept that you are different.
Do you recognize the following points?
- Injustice and inauthenticity make you angry
- You are looking for meaning
- You often feel different and sometimes lonely
- You have a distinctive view of things
- You cannot and will not fall in line
- You constantly want to learn new things
- You experience your emotions very intensely
- You would like to contribute something to the world
Why are you more likely to experience burnout as an HSP?
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You experience the world very intensely:
Throughout the day you receive countless stimuli, from people, events or simply from the environment. Where the majority of people may not even notice them, you suck them up like a sponge. As a result, you become overstimulated; you have almost no peace in your head or around you. Responsibilities at work, interaction with people, household chores, news or programs on TV - it all hits you harder and you find it, or thoughts of it, harder to let go. So incredibly exhausting.
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You think of the other person rather than yourself:
You feel other people and situations razor-sharp, so you also know exactly what others expect of you - and you behave accordingly. You focus on the other person and forget to listen to yourself. You are a '
people-pleaser', even though you may think this is not so bad. This is ultimately not sustainable for anyone. You become exhausted and live a life at the service of others, when often you should be choosing for yourself and your own happiness, and your
own limits should pull.
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You are a perfectionist:
As
perfectionist you like to be in control and have a good eye for detail. Visual and mental disorder make you nervous or upset, even if you don't have the time or energy to clean up that inner and domestic mess. You like order and structure, and it feels like failure when you're behind schedule. That constant pressure is debilitating. Even though you know that perfect doesn't exist, you absolutely want to avoid imperfection. Be sure to check out the various
symptoms of perfectionism. It has been shown in research that people with unhealthy perfectionism
Are more likely to experience burnout. The positive news is that you can address this and thereby also avoid your risk of burnout.
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You doubt yourself and your intuition:
Your altruism and drive for perfectionism make it difficult for you to distinguish between what your real feelings are and the energy you take on from others. This upsets your intuition. You are so attuned to the expectations and feelings of others that it influences your decisions. Are your choices still your choices? If you are not authentically yourself, you are living a life that is not yours. And when the distance between you as a person and your authentic self becomes greater and greater, there is a good chance that burnout will strike.
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You experience more stress than others:
In addition to having to process many more stimuli and like to keep control, the stress hormone cortisol is also present in greater proportions in HSPs. Cortisol is produced in the adrenal glands, which are organs that have to work hard to process all kinds of sensitivities (including food sensitivities). This causes cortisol, and thus your stress level, to skyrocket. Prolonged stress and over-stimulation of the adrenal glands can lead to adrenal exhaustion. The symptoms of this resemble those of burnout.
But it's not all bad news for HSPs. The good news is that if you become aware of the above points, and spend time and attention on yourself, you don't have to end up in burnout and you can enjoy the qualities that being HSP brings!
Are you highly sensitive? Then keep this in mind and if you also map out your talents and values, you can live differently with more and energy and will be happier as well. So, high sensitivity does not have to be a highway to burnout. So know your own manual, take enough time for yourself and keep the following tips in mind.
TIPS for dealing with your high sensitivity:
- Take more rest and you will be more productive
- Reserve time alone or seek out nature
- Avoid crowded, competitive environments
- Let go of guilt about who you are. Be yourself and don't conform to others. It is possible that these guilt feelings are also linked to perfectionism. You can work on this as well
- Learn to handle criticism or negative feedback differently
- Learn what is important to you and set boundaries
- Create a pleasant work environment for yourself. See here what you need to function well and not over-stimulated
Need help identifying your use case or putting the tips into practice?
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