Understanding Your Intense Emotions: 10 Signs You Might Be A Highly Sensitive Person & How to Harness It as Your Superpower

Are you a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)? Roughly 1 in 5 people have the HSP trait, and in this episode, Mayim and Jonathan explore what it really means to be highly sensitive. They take the official Highly Sensitive Person quiz, share personal stories, and break down the science behind sensory processing sensitivity. Learn how emotional overwhelm, sensory overload, and even trauma or pregnancy can intensify sensitivity and why being an HSP is often misunderstood. Discover the best careers for highly sensitive people, how to navigate relationships as an HSP, and the powerful connection between high sensitivity, introversion, and neurodivergence. Whether you identify as a highly sensitive person or love someone who does, you’ll find practical tools, coping strategies, and surprising insights to help you thrive in a loud world. Don’t miss this empowering, science-backed look at the highly sensitive personality. Dr. Elaine Aron's Highly Sensitive Person Quiz: https://hsperson.com/test/highly-sensitive-test/ Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/ BialikBreakdown.com https://www.bialikbreakdown.com/ YouTube.com/mayimbialik https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOocPnDh2YQZZwh86K2OxA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jonathan Cohen?

  1.2 to 1.6 billion people could be highly sensitive.

• 0:05Mayim Bialik?

  Being told you're too sensitive, what it feels like is shame. Like, I am too emotionally reactive, I don't know how to interact. Everything seems like it's bothering me, or it is bothering me. You may have difficulty in school. You may have difficulty in work situations that are too open-ended and don't have enough structure. Other people seem to have social stamina that highly sensitive people cannot tolerate or match. Because it's so socially unacceptable to be a highly sensitive person, you end up sort of adapting, and it can kind of feel like you don't know who you are.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  Just don't feel. Hold it inside.

• 0:42Mayim Bialik?

  What if we frame being a highly sensitive person as a person who's able to feel and then also communicate that to other people as a superpower?

• 0:51Jonathan Cohen?

  Some of these characteristics of being a highly sensitive person really make people remarkable in many ways.

• 0:58Mayim Bialik?

  What I would tell parents of kids who might be displaying some of these qualities is that you are potentially raising an exceptionally emotionally attuned human being. A child who may be a gifted creator.

• 1:20Speaker 03

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• 1:39Speaker 02

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• 1:41Speaker 03

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• 1:52Mayim Bialik?

  Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.

• 1:53Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 1:54Mayim Bialik?

  And welcome to a special MBB explores.

• 1:57Jonathan Cohen?

  Mayim, the real question everyone wants to know is, do you cry easily?

• 2:01Mayim Bialik?

  Yes.

• 2:02Jonathan Cohen?

  Do you get overwhelmed in crowds?

• 2:03Mayim Bialik?

  Yes.

• 2:04Jonathan Cohen?

  Do you feel exhausted after hanging out with people too long?

• 2:07Mayim Bialik?

  I get exhausted after hanging out with myself for too long. Why do you ask, Jonathan?

• 2:12Jonathan Cohen?

  Well, you might be something called a highly sensitive person.

• 2:16Mayim Bialik?

  An HSP.

• 2:18Jonathan Cohen?

  And it isn't rare or on the fringes. If you've heard of this term before, you are not alone because one in five people is estimated to be highly sensitive. That is more than the number of people who are left-handed.

• 2:33Mayim Bialik?

  You're left-handed.

• 2:34Jonathan Cohen?

  I know. I might be a highly sensitive person too, but I don't know if I am, actually.

• 2:38Mayim Bialik?

  Well, we're going to find out today. We're going to be talking about the diagnostic criteria for a highly sensitive person. We're going to talk about the science behind highly sensitive people. And we're also going to be talking about what it's not. Meaning, what are the things that you might be experiencing that can overlap with HSPs, but are actually distinct syndromes, disorders, or just traits?

• 3:04Jonathan Cohen?

  Now, you may have heard this term, or you may have heard other things like you're being told you're too sensitive.

• 3:11Mayim Bialik?

  What are some of the indicators that people might be possibly on the highly sensitive person spectrum, Jonathan?

• 3:18Jonathan Cohen?

  Even if they've never heard the term, although it is floating around social media these days, someone might have told you, "You're too sensitive."

• 3:28Mayim Bialik?

  Yes.

• 3:29Jonathan Cohen?

  You feel different in group settings. For example, you feel isolated. You don't know how to navigate, really. You can feel overwhelmed in crowds. You can feel overwhelmed in busy places. For example, I've tried to take you to Costco.

• 3:45Jonathan Cohen?

  Have we actually ever gone to, I don't think we've ever gone to Costco. It's on my dream bucket list of things to do. It's not happening.

• 3:53Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, so too sensitive. You feel different or wrong in group settings. What else?

• 4:01Jonathan Cohen?

  You can feel burnt out in certain situations. Now, I think there's a difference between introversion, extroversion, and being highly sensitive. Although, many people who are very introverted can also be highly sensitive. So if you, for example, go out and feel totally drained afterwards. I think it is especially in group scenarios, especially when there's a lot of lights, music, when the world is, around you is very busy. The other thing that people begin to experience is that they suppress their own needs. And that can also lead to burnout, it can lead to anxiety. We know that when you start to disconnect from either physiological needs or emotional

• 4:43Jonathan Cohen?

  needs, it can create this underlying stress in the person. And that can lead, on a long-term basis, to burnout. And it can also lead to needing to manage and fix other people to try and make yourself feel better.

• 4:55Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, so you've just sort of given us some broad strokes of the emotional consequences of possibly being a highly sensitive person. Let's talk a little bit about how many people this affects.

• 5:07Jonathan Cohen?

  This actually is a shocker. Okay, if you were to guess.

• 5:11Mayim Bialik?

  Well, you told me one in five people, so I'm already doing the math.

• 5:14Jonathan Cohen?

  Okay, do the math.

• 5:15Mayim Bialik?

  That's about 20%.

• 5:16Jonathan Cohen?

  Okay, 1.2 to 1.6 billion people could be highly sensitive.

• 5:22Mayim Bialik?

  20% of the world is useless, is what all the people who are not sensitive are thinking.

• 5:27Jonathan Cohen?

  Well, that's maybe a label. And it could speak to the way in which people who don't experience this sensitivity can feel. Because like, when I want to take you to Costco and you don't want to go, I'm like, "Why won't she go to Costco?"

• 5:45Mayim Bialik?

  I'm gonna explain it today. I'm gonna explain, today's episode is about why I don't want to go to Costco. So, we know that this is something that affects potentially millions of people. We know that it's not rare, like, it's a thing that's out there. And, we're gonna be talking a little bit more about the specificity of these broad categories that you just described. So, being told you're too sensitive, what it feels like is shame.

• 6:11Mayim Bialik?

  Like, I am too emotionally reactive. I don't know how to interact. Everything seems like it's bothering me, or it is bothering me. Feeling different in group settings leads to isolation. Can lead to what we call masking, right? Constantly sort of like pretending you need to be somebody else. Also, there's that shame again. A lot of shame can be involved in this because there's a tremendous amount of awareness when you're a highly sensitive person about like, things are operating, they're different. Also, you may have difficulty in school. You may have difficulty in certain kinds of work situations that are too open-ended and don't have enough structure. In terms of what you were describing about kind of not being able to keep up with other people, other people seem to have social stamina that highly sensitive people cannot tolerate or match.

• 6:56Mayim Bialik?

