Have you ever wondered why you notice things others simply walk past? Why a piece of music can stop you in your tracks, or why you can sense the mood in a room before anyone has said a word? I used to think this was just me being overly perceptive, perhaps even overly dramatic. But it turns out, there is something much more fascinating happening underneath the surface.

Your brain is literally wired differently.

The sensitive brain and what is actually happening up there

Research has shown that highly sensitive people display increased activity in brain regions linked to empathy, social awareness, and reflective thinking. In simple terms, your brain is doing more, processing more, and feeling more, almost all of the time.

Two brain imaging studies in particular found that people with high sensory processing sensitivity showed significantly stronger activation in areas associated with attention, visual processing, and awareness compared to those with lower sensitivity. One study asked participants to notice subtle differences in landscape photographs. The highly sensitive participants didn’t just notice more, their brains lit up differently doing it.

Another study compared people from East Asia and the United States and found something remarkable. Those who were less sensitive, had brain activity varying significantly depending on cultural context. Among highly sensitive participants, it didn’t. They focused on the task itself, independent of external factors. Their attention went inward, toward the thing that mattered rather than being pulled by context.

The volume is turned all the way up

I once read that being highly sensitive feels like someone turned the volume button to its maximum. Every sound, every emotion, every shift in the room, all of it arrives louder, more detailed, more layered than it does for others.

This happens because of how the sensitive nervous system processes information. Rather than filtering environmental input quickly and moving on, the highly sensitive brain pauses. It absorbs, cross-references past experiences, considers consequences. It processes deeply before responding, often leading to future-oriented actions.

This is called the ‘pause-to-check’ tendency in new situations and it is one of the most defining features of high sensitivity. In new or unfamiliar situations, highly sensitive people instinctively slow down, observe, and assess before acting. Where others move quickly, we gather information first. This makes HSPs better prepared to respond to emerging situations and to opportunities and treats.

This can often be seen as indecisiveness, but this is actually a depth of processing. Your brain doing exactly what it is designed to do.

The three systems behind it all

High sensitivity is understood through three distinct dimensions, each reflecting a different way the trait shows up behaviorally and emotionally.

The first is Ease of Excitation, the tendency to become mentally overwhelmed by internal and external stimuli. Too many decisions, too much stress, too many people needing things at once. The cup fills faster than it does for others, and when it overflows, everything can become too much.

The second is Low Sensory Threshold, a heightened discomfort with intense sensory input. Bright lights. Loud noises. Strong smells. Scratchy fabrics. These things register more intensely in the sensitive nervous system, sometimes making environments that feel ordinary to others feel genuinely exhausting.

Both of these dimensions tend to activate what researchers call the behavioral inhibition system, a tendency to withdrawal and avoidance when overstimulation hits. But here is what I find very interesting about this. That same system, the one that makes us slow down and step back, is also associated with reduced impulsivity and a more future-oriented way of making decisions. We are not just avoiding discomfort. We are unconsciously protecting our capacity to think clearly, act wisely, and consider long-term consequences rather than short-term ones.

The third dimension is Aesthetic Sensitivity and this one is my favorite. It is defined as a profound appreciation for the beauty of the world around us. The way light falls through leaves. The way a piece of music makes you feel. The admiration of a well-made thing. This dimension activates a completely different system, the behavioral activation system. One that encourages novelty and discovery through curiosity. It is the part of sensitivity that is associated with empathy, creativity, and attraction to nature. This empathy and creativity highlights a willingness to support and help other people. These qualities are valuable strengths in both personal and professional areas.

The empathy connection

One of the most well-researched aspects of the sensitive brain is its relationship with empathy. Neurological studies have found that highly sensitive people show heightened activation in brain regions specifically associated with empathy, self-awareness, and what researches call self-other processing; the ability to understand and feel what another person is experiencing.

Differently put, when someone you love is hurting, you don’t just understand their pain intellectually. You feel it somewhere in your own body. When you read about injustice, it lands differently than it might does for others. When someone walks into a room carrying something heavy, you feel the weight of it before they have said a single word.

Researchers also found that this depth of empathic processing comes with natural willingness to help, not out of obligation, but out of genuine attunement to what others need. The sensitive brain identifies relational problems quickly, processes them deeply, and moves toward resolution. This also leads to greater attunement to others’ and responsiveness to others’ needs. These are not soft skills. They are neurological strengths. This is your advantage.

The double-edged sword

But the is another side of this story.

