Anxious Sensory Overload & Overwhelm | EP 290

For those of you who are watching or listening from the future , I am Drew Linsalata , creator and host of the Anxious Truth . I am a therapist in training as of this date , specializing in anxiety and anxiety disorders , practicing in the state of New York .

I am a three-time author on the subject of anxiety and anxiety disorders , practicing in the state of New York . I am a three-time author on the subject of anxiety and anxiety disorders and anxiety recovery . I am a psychoeducator , an advocate and a former sufferer of anxiety and anxiety disorders for many years of my life , on and off .

If you are new to the Anxious Truth , you just stumbled upon the podcast or the YouTube channel today . Welcome . I'm glad that you're here and I hope that you find the content helpful or useful in some way . And , of course , if you are a returning listener or viewer , welcome back .

Thank you for spending some time with me on a Wednesday morning , as we have done for many years together . Now this week we're going to talk about sensory overload . If you spend any kind of time in a community full of people who are dealing with chronic or disordered anxiety , it's too much . The lights were too bright , there were too many sounds .

Sensory overload it's a thing . We talk about it all the time and I hear about it all the time from you guys .

So today we're going to talk about that sort of anxious sensory overload and we're going to start to try to explain it or frame it through the lens of fear-based hyper-awareness , so that maybe it makes a little bit more sense to you and you don't see it as some sort of black box mystery process over which you have no control .

Before we get into that and get into the meat of the episode , just a quick reminder that the Anxious Truth is more than just this YouTube video or this podcast episode . There are a ton of other resources , including books that I've written , short workshops , social media content , newsletters , the other podcast I do , which is called Disordered , with Joshua Fletcher .

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You guys are always so supportive and enthusiastic about the work that I do . It keeps me going , I dig it and I appreciate all of you guys . So let's get into it . Episode 290 , we're gonna talk about anxious sensory overload .

People struggling with chronic or disordered states of anxiety will often find themselves in a situation where they are hyper aware and therefore overwhelmed by sensory input . This is kind of one of those topics that popped in my head yesterday .

I was out for a little walk in the sun because it was really beautiful yesterday , and at one point during my walk I noticed that the ground was not really level . It had a little bit of a slope to the left , and sure enough that had me kind of drifting ever so slightly to the left as I walked .

And when I noticed that and noticed that the ground wasn't even there was actually some construction going on the sidewalk where I was walking , I started to think about how anxiety disorder drew from years ago . What have reacted in that situation ?

Sometimes these things just pop into my head because the memory of that time is so strong and actually you guys keep me connected to that , which is another thing I appreciate about this community . So in that situation , anxiety disorder Drew would have been hyper aware of the fact that he was drifting a little bit to the left while he walked .

He would have immediately noticed that tiny change and would have probably interpreted it as being you know , air quotes dizzy or off balance . And for anxiety disorder Drew that sensation or experience was in no way acceptable .

So his anxiety level would have risen and at that point hyper awareness of every sensory input would have kicked in the light , would have seemed weird or maybe there would have been a scent in the air that didn't seem right .

Allergy season is starting early this year , so anxiety disorder Drew would have probably played very close attention to the sound as captured by his moderately congested right ear which , by the way , is driving me crazy Anxiety disorder . Drew probably would have started asking questions about what he was perceiving . Is this right ? Is it supposed to sound like this ?

Is something wrong with me ? Why can't I walk straight ? Is that a floater I see in my vision ? Am I about to have an ophthalmic migraine ? Those are always a good time . Why doesn't it feel ? Why does it feel like I can't breathe now and my heart is starting to pound ? Why is this happening again ?

And if you're listening to this podcast or you're watching on YouTube , then the odds are probably high that you really understand and appreciate the picture that I'm painting for you here . So let's talk about this .

Let's talk about being hyper aware of all of the sense data that you're getting from your eyes and your ears and your nose and your skin , and then becoming overwhelmed by that Because overwhelmed , it's too much . Sensory overload , overwhelm , again , is a common topic in our community .

Many anxious people will say that there are environments that they must avoid because they are just too overwhelming from a sensory standpoint , and we'll hear statements like the light is too bright or it's too noisy , or there's just too much to see here . My eyes can't focus my eyes and my brain can't sync up . These may sound familiar to you .

You may be living these things right now , and that feeling of being overwhelmed and needing to escape is really based on being hyper aware of the input that your sense organs are capturing and delivering to your brain , and you know that that whole saying that ignorance is bliss .

Well , I tend to believe that that is true in this context , because most people , all people , sense things around them all day long , but they just don't pay attention to what they are sensing .

This is such an issue that we literally have an entire cottage industry that has popped up , especially since the internet came to be a thing around people teaching other people to pay attention and be mindful of their senses . Right , we've heard all of this stuff online , on the internet . Look around , what can you see ? What can you smell ? What do you hear ?