  So what that can learn to is, again, like that kind of like shame, feeling defective, thinking maybe that you're lazy because you don't want to go out or don't feel motivated to go out. And in terms of suppressing needs, you mentioned burnout. A lot of times what happens is because it's so socially unacceptable to be a highly sensitive person, you end up sort of adapting and it can kind of feel like you don't know who you are. Like, I'm constantly doing what they want. Or maybe there's something wrong with me that I don't want to do that. I'll do it anyway. And that can lead to a lot of, well, my favorite word, resentment. So these are some of the categories of what happens when you are a highly sensitive person. Or you may be a highly sensitive person and we're going to help you figure it out. We actually have a quiz that we're going to be taking in this episode.

• 7:41Jonathan Cohen?

  I cannot wait for the quiz. But what was shocking to me is it's equally distributed between men and women.

• 7:49Mayim Bialik?

  Yes.

• 7:49Jonathan Cohen?

  And I think a lot more women may identify it or seek that out or have the experience of being aware of feeling drained in those social circumstances.

• 7:59Mayim Bialik?

  Well, I think we were going to talk about it. Women tend to be more verbal. We do tend to be more emotional. Like, emotions live a little closer to the surface for women, generally speaking, than men. Or for people who fall on the feminine spectrum. I guess we should say that as well because I think that's maybe more accurate. But yes, the distribution seems to be equal, but it's going to look different. Kind of when we talk about ADHD, it looks different. And men, women, when we talk about neurodivergence also looks different. And if you were already like, mm, that sounds like neurodivergence, or mm, that sounds like ADHD, you're not wrong, and we're going to talk about those overlapping Venn diagrams of all this stuff. So let's get into some diagnostic kind of nomenclature, two of my favorite words.

• 8:37Jonathan Cohen?

  Diagnostic nomenclature, and what I'm kind of most excited about for this episode is beginning to give us a language to understand that so many people are just built in different ways. That isn't to say abnormal versus normal. I don't really like that classification. But in the US alone, it's estimated that 50 to 66 million people may identify with this. So if you are listening, you're like, not me.

• 9:05Mayim Bialik?

  Probably you.

• 9:08Mayim Bialik?

  We haven't even taken the quiz. If you're listening and you're like, I think that's me, it might be you.

• 9:12Jonathan Cohen?

  And if it's not you, likelihood is you know someone, someone is in your friend group or in your family group.

• 9:18Mayim Bialik?

  20% of people, in theory.

• 9:20Jonathan Cohen?

  So you should kind of really understand what is happening here, because it impacts so much of how we interact and socialize and how we feel about ourselves.

• 9:28Mayim Bialik?

  All right, so let's talk about what actually is a highly sensitive person. We've talked about some of the emotional categories that often get thrown around when we talk about it. This is a term that was coined in the mid 90s by Dr. Elaine Aaron. She's a clinical psychologist and a researcher, and she published a book called The Highly Sensitive Person. She was like, it's 1996, we're not very creative about titles. This book is called The Highly Sensitive Person. 1996.

• 9:53Jonathan Cohen?

  Let's just be straightforward.

• 9:54Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, it was a very straightforward title. It was based on years of empirical research and also personal experience that she had, and-

• 10:00Jonathan Cohen?

  Fun game. What would we title it now?

• 10:03Mayim Bialik?

  It'd be like, Coming Into Your Phoenix Rising.

• 10:07Jonathan Cohen?

  What you don't know, and they haven't told you about how emotions really work.

• 10:11Mayim Bialik?

  Be like-

• 10:11Jonathan Cohen?

  The real reason you're burnt out and don't know it.

• 10:14Mayim Bialik?

  You were made this way to excel and be written into a Lady Gaga song.

• 10:20Jonathan Cohen?

  I will say, right before we get into the criteria-

• 10:22Mayim Bialik?

  We're not teasing also, like, for real. That's what it would be called now.

• 10:26Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm thinking, how would this be marketed on YouTube?

• 10:29Mayim Bialik?

  It would be called Born This Way. Born This Way.

• 10:31Jonathan Cohen?

  You just want it to be Lady Gaga. The reason why I was saying this is, you know, we'll talk a little bit more about this after we do what you're about to do and after we do the quiz. I love some foreshadowing. I'm going to just plant the seed that highly sensitive people-

• 10:48Jonathan Cohen?

  Could be an evolutionary advantage.

• 10:50Mayim Bialik?

  I knew you were gonna say that.

• 10:52Jonathan Cohen?

  Because you're a highly sensitive person and you have extra sensory abilities. That's the foreshadowing we need. Let's get back to the criteria.

• 10:59Mayim Bialik?

  So about 15 to 20% of the population seems to have sensory processing sensitivity, SPS. And this is a clinical term and there's a ton of medical literature and we'll get into some of that. It is a genetically inherited temperamental style. Jonathan, when you hear genetically inherited temperamental style, what do you think?

• 11:19Jonathan Cohen?

  I think that you've gotten it from a parent, that there is a biological genetic expression of this. And like I said, I think temperament, which I know it is not what I'm about to say, sounds like you're all over the map, you can't be pinned down, and you're a problem.

• 11:37Mayim Bialik?

  I'm gonna take us on a little bit of a detour, but then I promise I'll come right back. So temperaments, there are four main temperaments. There, you can look at them by color or by, kind of by season. There's blue, there's red, there's yellow, and there's green. The four main temperaments are known as melancholic, colerick, sanguine, and phlegmatic.

• 12:04Jonathan Cohen?

  What is phlegmatic?

• 12:06Mayim Bialik?

  Phlegmatic is people who are-

• 12:07Jonathan Cohen?

  Sounds like a little flatulence. Too many beans.

• 12:09Mayim Bialik?

  So phlegmatic is people who are reasonable, principled, controlled, persistent, steadfast, and calm.

• 12:15Jonathan Cohen?

  Really the opposite of what it sounds like.

• 12:17Mayim Bialik?

  Right, exactly. That's phlegmatic. Melancholic is anxious, worried, unhappy, suspicious, serious, and thoughtful. Those two tend to be more, quote, "unchangeable." And then there's the more changeable temperaments, the ones that are gonna kind of come and go. Sanguine is playful, easygoing, sociable, carefree, hopeful, and contented.

• 12:37Jonathan Cohen?

  That's me.

• 12:37Mayim Bialik?

  And colerick is egocentric, exhibitionist, impulsive, histrionic, active and excitable. Right. So these are temperaments. So what those are, there are genetic components to all of the ways that we are. And what Dr. Aaron was identifying is that there seems to be a temperament, a temperamental style, that-

• 12:58Mayim Bialik?

  Is is sensitive in specific ways to sensory input. Now sensory input's a very broad term. But what she said is that you see about 15 to 20% of the population with this kind of genetically inherited temperament.

• 13:10Jonathan Cohen?

  Okay, slow down a little bit because this is important and I'm trying to process. I think people are also, you know, following along. Say that part again.

• 13:21Mayim Bialik?

  Dr. Aaron identified that approximately 15 to 20% of the population has a temperamental style that has sensitivity.

• 13:32Jonathan Cohen?

  So like one thing, for example, could be, I like, I hate linen sheets. They're too rough.

• 13:42Mayim Bialik?

  But you're not an HSP because you don't like linen sheets. I think we need to talk a little more about the diagnostic criteria. This is a great place for us to take a break and hear from our sponsors. When we come back, we're going to get into the nitty gritty of the brain science behind highly sensitive people.

• 13:56Jonathan Cohen?

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• 13:59Speaker 03

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• 14:04Speaker 02

  I read somewhere that the average American spends 13 hours a year waiting in pharmacies for prescriptions. Clearly, I am above average. I thought being above average would feel better. Maybe I'll read some greeting cards.

• 14:20Speaker 03

  Next time, use Amazon Pharmacy. We deliver. And here's to being anything but average. Amazon Pharmacy. Health care just got less painful.

• 14:33Jonathan Cohen?

  We process stimuli in all sorts of different ways, right? We process through all the, all of our senses.

• 14:39Mayim Bialik?