Research consistently shows that highly sensitive people are more affected by both positive AND negative experiences than others. In good environments, sensitivity blossoms, creativity flourishes, empathy deepens, awareness becomes a genuine asset. In difficult environments, that same sensitivity can leave you more vulnerable to stress, low mood, and self-doubt.

One study found that highly sensitive people rated emotional experiences, particularly positive ones, as significantly more intense than less sensitive participants. They also responded faster to positive stimuli. In other words, the good really is better. But the hard really is harder.

This is the nature of a nervous system turned all the way up. Everything arrives with more volume.

What I want you to take from this

Your brain is not broken. It is not too much, nor malfunctioning.

It is extraordinarily attuned, to beauty, to people, to detail, to consequence, to what is happening both around you and within you. Science is only beginning to fully understand what that means, but what is already clear is this: the sensitive brain is not a weaker brain. It is a different one. One that evolution kept for a reason.

The next time the world feels too loud, too much, too fast, remember that your nervous system is doing exactly what it was designed to do. Processing deeply. Noticing everything. Preparing thoughtfully before acting.

That is not weakness. That is your brain working for you.

With love, Fleur

The post Wired differently: what science says about the highly sensitive brain appeared first on The Sensitiv Perspectiv.

Over the years there has been many perspectives on sensitivity. A flaw. A nervous system problem. Reading the history of high sensitivity, is not just fascinating, it changed my perspective completely. I know I say that a lot, but otherwise I wouldn’t be writing a blog about it. Knowing the history gives us the ‘why’. Just like every ‘why’, it gives us a reason, a purpose. It gives us comfort or even putting things in a different light.

It didn’t just start with a name

The term Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) was coined by Elaine Aron only in 1996. But this story goes back much longer than that.

Around 150 years ago, women who were viewed as too emotional or dramatic were diagnosed with hysteria, described as a sensorial-emotional problem. In the Victorian era intense emotional and sensory reactions were dismissed as ‘hysteria’ or as a nervous system flaw. The word hysteria comes from the ancient Greek word hystera, which means ‘uterus’. Which creates an understanding about how the trait was being interpreted.

Scientists confused sensitivity with shyness. With introversion. It look a long time for someone to look at if differently.

Over the years, high sensitivity has gotten many names:

• 1913: the term ‘sensitive’ was already used by Carl Jung.
• 1950s: Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess were child psychiatrists and they had a different perspective than the general accepted Freudian view of childhood development. Rather than seeing childhood as shaped purely by early experiences, they believed children are already different from birth. They studied these differences closely and observed nine traits, one of which was ‘low sensory threshold’.
• 1980s: Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan studied what he called ‘inhibited’ versus ‘unhibited’ childeren. Observing how they reacted to unfamiliar activities and objects. The unhibited childeren showed caution and sometimes fear, given more insight why some react slower to unfamiliar situations.

The theory that changed everything

Then Jack Belsky and Micheal Pluess came up with the Differential Susceptibility Theory, which I find super interesting.

Their theory suggests that natural selection shaped two fundamental types of people. Those who are genetically more adaptable and responsive to their environment, and those who are more fixed. Sensitive people fall into the first group, as they are more affected by both positive and negative influences. More attuned to detail. More responsive to what’s happening around them, in both their physical and social environment.

From an evolutionary perspective, both types have always served a purpose. Less sensitive individuals tend to be more resilient in difficult conditions, but may be less responsive to positive opportunities. They pay less attention to details and rely less on past experiences when responding. On the other hand, high sensitive individuals are more likely to benefit from positive influences, but are also more affected by negative ones. Due to their heightened awareness of opportunities and threat, which makes them better prepared to respond to emerging situations.

To increase the survival chances of a group, evolution made sure there would always be different ways of approaching a situation. This is where the story gets interesting.

The deer in the forest

Imagine a group of deer in a forest. They are hunting for food and trying not to get killed in the process. A part of the group is sensitive, they pause, they check, they observe before moving. The others are quicker to react.

Now imagine an open field with food in the middle. The less sensitive deer go immediately. They want to eat, so they go. The sensitive ones pause, they scan for predators first. They wait until they know it is safe.

If there are predators, the quick ones don’t make it. The sensitive ones survive. But if there are consistently no predators, the sensitive ones arrive too late and eventually starve.

Elaine Aron came up with this analogy in her book ‘Highly Sensitive People’, which I found quite extraordinary. It shows that sensitivity has purpose, that it was a strategy for survival.