Do you see any red things ? Non-anxious humans are so oblivious to what we sense that we literally have to pay people to tell us to notice what our eyes , ears , noses and skin are sending and perceiving . That's no joke . The people literally pay to learn how to pay more attention to the sense data coming into their brain .

But for anxious people , people who are dealing with chronic or disordered forms of anxiety , this isn't a problem in any way . We have the opposite issue . We are constantly paying very close attention to sensory input . We are hyper aware . Why are we hyper aware ? Because we must evaluate ourselves constantly to stay ahead of our air quotes triggers .

You know I hate the word triggers if you've been around here for a while . Anxious people are continually checking themselves for physical sensations that maybe don't seem right , or thoughts that might be sort of going south or taking a left turn , or emotions that they think will be too big and they won't be able to handle .

If you're listening here today or watching , I would probably bet a large sum of money that a good portion of your time is spent checking on yourself , then evaluating the results of that internal scan to see if you're okay or if you have to start taking evasive action to stay safe . Dot dot dot from yourself Sounding familiar .

If we have to stay ahead of the curve and in front of our anxiety , our discomfort and our fear , it stands to reason that we're going to pay very close attention to sensory input so that we can effectively evaluate , kind of how we're working inside , because you know we have to make sure that everything is okay all the time right .

And if we look at sensory overload through this lens , we can take a little bit of the mystery out of why sort of the canned veggie aisle in a busy supermarket is too much in air quotes for a lot of people in our community .

It's too much because there are lots and lots of sensory inputs that we normally would not actively process , but when anxious we do process them , which means that when you're walking through the canned veggie aisle , a non-anxious person is kind of oblivious to everything , but you are keenly aware of everything .

The opposite problem what would be in the background for most humans is now front and center for us . And not only that , but this sensory input now has to be measured , judged and evaluated against whatever we define as danger or safety or threat or possible trigger . So this isn't how most humans walk through a supermarket or a park or through their neighborhoods .

They don't insist that those environments are overwhelming because they're taking in the sights and smells and sounds and textures and temperatures and everything else around them without actively considering them .

You call them overwhelming not because there was something structurally broken in your brain or nervous system , but because your threat detection and response system , the amygdala , the lower part of your brain , the lizard brain Amygdala I stole that from Disordered that part of your brain or your limbic system , your fight or flight detection response , it has demanded that

you pay close attention to everything to remain safe . That's not how the human threat detection system is supposed to operate . We're not supposed to do that many safety-related sort of calculations per second all day long with everything that comes into our brains . It just doesn't work that way .

And the end result of doing that kind of like rapid calculation on every sensory input is feeling like you are overwhelmed and like you cannot handle what you're taking in . Right , it makes sense , doesn't it ? We can really like .

Look at a typical example , which would be , you know , be a young child , for instance , who's throwing a tantrum , who is just screaming at the top of their lungs , in your face , and it just keeps coming . They will not stop After a while .

That would lead almost anybody to the breaking point where they feel like I can't process any more of this For an anxious person . Every sense is doing that to them all day long because their brain says I have to .

I have to evaluate everything that's coming in to make sure it's right , to make sure it's what I expect and to make sure that there's no indication that I might be getting too anxious or that I might panic or that I might be overwhelmed . I can't have that .

So I have to do math all the time on every input and , heaven forbid , one of those inputs seems a little off for 10 seconds . Now I'm going to go into overdrive and do extra math on every other input . Dot , dot , dot . You wind up overwhelmed . Okay , so it's not really a big mystery and this is just a way to frame this . That , can you know ?

Sort of help

us . What can we do with this sort of giant broad brush reframe on what you might be calling sensory overload ? A reframe is always best when we use it to inform new actions , like I talk . All of you've been following this podcast or this YouTube channel . You hear me talk about action all the time .

So the best way to use a reframe is to inform a change in the way you act Because , remember , recovery is a thing that we do . Recovery is not a thing that we say or read or discuss . Yes , those are parts of recovery . But in the end , recovery is an action .

And so if we look at this reframe , sort of on sensory overload , and we say , oh , we can explain that this way . That's my brain trying to keep me safe again , what new action can we take based on this new sort of conceptualization ?

Or look at sensory overload and overwhelm , well , I might say , if we can open ourselves up to the belief that data from our sense organs can trigger fear and discomfort , but also that it can still be the same data , just subjected to needless examination , does this help us kind of steer clear of safety , soothing and escape rituals ?

It's not the symptom or the thought , it's how we react to the symptom or the thought . You guys have heard me say that a million times . If we follow this train of thought , is it the bright sun and the many cars on the street or the loud sounds , or is it how we interpret and react to those things ? Which one is more likely ?

Does this reframe right hyper-awareness based on fear and the need to stay safe ? Does this reframe tell right hyper-awareness based on fear and the need to stay safe ? Does this reframe tell us that sense data is actually dangerous or does it tell us that it's being twisted by an overzealous lizard brain .

