Key points. Highly sensitive people may feel pain more strongly, but they also feel joy more fully. The benefits of being sensitive can include deep empathy, high alertness, and exceptional creativity.
HSPs are typically highly intelligent, and seek out opportunities to do deep work. Many HSPs are academics, artists, researchers, scientists and technicians with high level proficiency.
HSPs' Empathetic Natures Can Make Them Great Sexual Partners
But HSPs can (and deserve to!) enjoy sex just like everyone else, and our empathetic natures can make us great lovers. We often just need partners who understand our needs, our concerns, and the need for communication about our differences.
They're more empathic: Sensitive in general, HSPs are particularly perceptive to emotions. They feel emotions more acutely, both for themselves and on the behalf of others, and notice more emotional subtleties. Not surprisingly, they are more attentive and show more concern for others.
Many good qualities come with being a highly sensitive person. And as it turns out, those who identify as highly sensitive are not rare at all – they make up about 15-20 percent of the population!
The truth is that our sensitivity allows us to be strong and capable and even thrive while faced with setbacks. The same traits that make us sensitive are the same traits that give us tremendous inner strength.
According to Dr. Elaine Aaron, author of The Highly Sensitive Person, sensitive people tend to cry more easily than others. “Sensitive people can't help but express what they're feeling,” she told the Huffington Post.
They fall in love hard and they work hard on their close relationships. Yes, sometimes non-HSPs sound similarly enthralled and confused by love, but on the average, HSPs have a more soul-shaking underlying experience. None of this is too surprising.
In numerous studies females score higher than males in standard tests of emotion recognition, social sensitivity and empathy. Neuroimaging studies have investigated these findings further and discovered that females utilise more areas of the brain containing mirror neurons than males when they process emotions.
HSPs' high sensitivity means they take great joy in the simple pleasures in life, making them low maintenance and easy to please. HSPs need a lot more downtime than others, thrive in silence, and need a slower pace of life. This means taking the time to relax and process experiences is essential for their wellbeing.
Yes, You Can Be Sensitive and Strong at the Same Time. In many cultures, sensitivity is associated with weakness… but it shouldn't be.
Being an HSP can be tough sometimes because the world can feel really loud, really intense, and just… really a lot. It's like the volume's turned up to max all the time. But don't worry, you're not alone.
Sensitivity is beautiful. Caring about people, feeling things deeply, being in tune with the world and what's happening around you, having a big heart—that's nothing to be ashamed of. That's powerful, that's life-altering, that's strong. Sometimes sensitivity is seen as weakness, but that's far from the truth.
The 5 Love Languages (Chapman, 2015) include: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch. Words are powerful for HSPs, who tend to replay conversations over and over again.
Bjelland noted a belief that all empaths are HSPs, but not all HSPs are empaths. Dr. Orloff said that an empath indeed carries all of the attributes of an HSP but with more developed intuition and a sponge-like ability for absorbing emotions.
The Sensitive Diplomats
Of the four Diplomat personality types, Introverted Advocates (INFJs) and Mediators (INFPs) may be among the most likely to have HSP qualities.
However, there are also many HSPs who thrive in the bustling world that we live in today, and there are ways that you, too, can learn to manage stress, and navigate a happy, healthy life as an HSP.
Created with Sketch. High sensitivity is thought to have genetic roots, and some specific gene variants have been associated with the trait. But early childhood environments may play a role as well; evidence suggests that early experiences may have an epigenetic effect on the genes associated with sensitivity.
Serotonin Transporter and Highly Sensitive People:
HSPs have a variant of this gene (officially called 5-HTTLPR). The 5-HTTLPR gene variant increases sensitivity to surroundings and is associated with learning from experience. The presence of the gene enhances the effects of both good and adverse childhood experiences.
Being highly sensitive can be nice, but at the same time it can have its challenges. Highly sensitive people are, for example, often empathic and good at other people's feelings. At the same time, highly sensitive people tend to be more easily overwhelmed by the world around them and may need to withdraw.
1 HSPs tend to think about everything very deeply and have higher levels of SPS, making them more sensitive to stimuli both around and inside them. SPS varies by individual and measures the sensitivity of the central nervous system. It affects how someone responds to physical, social, and emotional stimuli.
It is now recognized that there are no significant sex differences in general intelligence, though particular subtypes of intelligence vary somewhat between sexes. While some test batteries show slightly greater intelligence in males, others show slightly greater intelligence in females.
It's an excruciatingly common misperception that straight women throw themselves headlong into the classic three-word declaration, desperate to know "what we are" and "where we're going." But studies show heterosexual men tend to fall in love, or believe they have fallen in love, much faster than their female partners.