  And sensitivity is is a very, very necessary component of life.

• 14:44Jonathan Cohen?

  I once knew a pregnant woman whose smell, sense of smell got so heightened.

• 14:52Mayim Bialik?

  Yes.

• 14:52Jonathan Cohen?

  That she like couldn't be around people. Because everyone smelled too much.

• 14:57Mayim Bialik?

  Well, so let's talk about evolutionarily why we are sensitive and why pregnant women in particular sensitive. So what happens during pregnancy? You're growing a human inside of you.

• 15:08Jonathan Cohen?

  And you need all the smells around you to identify danger.

• 15:12Mayim Bialik?

  You know what? You're being kind of saucy. But what you're witnessing when a woman has an acute sense of smell, it doesn't happen for all women, but it is one of the features of pregnancy. What you're talking about is there are times in life as an organism when it is increasingly important for you to understand information coming at you so that you can know if you should avoid it or embrace it. So, a pregnant woman is actually, you know, operating in a world of like computers and ice cream and cars and linen sheets, but her evolutionary system is designed to keep that thing alive.

• 15:55Mayim Bialik?

  So, the increased sensitivity increases the probability that she will avoid noxious, toxic odors.

• 16:05Jonathan Cohen?

  Refrigerators. People taking off their shoes.

• 16:08Mayim Bialik?

  Right, but I think it's important, you know, this kind of sensitivity and this sort of processing has been documented in over 100 species. So it is evolutionarily advantageous for us to have an elaborate system of processing sensory stimuli and, in certain environments, let's talk about pregnancy, the environment of pregnancy, for us to upgrade the sensitivity so that we are, you know, placing ourselves in an advantageous position. So, what is it about roughly 20% of the population that seems to be living in a suspended state of sensitivity? No, they're not all pregnant, especially the men. But, we are going to talk a little bit about some of these factors.

• 16:53Mayim Bialik?

  The trait is considered innate, meaning this is not a disorder.

• 16:58Mayim Bialik?

  Okay?

• 16:58Jonathan Cohen?

  Yep.

• 16:58Mayim Bialik?

  So this is where we're gonna distinguish it from things like ADHD, or when we talk about neurodivergence. There's overlap, but this trait of sensory processing sensitivity is considered an innate trait that is heritable. We have some really interesting twin studies, because how do you want to know if something's heritable? Find someone with exactly the same DNA. And, um, and in addition, so this is its own, its own thing, but it can coexist with things like introversion, neurodivergence, anxiety, or even a trauma response. So you're gonna see all this overlap. It can be hard, but it is distinct. So we're trying to, to understand sensory processing disorder,

• 17:43Mayim Bialik?

  which is what people with, you know, uh, the diagnosis or the, the, the nomenclature of HSP have. It is distinct from all these other traits. It's its own beast.

• 17:53Jonathan Cohen?

  It's its own beast, but there are overlap in terms of the expression of the experience.

• 17:59Mayim Bialik?

  A lot of times when we do these episodes, I just feel like an asshole. Because, yes, there can be, there can be different expressions, but I think what's important for us to stay on. Mind the Alex Breakdown is supported by Quince. You know those pieces in your closet that you reach for over and over again? That sweater that somehow works with everything? The jeans you know will always fit just right? The bag you carry everywhere? Those are the pieces that earn a permanent place in your wardrobe, and that's what Quince does so well. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, premium stretch denim. The designs are timeless, thoughtfully crafted, and made to be worn again and again. And as the weather gets colder, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe, from warm, responsibly sourced down jackets,

• 18:44Mayim Bialik?

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• 19:29Mayim Bialik?

  Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was my MB Alex breakdown. It's the best way to support our show. On is that this is its own set of diagnostic criteria.

• 19:45Jonathan Cohen?

  100% the diagnostic criteria. Let's focus on that first and then we'll focus on the lived experience.

• 19:51Mayim Bialik?

  And then I will talk about the lived experience.

• 19:52Jonathan Cohen?

  Which has overlap. There we go. Everyone is happy. There's no right or wrong.

• 19:57Mayim Bialik?

  Everything has overlap. Everything has overlap. So it is hard to use the way we talk about highly sensitive people without being like, oh, and also this. But let's just try and stick to diagnostic criteria. I'm going to give everyone an acronym. We love an acronym.

• 20:13Jonathan Cohen?

  Here we go.

• 20:14Mayim Bialik?

  The acronym is DOES. Or DOES, if you want to go the Bambi route. D O E S. Like doe a deer. D stands for depth of processing. O stands for overstimulation. E stands for emotional responsiveness and empathy. And S stands for sensory sensitivity. So when we are talking about the core characteristics of highly sensitive people and of this sensory processing disorder, there's four things we look for. If you only have one of them, Jonathan, do you get to?

• 20:46Jonathan Cohen?

  Probably not.

• 20:47Mayim Bialik?

  What if you have two?

• 20:49Jonathan Cohen?

  I don't know. Probably not either.

• 20:51Mayim Bialik?

  We're looking for at least three, if not four of these things in order for us to be like.

• 20:57Jonathan Cohen?

  For a bingo card, you need all four.

• 20:58Mayim Bialik?

  You want a bingo card, all four. Depth of processing. So highly sensitive people often need a lot of time to reflect on things before acting. They process more thoroughly, which can mean it looks like they're not focused.

• 21:13Jonathan Cohen?

  But actually the computer is operating.

• 21:15Mayim Bialik?

  The computer is operating. That's right. And a lot of this processing may happen unconsciously and there's ways that we can measure that. And we're going to talk about that. But this greater depth of processing often comes because of.

• 21:29Mayim Bialik?

  The sensitivity at which information's coming in. So it's a depth of processing because of, you know, what many of us would just call like overstimulation, right? But it looks like a depth of processing. What about the O? O is overstimulation. So this is kind of the one that a lot of us know about. The nervous system can be easily overwhelmed.

• 21:50Jonathan Cohen?

  Lights, noises.

• 21:51Mayim Bialik?

  Don't like noises. Crowds. Don't like crowds.

• 21:54Jonathan Cohen?

  Deadlines.

• 21:55Mayim Bialik?

  Deadlines. It's an emotional overstimulation.

• 21:57Jonathan Cohen?

  It's basically describing Costco right there. Deadline, we gotta get out of the store.

• 22:00Mayim Bialik?

  But yeah, it feels like overstimulation. It can feel like what we call flooding. Everything's too much and you stop taking in more information. Or you start having an emotional reaction when other information's coming at you. I recently saw the movie Sinners and I was very overstimulated. It was a lot of visual information, a lot of emotional information and a lot of auditory information. I can't do things like IMAX. I once did one of those like movie theaters where the picture was on the sidewalls too, which is like, it's enough in front of me with earplugs in. I don't want it on the walls. Anyway, overstimulation, that's what it feels like. And some people will have a stomach ache because of that or get a migraine or feel

• 22:43Mayim Bialik?

  like crying and you don't know why.

• 22:46Jonathan Cohen?

  There's special HSP theaters where they only play black and white movies from the 20s.

• 22:51Mayim Bialik?

  You're joking, but when, when my kids were little, there were movie theaters that would have mom screenings.

• 22:56Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 22:57Mayim Bialik?

  Where they would leave the lights up so kids wouldn't get scared and the volume would be down so that parents could see not a sexy or interesting movie, but you know, a movie that you could in theory bring your kids to, but where the lights were. Okay, let's talk about E, emotional responsiveness and empathy. So some of this overlaps with the reaction to overstimulation, but higher emotional reactivity and stronger emotional reactions, both to positive and negative stimuli. So this is something that's interesting. Very easy to imagine like, oh, when something, when someone's sad, when someone's experiencing something tragic, I'm feeling it or I'm feeling that empathy. Or I'm emotionally responsive when things are intense or when something scary happens. This can also happen from positive stimuli.