If we are willing to allow that possibility that our brains are twisting data from our senses into dangers or signs of danger that don't actually exist Because , remember , in this situation the danger is inside us Can we choose to go with the experiences we have for a few more minutes than maybe we did yesterday ?

Can we maybe take one more step down the canned veggie aisle than maybe another or another ? And if we let this reframe sort of inform this small but courageous step away from fear and toward recovery , what can we learn from that new experience ?

So , recognizing that your brain is twisting sensory input into a nightmare for no real reason isn't going to instantly make us feel better . I wish it did , but it doesn't work that way . Better , I wish it did , but it doesn't work that way .

But what we can do is take this reframe and we could lean on that concept to help us lean into the fear when it arrives . Like leaning in is one of those things we talk about all the time . Lean into the fear , like don't run from it . We have to lean into it . So we can lean on the concept of fear-driven hyper-awareness to explain what's going on .

We can lean on that concept to help us lean into the fear when it pops up .

Now , anxiety disorder drew in the past when I was going through the bulk of my recovery I had at some point I had to decide to challenge my overprotective brain and I did have to take just step after step through the mall or through the supermarket to learn that it was okay to feel overwhelmed but to keep going anyway .

So what this reframe , you know , on sensory overload and overwhelm may inform is a new belief that we can hold alongside the old belief . That's a dialectic right that says overwhelm is an experience that I can acknowledge , right , I'm not going to pretend that it's not happening , but I don't have to automatically say that overwhelm means run .

So what we're trying to do here is maybe find a different way to look at this so that we can maybe consider an alternate result here that if I'm overwhelmed I could take a second and acknowledge that I'm overwhelmed .

I can lean on this explanation , which is a logical , common sense explanation , as to why I'm overwhelmed , and I can refrain from hitting the eject button , because overwhelmed doesn't always automatically equal , you know , danger . That's an important lesson we have to learn .

So in the end like I can't say that I conquered the mall or the supermarket , all the stuff back then or like the hubbub or cacophony of the elementary school orchestra , concepts , concerts I did not overcome those in just a couple of days .

Incorrect , overprotective conclusions sort of helped me take a few more steps every time or stay a little longer each time before I'd run out to the lobby or out to the car to try and calm down , and over time those little changes did result in big change . They were additive .

So if I can leave you with anything today , it would be some assurance and encouragement . It is entirely possible for two people I want you to think about this . I take this with you today it is entirely possible for two people to be in the exact same environment but to judge and evaluate that environment very differently .

The non-anxious person is fine at the concert . The anxious person declares it to be all too much and insist that they must leave and run . Lean on that . Then see what happens if you hit the overwhelmed moment and stick with it for just a little longer than you used to .

Maybe just take a few more steps , wait a couple of minutes , show your brain that it doesn't need to do all that sort of risk math for every sight , sound , smell and cool breeze anymore . Feed your brain some behavioral signals , right ? Remember that's how we talk to our anxiety .

It doesn't recognize words , it doesn't recognize thoughts , it doesn't recognize memes or song lyrics or mantras or affirmations . It recognizes behavior . We can behave to speak to our anxiety . So tell your brain , feed your brain some behavioral signals that tell you that it's okay to loosen up and let that sense data hit you but then fade into the background .

Now , that's difficult , right , I'm always going to acknowledge that this is difficult and it probably feels really scary . But being brave in those moments , because you can rely on sort of the misguided mechanics of disordered and chronic anxiety , can in fact start to change things , even if that change happens only a little bit at a time .

So what I'm trying to do here is give you a bit of a reframe so that you don't automatically declare that sensory overload is too much and overwhelming and must be stopped immediately . It's very unpleasant , but it's understandably and explainably unpleasant and , in the end , not dangerous .

So if you can start to use that reframe and make little changes , just little behavioral changes , a little bit at a time , every day , away from the fear toward recovery , away from escape , toward tolerance , right Away from resistance toward surrender . That's okay , that's allowed . Those little steps are allowed .

Every full recovery from chronic or disordered anxiety starts with tiny first steps . It's so important to remember that . I know you want to feel better right now . I know you were hoping that this podcast episode or this video was going to give you a fix for sensory overload or take it away , but there's unfortunately no such thing .

I don't have that to give you . What I have is this reframe that allows us to logically explain why we get to that place , so that we can kind of see like , oh yeah , that's just another instance where my brain is being overprotective . Now , what can I do with that ? A little step . A little step today , a little step tomorrow , a little step the day after .

These things begin to add up Again . We always want to acknowledge that this is difficult . It requires us to be brave . It requires us to go against some old habits of running and soothing and escaping . I get that , but every little step does count . I promise it really does . So that's it . That is episode 290 of the Anxious Truth in the books .

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