REAL TALK

Hello stemians, after my presentation post I had so many ideas from which to begin that I did not know what to choose. Ever since I was little I remember how I spent much time watching and listening to everything surrounding me. People, animals, objects, the environment around me so I could understand and learn. And because I could not avoid it, my innate ability was to absorb all the information that surrounded me, absorbing beautiful things and bad things , in a unique bond with my emotions and this has often created problems in managing unpleasant situations.
Both positively and negatively affecting my life, I tried to improve the less positive aspects , those that bring the destruction of beautiful things and complicate life . For me the first step was to work on my emotion. Talking has never been enough to allow me to represent everything I felt and saw, I always looked for something else. So I discovered art and music, which allow me to express myself and give me tools to communicate. I want share this because I want to tell you about this personality that I have, hoping to help others like me, who live constantly overwhelmed by their own experiences.

What I'm talking about?

HSP, Highly Sensitive Person ( or SPS, Sensory Processing Sensitivity ) it's a trait that characterizes some individuals of the human species, and not only. It's neither a disorder or a disease. This people are characterized by a deep sensitivity to internal and external stimuli. This stretch is located in the same proportion in males and females, and is independent of other personality variables such as introversion, shyness, neuroticism. These discoveries were made by Dr. Elaine Aron's research group in California in the 1990's in personality studies.

These studies have deepened genetic, neuroscientific and evolutionary aspects, and represents an intersubjective variability in the survival mechanisms in each animal species. It is the result of genetic predisposition and environment, and includes:

• Different sensory processing
• Greater responsiveness to the environment and social stimuli
• Specific areas of neuro-sensitivity cerebral activation
• Specific behavioral factors
• Different management of psychophysical stress

CHARACTERISTICS

The SPS concept adopts the view from biology that most species have evolved ‘personality’ types.
According to research by Elaine Aron and her husband Arthur Aron (neurologist), Highly Sensitive People are identified in the features summarized in the D.O.E.S. Acronym:

• Depth of processing
• Overachievability (more easily subject to overestimulation and overload)
• Emotional Intensity, Empathy (greater emotional responsiveness and empathy)
• Senstitivity to subtle stimuli (perception of subtle details of the environment and social relationships)

These features show advantages over the depth of problem-solving, the willingness to find multiple creative solutions and perceive the details of social relationships, the capacity for empathy and mediation among people, the depth of perceiving the positive aspects of existence, in grasping the details, in drawing more benefit and learning from experience. According to the Arons and colleagues, people with high SPS comprise about 15–20% of the population and are thought to process sensory data more deeply due to the nature of their central nervous system.

Possible Disadvantages relate to the feeling of being "overwhelmed by the world," from the people around, events, emotional susceptibility, fatigue from excessive stimulation, the need for recovery time, the difficulty in managing their own limits and boundaries than to others, the need to regulate the capacity for empathy.

It was thought that this trait belonged only to the shy, or introverted subjects, but Dr. Elaine Aron's studies have shown that 30% of the subjects studied are extroverted.

It was very important for me to find out Dr. Aron's work, I hope I can help somehow. This is a very important and sensitive subject for me, and I hope I was able to talk in a exhaustively way, even if concise. I'll talk to you again about it , maybe touching more specific issue.

I hope it's interesting, and if you have any questions, get ahead without a hassle!

See you soon! bey :)