• 23:42Mayim Bialik?

  It can be. It can be complicated even when someone is super excited and happy. It's not that you're not allowing them to be happy, but for people who are empathic, that can be a case for emotional reactivity that can sometimes feel out of control.

• 24:01Jonathan Cohen?

  Not that long ago, we actually had a fascinating conversation on our Substack with Dan Harris, and we were talking about your emotional register, that you feel things really intensely on both ends, and actually that's what makes you a great actor, what makes you a creative person, and really unique. So some of these characteristics of being a highly sensitive person, you know, really make people remarkable in many ways.

• 24:27Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, and we're actually gonna talk in a little bit about some of that specificity. Yeah, we're not here to shame people about falling into any of these categories, and in some cases, these are superpowers, as Jonathan indicated.

• 24:39Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah, I think it's important to reiterate that, because at the beginning it was like, "Do you feel burnt out? Do you feel overwhelmed?" And people can feel like that.

• 24:46Mayim Bialik?

  New intro, "Do you feel like you might be the next evolution of human that can tap into things that other people can't and process things in a way that other people can't?"

• 24:55Jonathan Cohen?

  And, "Do you feel like you're getting a lot of information and wondering, 'What's up with everyone else around you that seems to be oblivious to what you notice?'"

• 25:03Mayim Bialik?

  Let's talk about the "S" of our "does" or "does." "S" is sensory sensitivity, and this one is kind of the one that gets tucked into sensory processing sensitivity disorder the most. So this is environmental and social stimuli can be overwhelming. Also, being more sensitive, like the pregnant ladies, to smells, more sensitive than other people to lights, textures, even background noise that others ignore. I can hear a clock ticking from clear across a room that some people are like, "I didn't even know that clock ticks."

• 25:38Jonathan Cohen?

  So, there's a family joke amongst the Coens that every time we would walk into a restaurant...

• 25:46Jonathan Cohen?

  We would all be sort of in knots about what my dad was about to do. And nine times out of 10, he would walk up to the manager and be like, "Can you please turn down the music? It's blaring. It's blasting in my head right now." And my sister would ask the lights to be turned down. It was never fun going out with us.

• 26:03Mayim Bialik?

  The notion that things that other people don't pick up on, but that you might, can feel kind of isolating. And, you know, for much of my life, I never thought to say anything. But now, it's much more acceptable. I don't ask necessarily for like, music to be turned on and lights, but I'm very aware of them and I can be activated by them. But background noise is something that if anyone's out there on the spectrum, you might notice this as well. You may also be a highly sensitive person, but this is something that we also do see with certain parts of the autism spectrum, of being able to pick up on a refrigerator hum. Or, you know, a truck in the distance that has a motor running, you know, things like that. In addition, for sensory sensitivities, a really sweet and fascinating

• 26:48Mayim Bialik?

  observation, which also has been, you know, actually studied by researchers, more sensitivity to beauty and to art. Meaning, literally, your ability to take in that sensory information is processed in such a way that your sensitivity carries with it a depth. Music is an example. People who often cry from certain musical progressions. I'm one of these people. My younger son is one of these people. That's a sensory sensitivity that we kind of maybe didn't think of. But yeah, more sensitivity to beauty and art. I mean, how many artists, or art lovers, or art critics, or art historians have an extra sensitivity that actually makes them more tuned into certain aspects of art?

• 27:32Mayim Bialik?

  So that's the acronym, D O E S. Depth of Processing Overstimulation Emotional responsiveness and empathy and sensory sensitivity. It's visual, and it's auditory, and it's tactile. And we'll get into some of the science of that in a little bit.

• 27:48Jonathan Cohen?

  Mayim, although most people at home have already guessed that you're a highly sensitive person and you don't need the quiz, let's do the quiz and you're gonna give us your score. People at home or are listening, if you're driving, please have someone else do your score for you. We're gonna see, and everyone in the comments of this episode, please let us know what you scored, because we are fascinated to find out. How many of our listeners are highly sensitive people?

• 28:14Mayim Bialik?

  And the original quiz, which is more of a diagnostic tool, is a 27-point quiz. We're not gonna do the full quiz, we're gonna do an abbreviated one built on the 27 points, where we've pulled out sort of the 10 most prominent. And I believe this is a yes or no.

• 28:31Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm easily overwhelmed by strong sensory inputs, bright lights, loud noises.

• 28:36Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, yes.

• 28:37Jonathan Cohen?

  That's a yes for Mayim. Number two, I notice subtle details that others miss.

• 28:43Mayim Bialik?

  Yep.

• 28:43Jonathan Cohen?

  Yep, what kind of details do you notice?

• 28:46Mayim Bialik?

  Everything. I can tell if someone's had a haircut. I can tell if someone who always has short hair has a haircut. Like, I can tell if a man who always keeps his hair, like, within an eighth of an inch, like, I can tell. I just can tell everything. Some of it is also on the codependence spectrum, there's a tremendous amount of people-pleasing that I'm just inherently like-

• 29:06Jonathan Cohen?

  I mean, we're not talking about overlaps, because this is our diagnostic criteria.

• 29:10Mayim Bialik?

  We're not talking about overlaps, but I don't, I'm just saying, I don't know if it's because I'm highly sensitive, or because of wanting to sort of like tune in and lock into things. But I notice, I mean, it's hard for me not to notice a ridiculous level of detail about people, places, things. Like, I can tell if your eyeliner is a little bit too thick on one eye, and it's very hard for me not to tell you that. Yeah, I'm just very, very dialed in. Go ahead.

• 29:33Jonathan Cohen?

  New segment, listeners send in pictures to us, Mayim gives her analysis of it, no hold bars.

• 29:40Mayim Bialik?

  No, it's like in the, in the, remember, can you spot the difference?

• 29:44Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:44Mayim Bialik?

  Like, those things in the back of magazines when you were a kid. I was like, yes, I can.

• 29:48Jonathan Cohen?

  Number three, I am deeply moved by music, art, and nature. I mean, if there was a scale, that's like, huh. All the way to the right.

• 29:56Mayim Bialik?

  I should get two points for that one.

• 29:57Jonathan Cohen?

  You should get two points. So far, you're three for three. Number four, I need alone time to decompress after socializing.

• 30:04Mayim Bialik?

  So this is a great one because I didn't know that was a thing. But apparently, I mean, I need alone time during social time.

• 30:13Jonathan Cohen?

  During social time, you go into the corner and say, I need a little alone time before you go back out there.

• 30:17Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, I don't thrive in those environments, but yeah, my nervous system needs to calm down. That's a yes.

• 30:23Jonathan Cohen?

  You did a hilarious TikTok, remember?

• 30:25Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, that's right.

• 30:26Jonathan Cohen?

  What was the, it was?

• 30:27Mayim Bialik?

  It was what introverts look like. Yeah.

• 30:30Jonathan Cohen?

  After socializing, you get in your car, you're like, yeah, let's do it again. Let's see each other every day. Let's see each other three times a day.

• 30:35Mayim Bialik?

  And then you just go, you're dying inside.

• 30:36Jonathan Cohen?

  Exactly.

• 30:37Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, go ahead.

• 30:37Jonathan Cohen?

  All right, four for four. Number five, I get rattled when I have a lot to do in a short amount of time.

• 30:43Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, I, yes.

• 30:46Jonathan Cohen?

  Okay. Although you are quite good under a deadline, but.

• 30:49Mayim Bialik?

  It doesn't mean I'm not rattled.

• 30:50Jonathan Cohen?

  There's smoke coming off of you.

• 30:52Mayim Bialik?

  Interesting. Some of us highly sensitive people are also high functioning, highly sensitive people.

• 30:57Jonathan Cohen?

