There's good news if you are a highly sensitive parent – you usually make very good parents. You might be more sensitive to things 4. But it also means that you recognize what makes your child special and unique. You can sense your child's needs and respond quickly.
The positive traits of people that are highly sensitive include emotional awareness, empathy for others, the ability to pick up on small cues that others miss, dedication to fairness and justice, passionate and innovative thinking, and an ability to demonstrate good leadership through valuing others.
A highly sensitive person is very in tune with their environment. They are often deeply empathic, intuitive, and good at reading others. They are highly observant, thoughtful, and intentional.
Although high sensitivity is genetic, there's not just a single gene that causes it. In fact, scientists have increasingly found that personality traits are based on a whole collection of genes, not just one or two. That's true of traits as different as introversion and intelligence.
However, there are also benefits to being highly sensitive, especially in the right environment or with support. Some advantages include having a rich inner life and showing increased empathy. Being highly sensitive can also offer strengths in relationships and depth in processing information.
Highly sensitive people may be more affected by certain situations such as tension, violence, and conflict, which may lead them to avoid things that make them feel uncomfortable. You might be highly touched by beauty or emotionality. Highly sensitive people tend to feel deeply moved by the beauty they see around them.
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships. The good news is that highly sensitive people aren't more or less emotionally intelligent than others.
Gifted people are usually also highly sensitive and intense. They are more aware of subtleties; their brain processes information and reflects on it more deeply. At their best, they can be exceptionally perceptive, intuitive, and keenly observant of the subtleties of the environment.
Living with High Sensitivity
HSPs may struggle to adapt to new circumstances, may demonstrate seemingly inappropriate emotional responses in social situations, and may easily become uncomfortable in response to light, sound, or certain physical sensations.
Complex Trauma and Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)
Trauma affects highly sensitive and intense people more intensely. Like any other of your reactions to stimuli, as a highly sensitive person (HSP) your trauma reactions are also more intense than most.
Children are born emotionally sensitive, but their behavior may not seem out of the ordinary until age 5 or 6 when their peers cut back on tantrums and meltdowns. Although kids won't outgrow these feelings, they can learn to control their reactions -- in essence, toughen up.
They are more self-conscious and easily slighted. HS children have a tendency to become preoccupied with how other's see them. They get very uncomfortable when any attention is called to them, even when parents or other adults are saying complimentary things. They are sensitive to feeling scrutinized or assessed.
A verbal safe haven: HSPs thrive in relationships where they feel seen, heard, and valued. Since highly sensitive people feel things more deeply than most, their feelings often get hurt more quickly than others'. HSPs thrive in relationships where they feel seen, heard, and valued.
Due to traits of their personality, heightened empathy or childhood conditioning, many highly sensitive people have repressed anger, and do not know how to deal with their emotions healthily.
Close, meaningful relationships
HSPs crave deep connections with others. In fact, according to Aron, they may get bored or restless in relationships that lack meaningful interaction.
Alone Time Helps HSPs Process Life
And nearly 30 percent of the population is highly sensitive, so it's not as uncommon as people think. When you're highly in tune with everything (and everyone) around you, it's natural to become overstimulated — and easily overwhelmed.
Most highly sensitive people display rare strengths in key areas of emotional intelligence, also known as emotional quotient (EQ) — the ability to recognize and understand emotions in themselves and others. These strengths including self-awareness and social-awareness.
They have a hard time with conflict and tend to avoid confrontation. This can be challenging in the workplace or at home. They also feel responsible for others' expectations, which makes it harder to let people down. HSPS can overcome many of these downsides through therapy and learning to be more assertive.
It is believed that HSPs are not rare, and that about 15-20% of the population are thought to be an HSP. There are also thought to be no significant differences in sex, with equal numbers of males and females being an HSP. Being an HSP is an innate trait, with biologists finding high sensitivity in over 100 species.
Highly sensitive kids have nervous systems that are highly aware and quick to react—and it is a temperament found in about 20 percent of children, according to psychologist Elaine Aron, the author of The Highly Sensitive Child. Highly sensitive kids don't necessarily have sensory processing disorder (SPD), however.
In 2015, clinical psychologist Elke van Hoof did research on high sensitivity and looked at a possible link with giftedness. She discovered that 87% of gifted people are also highly sensitive.
Repeat after me: Highly Sensitive People are not covert narcissists. HSPs aren't even on the narcissism scale. In fact, they're basically the opposite of narcissists, even if they do show some of the same outward traits.
Most HSPs are either INFJs or INFPs — the ones that don't tend to be ENFJs or ENFPs. Whether you're one or both, it's important to know what stresses you, what overstimulates you and what makes you feel calm, relaxed and happy.
HSPs have a variant of the serotonin transporter encoding gene, known as 5-HTTLPR. The 5-HTTLPR gene variant decreases serotonin in the brain and increases sensitivity to surroundings. The HS brain may have less mood-stabilizing serotonin than the non-HS brain, but it has an enhanced ability to learn from experience.