Never Do THIS If You’re Highly Sensitive!

Do you consider yourself a highly sensitive person? If so, you probably ask yourself from time to time how you should and should not behave in certain everyday situations. In this article, you'll learn seven things you should not do as a highly sensitive person.

1. Don't watch movies before bed that upset you

No question, tastes differ. A good movie in the evening is a natural part of many people's lives, and not just on weekends. For highly sensitive people, it is advisable to pay special attention to the choice of movies.

Comedies or feature films are much more suitable before bedtime than nerve-racking thrillers. This is due to the fact that films are often remembered subconsciously. Shortly before bedtime, an upsetting movie can affect the dreams of highly sensitive people and thus massively lower sleep quality.

Very vivid dreams from films that are difficult to process in the evening are about as unfavorable for your sleep quality as eating a roast pork immediately before bedtime.

The flickering images often found in nerve-wracking movies and the loud suspenseful background music can unnecessarily stir up your emotions at an hour when you are supposed to be calming down.

2. Hierarchies in the workplace

Most professionals have a supervisor, and with that often comes further hierarchies in the workplace. Working in hierarchical relationships can result in authoritarian behaviors within a group.

Stress at the workplace is nothing unusual, and yet there are companies and employers where things are particularly turbulent. Demanding superiors, but perhaps also annoying colleagues, can be particularly hard on highly sensitive people.

These internal structures are unchangeable, and those affected usually feel very uncomfortable in such a work atmosphere. In addition, highly sensitive people often have an ambivalent way of dealing with criticism.

On the one hand, highly sensitive people feel particularly obligated or are even afraid of making mistakes; on the other hand, they often take even constructive criticism personally, which does not necessarily facilitate harmonious interaction with the boss and colleagues.

For this reason, the creativity and effectiveness of highly sensitive people come into their own in less hierarchically structured workplaces. The right choice of profession is therefore doubly important.

3. Stimulus overload

Party people need not only a large portion of stamina, but also a particularly strong eardrum. Not surprisingly, highly sensitive people tend not to belong to the party-goer group, and there are good reasons for this:

Strong external stimuli in the form of excessive noise or bright lights usually only excite less sensitive people. The weekend dance-club outing with friends can therefore turn out to be a real test.

What is a pleasure for other people can be too much for highly sensitive people in all respects, so that they wish for nothing more than to flee from the situation, which in the worst case can escalate to a genuine panic attack.

Stimulus overload can affect anyone, but the personal and subjectively perceived threshold for this varies greatly. This means that some people hardly feel any discomfort even standing up from the loudspeakers, while highly sensitive people can perceive an average volume as unpleasant, causing them downright physical pain.

4. Group sports and competition

Spending a round at the gym together with your best friends or the benefits of playing on a soccer team –  sounds good, doesn't it? But a considerable number of highly sensitive people are skeptical about this idea.

The reason for this can be found in a competitive situation that makes them uncomfortable. Wherever team sports are played, there are eyes on you. This increased attention and the associated readiness to criticize in the event of a mistake is all the more apparent here.

Sports in a group consequently trigger a feeling of being observed in highly sensitive people, which they often cannot cope with at all. Since sport thrives on mistakes and defeats are just as much a part of it as victories, success cannot always be predicted.

The nagging feeling of not being good enough causes them great discomfort.

5. The problem on the job with multitasking

Very sensitive people tend to become overwhelmed when they are asked to do several things at the same time. This is especially noticeable in the professional environment.

Everyone reaches their limits when overworked. A less sensitive person may be less concerned about a higher frequency of tasks and demands than their colleagues.

The mixture of perfection and a stress intolerance that is often to be found not only makes everyday working life an almost insurmountable hurdle. The hectic working world sometimes demands unreasonable things from its employees.

The increased demands of the job and the already high demands that highly sensitive people place on themselves make it difficult for them to achieve the satisfaction that is so important and not infrequently lead to strong self-doubt among those affected.

They then believe that they cannot meet the demands. The resulting negative feelings, such as fear or insecurity, have a detrimental effect on these people's productivity.

6. Criticism at the wrong time

Although criticism is an unpleasant part of everyday life for the majority of people, there are huge differences in the way people deal with it and in the way it affects them.

At the same time, being flawless is an illusion and not a worthy goal. It’s a type of coping and avoidance. The goal should therefore be to improve one's personal handling of one's own critical faculties rather than to avoid them on principle.

A life free of criticism sounds nice, it would even be the paradise of many highly sensitive people, not having to deal with it. Their self-esteem suffers considerably from their difficult handling of criticism. For this reason, working on a healthy self-esteem should be a top priority.

7. Toxic relationships and people who do no good

Toxic relationships do no one any good. For highly sensitive people, such relationships have a particularly negative impact because they feel more deeply and intensely than their less sensitive peers.

A single toxic relationship can plunge a highly sensitive person into a deep crisis. These types of relationships can be hard to decipher early on.

But at the first clear signs of distress, such as brooding about the behavior of this person or losing sleep due to offenses and injuries, highly sensitive people should think about ending the relationship, if that is at all possible.

Today’s Conclusion:

If you listen to your deepest inner self and do not let yourself be guided by various external currents, you can often make the right decisions based on your natural intuition and avoid situations that are not good for you.

However, if you do fall into the trap, try to stay calm and focus on your strengths instead of letting yourself be pulled into a spiral of hopelessness. Try to stay in the here and now and always keep a cool head. That's it for today.