  This is not a detriment all the time. Number six, I avoid violent media because it feels too intense.

• 31:03Mayim Bialik?

  I really like a crime documentary. I don't like it to be violent or gory, but because I like the story, sometimes it is. And I think it's just like, I just sort of do, but when I saw Sinners, like that's something, it's too much for my.

• 31:17Jonathan Cohen?

  I will say that there was a detox period for anyone who's new to the show where mine stopped watching crime documentaries and it made a very positive impact. So, number seven, I often absorb other people's emotions as my own.

• 31:32Mayim Bialik?

  Yes, the veil is very thin between me and other people's emotions.

• 31:36Jonathan Cohen?

  Seven for seven, you're doing great.

• 31:38Mayim Bialik?

  Thanks.

• 31:38Jonathan Cohen?

  Number eight, I feel uncomfortable in chaotic or cluttered environments.

• 31:42Mayim Bialik?

  I can function very well, but.

• 31:47Jonathan Cohen?

  What would be described as chaotic, though?

• 31:49Mayim Bialik?

  Well, so in other people's chaotic environments, it's very hard for me. Like when I know the chaos and it's mine, that's fine. But like, you can tolerate, for example, like, things out. Like, sometimes when I go into other people's kitchens who don't choose to put things away. But, you know, again, this is the overlap with like, I'm also just like persnickety and what we used to call just like anal retentive. But it's interesting because I'm wondering if there is a dysregulation, you know, that I didn't understand is actually happening. Keep going.

• 32:18Jonathan Cohen?

  Dysregulation, eight for eight, but just to throw in a little story and increase the suspense as we get to our last two. We did a rapid fire with Jonathan a long time ago that we never used.

• 32:30Mayim Bialik?

  Are you talking about yourself?

• 32:31Jonathan Cohen?

  I am. I'm talking about myself in the third person. And one of the things, the questions that we ask on these rapid fires, which we're releasing on Substack a lot. So if you haven't seen Substack, check it out. Is what is your mother right about? And I don't remember what I answered, but like, it's very hard to narrow it down to one thing. What my mother was right about was always clean the kitchen before you go to bed.

• 32:53Jonathan Cohen?

  And always clean the kitchen before you leave for a vacation because you never want to come back to a dirty kitchen. Number nine. I feel like this is almost unfair. I startle easily.

• 33:03Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:05Jonathan Cohen?

  Nine for nine. Last one, number 10. I was often told I was too sensitive as a child.

• 33:10Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, as an adult as well, but especially as a child. All right. So I'm 10 for 10. Would, I know that people are like, what are the other 17? Maybe she only is 10 out of 27 and then I don't get the diagnosis.

• 33:22Jonathan Cohen?

  You know what? Because we're having so much fun, I will rifle through quickly some of the other ones. One to four, you are mildly sensitive.

• 33:29Mayim Bialik?

  If you answer yes.

• 33:31Jonathan Cohen?

  If you have four points in this game, one to four points, you are mildly sensitive.

• 33:35Mayim Bialik?

  I'm mildly sensitive.

• 33:38Jonathan Cohen?

  If you have, you are mildly sensitive because you have one to four, but if you keep going.

• 33:44Jonathan Cohen?

  Five to seven, you are highly sensitive.

• 33:46Mayim Bialik?

  I'm highly sensitive.

• 33:47Jonathan Cohen?

  And eight to 10.

• 33:50Jonathan Cohen?

  If you get the full bingo card, you are a strong HSB.

• 33:54Mayim Bialik?

  I am a strong, highly sensitive person. Let's just go through very briefly in case people are wondering. Other things that are on the full scale, very, very sensitive to pain. Needing to withdraw during busy days into bed or a darkened room to have relief from stimulation. Particularly sensitive to the effects of caffeine. That's very interesting.

• 34:17Mayim Bialik?

  I have a rich, complex, inner life. That's one of the statements. Do you have a rich, complex, inner life? Uncomfortable from loud noises? Uh, nervous system gets so frazzled, I have to go off by myself. I'm conscientious. Yes.

• 34:31Jonathan Cohen?

  Being very hungry creates a strong reaction in me, disturbing my concentration or mood.

• 34:37Mayim Bialik?

  When people are uncomfortable in a physical environment, I tend to know what needs to be done to make it more comfortable. That's very interesting. I am annoyed when people try to get me to do too many things at once. I actually thrive under lots of different multitasking, but I get that. But look, that might be a no. I think we found. I try hard to avoid making mistakes or forgetting things. This is some of that conscientiousness that comes up. I just like the wording of this. I become unpleasantly aroused when a lot is going on around me. That's like the name of my memoir. Unpleasantly aroused. Being hungry creates a strong reaction in me, disrupting concentration or mood.

• 35:17Jonathan Cohen?

  When I must compete or be observed while performing a task, I become so nervous or shaky that I do much worse than I otherwise would have, but that's enough for you.

• 35:26Mayim Bialik?

  I've got a couple of experiences in my life that we will save for another time. Uh, I sense other people's feelings without them saying a word. This is like the bane of my existence. That was the quiz.

• 35:37Jonathan Cohen?

  That was the quiz. We are very curious to hear what your scores are. Do share it. I think there's gonna be some very interesting patterns emerging about the people who listen to this podcast and who also identify or are in partnership or in a family, close family relationship with a highly sensitive person.

• 35:55Mayim Bialik?

  I think, depending on how many responses we get, we could run a little statistics. I could do a little bit of statistics here because...

• 36:02Jonathan Cohen?

  We know how many people listen to the show.

• 36:04Mayim Bialik?

  Well, we're gonna, yeah, but we don't know how many people...

• 36:06Jonathan Cohen?

  Will respond.

• 36:07Mayim Bialik?

  Exactly. So the statistics would more be about, of the people who respond, are we only getting people who are sensitive responding?

• 36:14Jonathan Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 36:15Mayim Bialik?

  Which is not actually a full, um, you know, a full, appropriate assessment. But what would be interesting is just to be able to say, for this episode, 87% of the people who seem to wanna comment on it were highly sensitive people.

• 36:29Jonathan Cohen?

  Comment on the YouTube channel would be best.

• 36:31Mayim Bialik?

  Let's talk a little bit about the science. So we talked about it being genetic, that this is a temperamental trait, which at least in the original criteria was designated as genetic. And twin studies do suggest a strong genetic basis. However, however, what's different about twins? They have different experiences. They have different things, places they go. So sensitivity can be different among twins based on other experiences. And sensitivity in general can be amplified or shifted because of trauma, because of any number of things. In one study, they found roughly 70% of HSPs had what we would call typical childhoods.

• 37:15Mayim Bialik?

  And I'm like, what's a typical childhood? 30% of the people in this study may develop anxious tendencies due to environmental stressors. So certain stressors, this is not changing the heritability of it, it's changing the presentation of it and the way that we can sort of identify it.

• 37:35Jonathan Cohen?

  And if we talk about the overlapping experience of the expression, that is where we get some of the similarities between traumatic response and the adaptation that happens after a traumatic response, or developmental stressors, things like that, where people become hypervigilant and sort of may have a higher startle reflex, maybe, they may be oversensitive to different stimulation.

• 38:01Mayim Bialik?