What most people get wrong

Many assume that high sensitive people are shy or introverted, but that connection has never actually been confirmed. Around 30% of the HSPs are extroverted. The confusion comes from behavior, if you get easily overwhelmed, you will naturally either avoid certain situations or need more time alone to recover from overstimulation. That doesn’t mean you don’t get energy from being around people and having wide circle of friends. It just means your nervous system needs more time to process everything it took in. Sensitivity is also often associated with women, while this is not true at all. High sensitivity occurs equally in men and women. It is just seen as a more natural trait of women and generally more accepted than it is for men.

Then there is something that surprises most people. Around half of all HSPs are also sensation seekers. Despite their natural caution towards the unfamiliar, they get bored easily and love doing new things. I am absolutely one of those these people, I love trying out new things, even when they scare me. It can feel quite contradictory and honestly sometimes it is.

Why the name matters less than you think

In the end, the label we give this trait matters more in academic circles than in real life. What matters more is understanding why you experience the world the way you do and learning how to work with it rather than against it.

Sensitive people are not oo sensitive. The world simply changed around us. The people who shaped modern society were largely the ones who were quick to react, comfortable with risk, and rewarded for being loud. At some point, there stopped being a clear place for those who paused to check. And slowly, arriving late to the field, being careful, being attuned, being deep, began to look like weakness.

But it was never weakness. We just arrived at a world that had already eaten all the food.

With love, Fleur

The post From hysteria to strength: how sensitivity has been perceived through history appeared first on The Sensitiv Perspectiv.

Science calls it affective empathy,
you know the kind where you don’t just understand someone’s pain,
you feel it as your own.
Where the line between their emotions and yours,
becomes impossible to find.

No definition quite prepares you for what it actually feels like.

Being an empath is like walking into a room and sensing the tension before a single word is spoken.

It is feeling genuine anger,
reading another newspaper headline

So you just end up avoiding the news.
Not because you don’t care,
but because you care too much
and your body knows it.

Being an empath means getting easily overwhelmed in crowded spaces.
Nauseous, sometimes, from the weight of other people’s energy.

It is putting your headphones on
and disappearing into your own world for a while.

It is having a handful of truly deep friendships,
rather than a big group of superficial ones.

It is being the person everyone calls,
when something goes wrong.

It is offering a listening ear, again and again,
and feeling so heavy by the end of the day
that you forget to ask how you are doing yourself.

It is people-pleasing to keep the peace,
even when the peace costs you.

It is shutting down completely,
when someone raises their voice.

It is always being the first to smell something burning in the kitchen
and somehow, that feels like a metaphor too.

It is finding a stray dog on the street
and immediately wondering,
if you could give it a home.

It is carrying the weight of the world so naturally,
that you forget it was never all yours to carry.

I can tell you all the science behind being an empath but ultimately,
feeling it is a whole different story.

Love, Fleur

The post On being an empath, feeling is another story appeared first on The Sensitiv Perspectiv.

Being highly sensitive comes with its own set strengths and challenges. It is often hard to put into words how deeply things are felt by someone who experiences life more intensely. There might even be some things that you never thought to be part of your sensitivity, which might give you a new perspective.

Life is not always a piece of cake and for some it is carried with more weight than for others. However, it all starts at being aware. Once it becomes clear of what might be more challenging for you, life can become considerably easier. At the same time, being sensitive can also be incredibly beautiful. Something that we are not always fully aware, that this too is more colourful.

When I first started reading about what high sensitivity actually entails, everything fell into place. Simply being aware of what I was struggling with and understanding why, gave me so much comfort. It gave me a starting point that I could work from. By recognising what I need, I changed my lifestyle around it. I read books for relaxation, so for a brief moment I can step into another world. Or have deep conversations with the people you care about, rather than have small talk in big groups. By recognising my struggles, I was able to detach from them a little and see them instead through the lens of what is simply part of being highly sensitive. Going from ‘I am socially akward’ to understanding understand what circumstances I could socially flourish.

Setting boundaries should become easier from this kind of awareness. Once your limits and needs are understood, situations that don’t suit you can be avoided more easily. Situations that might otherwise lead to overstimulation, a reinforced negative self-image, self-doubt, or stress.

Knowing yourself is the beginning of wisdom – Aristotle

The strengths of being highly sensitive

So much can be gained from this trait, even if it isn’t always recognised as a strength.

