Deep relaxation/meditation – Since sensory overload is often caused by anxiety and stress, regular deep relaxation can reduce stress and its symptoms, including sensory symptoms.
Make it known: Tell people around you that you have sensory issues. Explain specifically what you struggle with (noise, physical contact, need for fidgeting). When more people are aware of it, the more likely your surroundings will be a sensory-safe space, which will reduce your anxiety.
Treatment is usually done through therapy. Research shows that starting therapy early is key for treating SPD. Therapy can help children learn how to manage their challenges. Therapy sessions are led by a trained therapist.
What is sensory integration therapy? The idea behind SI therapy is that specific movement activities, resistive body work, and even brushing of the skin can help a child with sensory problems experience an optimal level of arousal and regulation.
Sensory overload is when your five senses — sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste — take in more information than your brain can process. When your brain is overwhelmed by this input, it enters fight, flight, or freeze mode in response to what feels like a crisis, making you feel unsafe or even panicky.
SENSORY OVERLOAD IS COMMON FOR PEOPLE WITH ADHD OF ALL AGES.
Some of the symptoms of ADHD—such as self-regulation and trouble paying attention to what's going on around you—may themselves induce sensory overload.
Anxiety can cause numbness and tingling, especially in the limbs, and some people experience burning sensations on their skin. Anxiety may also cause people to experience hot or cold sensations in their body, especially when they come into contact with objects or environments that are of different temperatures.
“In the majority of people, sensory issues resolve on their own, or become significantly milder and less interfering as a child grows,” explains Wendy Nash, MD, a child and adolescent psychiatrist.
Currently the standardised assessment tool used to diagnose Sensory Processing Disorder is the Sensory Integration and Praxis Tests.
Risk Factors: Having been understimulated or institutionalized during crucial periods of neurological development. Being exposed to drugs while in utero. Having food allergies. Having certain developmental delays or neurological disorders.
Strategies to consider include distraction, diversion, helping the person use calming strategies such as fiddle toys or listening to music, removing any potential triggers, and staying calm yourself.
When you feel anxiety too often, your body may not have enough time to recover from stress response changes. This incomplete recovery can cause a state of 'stress response readiness. ' This is better known as stress-response hyperstimulation. Chronic hyperstimulation can cause ongoing changes throughout your body.
What is a sensory meltdown? Sensory meltdowns are what I consider to be extreme temper tantrums that have a sensory trigger to them. These typically involve extreme aggressive behaviors (head banging, hand biting, scratching or pushing others), and require a lot of assistance to recover.
Although they sound similar, sensory processing difficulties can be present without autism. Often children or adults with other neurodevelopmental or psychiatric conditions such as Developmental Delay, Intellectual Disability, Anxiety, ADHD, or mood disorders can also exhibit Sensory Processing Disorder.
Many parents of children with sensory issues call their behaviors sensory processing disorder, or SPD. But SPD is not currently a recognized psychiatric disorder. Sensory issues are considered a symptom of autism because many people on the autism spectrum experience them.
Can it become worse as one ages? SPD becomes worse with injuries and when with normal aging as the body begins to become less efficient. So, if you always had balance problems and were clumsy, this can become more of a problem in your senior years.
While anyone can experience sensory hypersensitivity, there are some conditions that make people more susceptible – including autism, sensory processing disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Sensory overload is a phenomenon where one feels an overwhelming sense of discomfort in the external environment (or sensory surroundings). Many people may feel anxious and want to immediately leave the situation that created it.
Stimulant medication for ADHD, for example, won't help a child's SPD. Occupational therapy, on the other hand, may not fully control ADHD symptoms, but it will most likely benefit the child regardless.
Sensory modulation disorder is the most common form of SPD. It indicates trouble regulating responses to stimulation. People with it are under or over responsive, since the nervous system does not know when to pay attention to or ignore stimuli.
Below is a chart to help you understand an individual child's needs. There are the four patterns of sensory processing: low registration, sensation seeking, sensory sensitive and sensation avoiding.