  There's been some really interesting imaging studies, which lets us know where activation is in the actual brain. You know, the region that I automatically and sort of first think of is the thalamus. When we talk about the thalamus, which is kind of like a this sized on either side of your brain. The thalamus is kind of like a processing center. It's like everything has to go through it. Everything you see here, you know, all these sensory systems are processed through the thalamus. It's incredibly important. And, you know, unfortunately, we know a lot about these structures from animal studies, and I won't go into those details. But besides the thalamus, which for me was just sort of like, this sounds like a thalamic processing, you

• 38:44Mayim Bialik?

  know, disorder or dysfunction, there's a lot of attention paid to the insula and the insular cortex. So that's I-N-S-U-L-A-R. And the insular cortex, I'm gonna show a picture to Jonathan, it looks like this. So if you peel back the cerebral cortex, so you have these two halves of the brain, obviously, and what most people think of when they think of the brain, it's usually like, pink in your mind, it's actually gray, but it's pink if we, you know, like, try and dress it up a little bit. And it's like, the part on the outside that looks kind of like worms, right, all connected together, that's the cerebral cortex. It's like, the outside, it's the, it's a separate, distinct structure. And then, inside, there's all these little structures, when you hear about things like the hypothalamus, and

• 39:28Mayim Bialik?

  the globus pallidus, and like, the thalamus, and the hippocampus, and all these different regions, those are like, deep inside. And that's also where a lot of like, emotional processing happens, that's the limbic system. But the insular cortex is this, this part of the, again, more of the outside regions of the brain. And what it is, is, it's, it's a place that integrates sensory information and emotion, and also can regulate certain aspects of taste, and what things kind of feel like, if that makes sense. So what we have is this region that seems to light up, in, in these studies of highly sensitive people,

• 40:11Mayim Bialik?

  and indeed, it's a region of the brain that we know is involved with kind of elaborate sensory and emotional processing. So, makes sense. So, a lot of attention paid to the insula, or the insular cortex. Also, all the things that you would expect, based on descriptions of highly sensitive people, shows up in studies that are published in all of the major, you know, peer-reviewed journals that you would expect, with all of the correct, double-blind, all these things. You know, the regions of the brain associated with empathy, with, you know, deeper emotional processing, those all, quote, "light up" in a significantly, in a statistically significant way for people who are highly sensitive people and have the sensory processing sensitivity.

• 40:55Jonathan Cohen?

  I mean, it's fascinating to see the physiological difference or to understand that their brains are really acting differently.

• 41:02Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, and there was one study that was published in Nature that also looked to correlate highly sensitive people and people with sensory processing sensitivity with other aspects of personality. And what it correlated with, they would give them basically these, kind of like the big five personality, you know, questionnaires. And sensory processing sensitivity is closely linked to neuroticism and also openness, which is kind of interesting, meaning taking in a lot of information, being, in theory, open, but also neuroticism, which is kind of more of a tendency to fixate, to focus, and, you know, can be kind of pathologized, but those seem to be connected as well.

• 41:44Jonathan Cohen?

  There's something very interesting about the idea of openness, and we're going to talk about some of the coping strategies, management strategies, because, as we said, it can definitely have advantageous qualities in your life. You can use it to get ahead and to connect with people and to notice things. Based on your explanation of how much you notice things, you could be a fantastic FBI agent if this podcasting thing gets boring for you. Sometimes people can be overwhelmed by this, and you may want to go to Costco, you may want to go to a concert or feel like you can go to the social situations.

• 42:21Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, so we've identified what a highly sensitive person looks like. We've talked about sensory processing sensitivity, which is the trait that was identified as prominent in people who are highly sensitive. We've also talked about the science. We've done a quiz to confirm that apparently I'm...

• 42:40Mayim Bialik?

  Strongly, possibly a highly sensitive person. Let's now move into how you can either understand this for yourself.

• 42:50Jonathan Cohen?

  For someone you're living with or relating with?

• 42:52Mayim Bialik?

  Or for someone you're living or relating with. And if you are a highly sensitive person, how you can frame that so it feels a bit more like a superpower and less like a detriment. So in childhood, people who are highly sensitive can often be labeled as like shy, dramatic, difficult, or interesting. Old souls, mature for their age, precocious, right? Because a lot of these features, that can kind of be how it presents. Also, kids who cry often, who are very, very worried or interested in animals, overwhelmed at birthday parties, that's a warning sign, right?

• 43:34Mayim Bialik?

  Many of these kids are misdiagnosed as anxious or oppositional. And these days, many of these kinds of kids are likely screened for neurodivergence, which they may also be. Or they may be labeled ADHD if it looks like they kind of can't control themselves, right, in certain situations.

• 43:52Jonathan Cohen?

  What if you have a child like this and you're a parent and you're like, I noticed that my child is withdrawing. I want them to, I have to push them to have resilience. What do you think the best strategy is to, you know, to address that, to both honor where your kid is at, but, you know, like, how do you combat? Like, I personally don't think you should be pushing them with the understanding or with the idea that you're like, oh, I want them to build resilience, so I'm gonna not let them isolate because then they're not gonna want to socialize. Like, how would you approach it?

• 44:27Mayim Bialik?

  I'm gonna answer that by describing what this looks like in adulthood, so that people can possibly understand what is this personality that your child may be presenting with? And what does it look like when allowed to thrive as it is? So people who are highly sensitive often have jobs in healing spaces, caregiving, helping professions, we call it. And many times they're creatives. And yeah, many of them may struggle with overstimulation or a different kind of stimulation in the workplace and social expectations. They may be people who need to have different kinds of emotional boundaries.

• 45:04Jonathan Cohen?

  They can also be researchers or people who are just focused on less busy, chaotic environments.

• 45:11Mayim Bialik?

  And while these people may be at higher risk for things like burnout or overwhelm, right? What I would tell parents of kids who might be displaying some of these qualities is that you are potentially raising an exceptionally emotionally attuned human being. You are dealing with a child who may be genetically, temperamentally predisposed to being a gifted creator or an innovator, right? Or a healer. So with that in mind, what we don't want to do with these kinds of kids is say, "You're wrong. You're bad. There's something wrong with you that we need to fix."

• 45:54Mayim Bialik?

  And I know a lot of people are like, "Oh, but sometimes kids need medication for ADD." I'm not going there. I'm going to stick with this kind of like highly sensitive person categorization that we're talking about. That child is likely experiencing things on a level that parents in previous generations were told to dismiss, right? Kids were told there's something-

• 46:14Jonathan Cohen?

  Roll them in the deep end. Get them into school. Make sure they play sports.

• 46:18Mayim Bialik?

  Let them cry it out. He'll figure it out, right? Or like, "He's going to go to that party and have a good time." The other side of this is that a lot of the permissive parenting movement also has made room for, in many cases, an accommodation that many accuse parents of not being able to kind of build resilience. So as a parent, like, that's the challenge. Honestly, as a friend, as a partner, that's the challenge. What's the balance? And if you're that person, it's also, that's what it looks like in adulthood too. Like, what is that balance? Which I'm going to talk about next.

• 46:47Jonathan Cohen?

  You know what I hear? Gotta drag you to Costco. It's for your own good that you overcome this fear.

• 46:54Mayim Bialik?

  Let's talk about some practical tools, right? Like practically speaking, if you're experiencing this and you are new to understanding this kind of like diagnosis or this diagnostic nomenclature, what do you do? So, we're gonna talk about a few categories. Nervous system regulation, emotional boundaries, sensory awareness, and reframing sensitivity as a strength. So let's start with nervous system regulation.

• 47:24Jonathan Cohen?

  We love a nervous system regulation.

• 47:26Mayim Bialik?

  So, if you are a highly sensitive person, you're always gonna be a highly sensitive person. That's the other thing about heritable traits. They don't change depending on if you had a bad day. They can shift in intensity, but this isn't like something that you're gonna make go away. You are a highly sensitive person. But, there are things that you can do to feel more in control of the things about you and perhaps not have it be as disruptive to your life. But, a lot of that I think is about expectations. So for nervous system regulation, guess what? You are a person who's gonna benefit from things like breath work. Learning about breath. Learning about the physiological ways to activate your sympathetic nervous system. Jonathan's taking a deep breath right now.

• 48:09Jonathan Cohen?

  Right now.

• 48:10Mayim Bialik?