• Empathy, compassion, and trust come naturally, alongside a deep sense of care for others.
• Creativity and artistic expression are often heightened, paired with a vivid imagination.
• A profound inner life 
• Cognitive and emotional depth 
• Enhanced problem-solving abilities
• Deeper interpersonal relationships, getting more energy from talking about each others deams and fears rather than the weather
• Reflective thinking & being self-aware
• Opportunities and small details are noticed that others might walk straight past.

The challenges of being highly sensitive

• A higher likelihood of depression, anxiety, self-doubt, and low self-esteem can be part of this picture
• Stress and pessimism can creep in more easily.
• Not the biggest fan of risk and probably end of just avoiding it.
• Social interactions can feel more difficult, especially when your social battery runs low and you find yourself zooming out.
• Situations tend to be approached with more caution and new or uncertain circumstances are avoided altogether.
• An unrealistic sense of perfectionism is something I still recognise in myself today.  

Tips and coping strategies

For me, I always felt exhausted after day of shopping, often making me more emotional or irritated afterwards. Now, shopping trips are planned differently. Going alone and trying to avoid peak hours, I manage to be quick and direct with what I need. Another thing that I have picked up, is making yourself familiar in advance before visiting another place – like figuring out how the public transportation works. A little preparation goes a long way in making the unfamiliar feel more manageable. Lastly, what came to my mind. A very fun occurrence that happens once or twice; this sudden wall that hits when you are in social situations. I get tired, left with no social skills and no energy to filter out the background noice. Just leave early, there is really no shame in it. It is better than sitting there, not enjoying and struggling to engage.

With love, Fleur

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People have probably told you that you are ‘too dramatic’, ‘too sensitive’, ‘quick to cry’, or hopelessly indecisive. But has anyone ever told you that you are also ’empathic’, ‘compassionate’, ‘creative’, ‘easy to trust’ and have an eye for detail? The negative side tends to get magnified, while the other side of the coin gets no recognition. Well, you are not alone. Around 15% to 20% of the population is highly sensitive. It is not a rare personality trait. It simply became marginalised.

What does it mean to be an HSP?

Experts often use the acronym D.O.E.S to explain what high sensitivity entails and honestly, many things fell into place for me.

The ‘D‘ stands for Depth of Processing, here you think deeply. You reflect, analyse, and consider every possible outcome before making a decision, this is why decisions can take longer than others expect. Not because you are indecisive, but because your mind is genuinely processing more.

The ‘O‘ stands for Overstimulation. If you are like me, you know exactly what it feels like to hit a wall. That moment when everything becomes too much all at ones. That’s because your nervous system is wired to pick up on and absorb environmental stimuli more intensely than others, which can make you feel mentally and physically exhausted. Basically means your cup fills up faster. Hunger, stress, or sadness hit harder internally. Loud noises, bright lights, or strong smells can overwhelm you externally. This is your nervous system doing its job, just at a higher volume than most.

The ‘E‘ stands for Emotional Intensity & Empathy and this one is truly a double-edge sword. You feel your own emotions more deeply and you also pick up on and absorb the emotions of the people around you. You feel a broader, richer range of emotional depth, meaning that the highs are breathtaking and the lows can floor you. This is why you cry at a sad film, feel anger at injustice, and stand completely in awe in front of something beautiful. You don’t just observe life. You feel it.

The ‘S‘ stands for Sensory Sensitivity. You notice things that others miss entirely, the subtle shift in someone\s tone, the detail in the corner of a painting, the change in atmosphere when someone walks into a room. In new or unfamiliar situations, you naturally pause, observe, and assess before jumping in. The words often reads this as hesitation, but it is actually awareness.

This is not weakness. It is depth.

Depth of awareness, in paying attention what others don’t deem worthy. Depth in meaningful relationships, where you understand exactly what the other needs before they say it. Depth of love, in what is expressed and in what is absence.

Were you born this way?

Yes. High sensitivity is a genetically rooted personality trait, meaning you have been born with it. That said, certain life experiences can amplify sensitivity over time, but that is a longer conversation for another time. One more thing worth knowing, being an HSP does not mean you tick every box. We are all unique and sensitivity shows up differently in everyone. Some of my most sensitive friends rarely cry, yet they carry a profound sense of empathy and injustice. Sensitivity does not come in one shape.

Lastly, but definitely not least important. High sensitivity is sometimes confused with a disorder, but it is not. It is a distinct personality trait that shapes how you think, how you feel, and how you move through the world.

With love, Fleur

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