  Guess what? Baths. Sitting in a warm bath can be very calming and regulating. Downtime. Like structuring in unstructured time in your day. In addition, your nervous system is gonna be really, really sensitive to things in the environment. I just wear earplugs anytime I have to go on an airplane. I wear them the whole time. Everything feels like too much sound, whether it's the clicking of the, you know, keys of the person next to me, to the actual sound of the plane, like the ambient sound. It's too much. The person coming over, the loudspeaker, it's all, so I just wear...

• 48:54Mayim Bialik?

  Earplugs all the time. I can still hear, but it just kind of dampens it. Some people wear noise cancelling headphones, but things like dim lighting.

• 49:03Jonathan Cohen?

  I was gonna say, if you're at home, changing your lighting, changing your light bulbs to a soft orange light at night will change your life.

• 49:13Mayim Bialik?

  And these are things that are unconsciously being processed by your nervous system. And if you are an HSP, you may not even realize that's part of what's going on. So why not stack the chips in your favor to have less dysregulation of your nervous system?

• 49:28Jonathan Cohen?

  Also, something that may not be obvious, decluttering your space can have a huge impact.

• 49:34Mayim Bialik?

  The other thing about nervous system regulation, you're not gonna like this one. You cannot watch violent or emotionally disturbing content if you're a person who is very sensitive.

• 49:44Jonathan Cohen?

  Media diet is the new diet.

• 49:48Mayim Bialik?

  This guy. There may be times in your life, like I will watch things if I want to watch like a crime documentary that I know is not bloody, I have to watch it in the day.

• 49:56Jonathan Cohen?

  I was gonna say, watch it early in the day. Have some decompression time.

• 50:00Mayim Bialik?

  Because my body will literally get kind of overstimulated. So that's nervous system regulation. Those are just the basic things that you can kind of do to start learning better how to kind of calm your body down. Emotional boundaries is a huge one and a really hard one.

• 50:14Jonathan Cohen?

  Like, I don't know if it's the biggest. It's hard to have favorites here.

• 50:17Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, it's hard because for people who are highly sensitive, you just want to fit in. You just don't want to be different. And so setting boundaries seems like, oh my gosh, it's another thing and I want to be weird. Guess what? These are the things that you can do to change the way you function as a highly sensitive person.

• 50:31Jonathan Cohen?

  Practice saying no.

• 50:32Mayim Bialik?

  No. And no is a complete sentence. It doesn't have to be like, no, but this is why. The acronym I've been taught, you don't have to justify, argue, defend or explain anything. You can just say no. That, oh, sorry, the acronym is JADE. You don't have to jade it. You don't have to justify, argue, defend or explain. Just say no. Would you like to do this? No, thank you. You can say no, thank you. That's also nice. But saying no without feeling the need to get your nervous system revved up to explain your no, just no, thank you. It's a full statement.

• 51:01Jonathan Cohen?

  When you learn to say no as a full sentence, as a full statement, the amount of space, mental and emotional space that you get is unbelievable.

• 51:13Mayim Bialik?

  Yes.

• 51:14Jonathan Cohen?

  So much of my life was spent, well, it's no, but I have to think about how to make this understandable and, and well, if I say it like this and if I angle it like that, they won't be upset. It's exhausting.

• 51:25Mayim Bialik?

  It is exhausting and people who are people pleasers know this very well, but it's super important for highly sensitive people to learn the no. Also, have you ever been with someone and after you spend time with them, you feel exceptionally wrung out and your mind is racing about all the things they said and did and the things that they're planning and the things that they need and what if they did this? If you find yourself unable to separate from, sometimes those people are called energy vampires. Sometimes it's just an overstimulating person or even an overstimulating environment. Some, I'm gonna be honest, some contemporary museum exhibits can be really overstimulating. Because like a lot of, like, let's put you in a room with a ton of lights and static and see if you like it. And if you feel it's artistic, I don't know, because I'm so overstimulated.

• 52:08Mayim Bialik?

  You have to limit that time in those kinds of spaces and with those kind of people. You just do.

• 52:13Jonathan Cohen?

  There will be people in your life that are seemingly, wow, we get along, but you feel badly afterwards.

• 52:19Mayim Bialik?

  Or just overstimulated.

• 52:20Jonathan Cohen?

  Pay attention. Pay attention. Is your system revving? Is someone calming or exciting to your system? Now, exciting is not necessarily good.

• 52:29Mayim Bialik?

  Um, one more thing from emotional boundaries. If you are a person who leans towards, uh, understanding energy or kind of into metaphysical conversations around these things, um, this would be a time to think about visualizing a protective-

• 52:43Jonathan Cohen?

  Oh, I love this.

• 52:44Mayim Bialik?

  A protective bubble around yourself. It's a conceptual, it's a conceptual bubble, but it can help create a sort of resonance in you that feels like you're giving yourself some resilience and some, uh, protection. I'm going to spend time with someone that I find very taxing. What, what, what would you instruct me to do?

• 53:04Jonathan Cohen?

  The first thing I would instruct you to do is have little mini check-ins during your time with them. When you, before you are in close proximity, when you're just starting to be like, let's say you're driving up and you're meeting at a coffee shop.

• 53:17Mayim Bialik?

  Okay.

• 53:17Jonathan Cohen?

  Before you get out of your car, notice yourself.

• 53:20Mayim Bialik?

  What it feels like in your body.

• 53:22Jonathan Cohen?

  How do your solar plexus feel? How does your heart feel? How does your throat feel? How does your sort of belly feel? Then when you get there, maybe there's a little nerves, you're not sure how the conversation is gonna go, that's totally normal. But then, sort of as you settle in, how do you feel? Do you feel like you're being pulled? Do you feel pushed? Do you feel centered in yourself? Do you feel like your solar plexus are kind of like, starting to fold in on themselves, or do you feel like you're expansive?

• 53:49Jonathan Cohen?

  If you start to feel like you're being drained, and that can, for me, can feel like, literally, my solar plexus are kind of folding in, or I get this feeling that I'm like, I'm not really hungry.

• 53:58Mayim Bialik?

  I feel that right now.

• 54:00Jonathan Cohen?

  Well, take a breath and pull your energy into yourself.

• 54:04Mayim Bialik?

  But, but then what? Okay, keep going.

• 54:06Jonathan Cohen?

  Because, but this is the work, is to, either, if you feel like that, and you're being pulled like that, you, you may be giving your energy away, or it may be pulled from you. So you have to either cut a cord, you have to set a visualization to re-center your own energy, and if that could mean taking a deep breath, focus on your feet, pull energy up from the ground, up through your entire body, imagine it going up over your head, cascading down around you, creating that little bubble. That little bubble is your energetic body, and you want to feel protected, safe, secure in that little bubble.

• 54:40Mayim Bialik?

  You can also do that before you go see this person.

• 54:42Jonathan Cohen?

  A hundred percent. Well, that's why I'm saying, you should do it before, you should do it during, and definitely after. Tell yourself you're safe, to ask yourself to be shown if there's anything that you need to be aware of. I had a spiritual teacher who said, especially when he would travel, he would go through the airport imagining himself floating in this little bubble, protecting his energetic space.

• 55:04Mayim Bialik?

  That's very helpful, thank you. Let's talk about... Sensory awareness practices. So we've talked about nervous system regulation. We've talked about emotional boundaries. What are some of the things we can do to kind of help us understand better the sensory awareness that we have? Some people find writing about this helpful, meaning getting it out of your head, out of your body, and onto paper. What situations do you identify and write about them? Write about what it feels like, what you think about it. Writing can be a very good way to, like I said, get it out of your head and out of your body. Jonathan, grounding techniques are really important for regulating sensory awareness sensitivity.

• 55:47Mayim Bialik?

  Some grounding practices, well, I love a weighted blanket. I even have a small weighted blanket, so it can travel with me. I have a weighted pillow. Walking barefoot, this is like a thing. Putting your feet in the dirt, like it's actually a thing, and there's really interesting science behind it, which we don't have the ability to get into. Some people do tapping, which is, I think, what's it called? The emotional freedom technique? Where you tap different regions? What's another grounding activity?

• 56:13Jonathan Cohen?

  Lie on the ground, anywhere. It doesn't have to be outside even.

• 56:16Mayim Bialik?

  Surrender to gravity.

• 56:18Jonathan Cohen?

  Go in your living room, go, if you're in your bedroom, lay flat on a hard surface, and if you want to get wild, put your feet up so that you're getting blood flow down.

• 56:31Mayim Bialik?

  You mean like straight up in the air?

• 56:32Jonathan Cohen?

  It could be straight up, could be like on a chair, anything. So all of a sudden, you are just like, it is an unbelievable sensation how quickly we go from moving around, like as soon as we get that level of stillness, things just slow down.

• 56:48Mayim Bialik?

  Amazing. Another sensory awareness practice is, before you get out of bed in the morning, before you pick up your phone, take two minutes, track your whole body. Start at the top of your head. Do you feel any sensation? It could be tingling, it could be fullness. A lot of times I wake up with allergies, and I'm like, I can't breathe through one nostril. Do a full scan. Start at the top of your head, go down. What do you feel in your shoulders? Just anything, doesn't have to be negative, doesn't have to be positive, could just be neutral. What are you feeling in your chest, your belly? Anything interesting happening in your pelvis, your legs, your feet? Any sensations, it literally kind of primes your brain and you really can be doing this throughout the day. So those are some things for sensory awareness. And finally, and kind of to close out this episode, let's talk about the reframing sensitivity as a

• 57:33Mayim Bialik?

  strength. Jonathan mentioned at the start of this episode, what if people who are highly sensitive people are here to deliver messages, right, about what's really going on? When I react deeply emotionally to a piece of art, to a piece of music, I kind of can't believe that everybody's not feeling it, right? Like, I'm here to show you the depth of emotion that can be experienced. Doesn't mean everybody has to be like that way. And you know what? If everybody was like me, we'd have a very hard time. We need all different kinds of people. But what if we frame being a highly sensitive person as a person who's able to feel and then also communicate that to other people as a superpower?

• 58:16Jonathan Cohen?

  I 100% agree. People should see you react to a Knicks game.

• 58:21Mayim Bialik?

  Sports. I mean, I'm very, very excited by sports and wish, I mean, I do go in person, but it's very overstimulating. I love sports. I always cry in sports games, even if it's not my team.

• 58:32Jonathan Cohen?

  Find yourself a highly sensitive person and make them a good friend because, yes, there are ups and downs. Yes, sometimes they won't go to Costco. Yes, they get overwhelmed at airports and in public settings, but they give us a glimpse of what is possible. And there are so many people who are a little dead inside. I don't say this lightly. Life has beaten many people down and life is difficult. And a lot of people have built up an armor. They don't get too high, they don't get too low, which, look, that has its own benefits, but to have an infusion of someone who just feels extremely deeply is really a blessing.

• 59:14Mayim Bialik?

  Um, yes, and I, I do appreciate that. Um, but obviously the things beyond just quote-unquote feeling deeply can feel oftentimes like an impediment. Because it does, it can change, it can change social outings, it can change plans. You know, I think my kids, I've never like given them this framework, but I think once they learn about this, especially my older son, he's gonna be like, "Oh, that explains so much."

• 59:39Jonathan Cohen?

  I mean, this was maybe five years ago already. Um, we were, it was like Christmas and your kids wanted to go shopping and we ended up going to The Grove.

• 59:49Mayim Bialik?

  A very, very large, excited mall.

• 59:52Jonathan Cohen?

  And they were so, they're like, "Mom, is that The Grove on Christmas? This has never happened before."

• 59:58Mayim Bialik?

  It's like the busiest like time and parking and the thing and like just everything.

• 1:00:02Jonathan Cohen?

  That's, that's another way of saying, you know, you went there, it was busy, but you weren't that overwhelmed. And so I think it's important that even if you are a highly sensitive person, try not to shut yourself in. Know that you can have grounding techniques. Don't push yourself past what you can tolerate, but also don't be afraid to go out in the world and join, for example, your kids to have that experience or your family or your friends. Choose your moments and I think using some of these managing techniques, whether that be grounding, whether that be body scans, whether that be creative visualization. You know, don't allow it to isolate you.

• 1:00:42Mayim Bialik?

  Also, before we close, I do want to give special attention to the difference between highly sensitive people and neurodivergent people. Um, so I just want to kind of give that a little bit of time because being an HSP and having sensory processing sensitivity is a trait, right? It's a specific trait and it means that your nervous system is more sensitive to stimuli. You have a different way of processing it, right? We went through this whole acronym. Um, neurodiversity is, is an explanation of a variation in cognitive functioning and cognitive processing that changes the way you experience everything and is a term that is designed-

• 1:01:23Mayim Bialik?

  To include ADHD and dyslexia, different kinds of learning, many on the autism spectrum. But I think it's important to not collapse these two. They can overlap. And a lot of people who are highly sensitive people may be given that diagnosis. But I think it's important to remember, we're talking about a trait, right? A heritable trait versus an umbrella term that is encompassing a description of of brain processing and functioning that usually reflects more of kind of cognitive and computational abilities even on the emotional level.

• 1:01:55Jonathan Cohen?

  In our conversations, you know, we've been speaking to a lot of highly sensitive people, people with extrasensory ability. And I'm not saying that highly sensitive and extrasensory are the same, but there is some overlap to them. And Thomas Campbell, for example, was like, you can filter with exercise, with experience, with training, you can learn to filter out. He's like, acknowledge it and then use techniques to filter. And so we don't cover as much the techniques, but there are ways that you can learn and request to limit and filter the type of information you're getting to feel less overwhelmed in any given moment.

• 1:02:34Jonathan Cohen?

  Again, thinking about it from a perspective of allow it to be what it is when you want it to be that way. But if it's becoming interfering in your ability to go out in the world, there are tools and techniques for you.

• 1:02:47Mayim Bialik?

  And maybe for another time, or maybe for the comments section, there is overlap between highly sensitive people and extrasensory perception. This is something that's a little harder to study, obviously, because of a lot of the things that we talk about here in terms of how do we study and understand extrasensory perception. But of course, it makes sense to me, I guess, as a highly sensitive person, that there is this spectrum of being able to tap into certain emotions and in many cases, unconscious processing that some people might more easily be able to extend to extrasensory abilities.

• 1:03:21Jonathan Cohen?

  Final request, if you've made it this far in the episode and you are a highly sensitive person who also has extrasensory abilities, definitely let us know.

• 1:03:30Mayim Bialik?

  We hope that you have enjoyed our exploration of highly sensitive people. We know that there's so many more aspects to this and hopefully we'll be able to talk about it other times. I know that a lot of people are probably wondering what's the role of trauma and we kind of mentioned adverse childhood experiences, Aces, can contribute to highly sensitive people's experiences and processing, but there's so much here and we really appreciate you all learning with us as we learn that I am a 10 out of 10 highly sensitive person. Don't forget to follow us, follow MyMBiAlex Breakdown on Substack. We've got a ton of bonus content there. Our newsletter, all about the podcast is over there and you'll be notified of things before they even happen anywhere else. So please follow us on Substack on MyMBiAlex Breakdown and Jonathan Cohen at Jonathan Cohen.

• 1:04:13Jonathan Cohen?

  From our breakdown.

• 1:04:14Mayim Bialik?

  The one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time.

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