The Link Between Introversion & Sensory Processing

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Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• We humans are social animals, but some are more social than others, and many need to retreat to a quiet place alone to recuperate after social excess.

  • Today’s main feature examines how this is rarely a matter of “not liking people”, and instead very often linked to sensory processing and “overclocking” one’s internal CPU—and what to do about it.

• As we age, our collagen levels tend to get depleted more easily. Collagen is important not just for youthful good looks, but also for the health of bones and joints.

  • Today’s sponsor NativePath are offering high-quality collagen without additives or harmful impurities

• Today’s featured book is about managing menopause—before, during, and after! A lot of people neglect the “after”, despite that being when the body is least able to weather neglect, so this book’s important for that.

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

A Word To The Wise

Watch and Learn

Essential Devices For Hand Arthritis

Dr. Diana Girnita is a double board-certified physician in rheumatology and internal medicine. With a PhD in immunology (on top of her MD), and training at Harvard and top universities, she founded Rheumatologist OnCall, offering integrative medicine to broaden rheumatology access. Here’s what she has to say about things that make life easier (along with three bonus recommendations by this writer who just cannot restrain herself):

Prefer text? The above video will take you to a 10almonds page with a text-overview, as well as the video!

Psychology Sunday

One For The Introverts

We’ve talked before about how to beat loneliness and isolation, and how that’s important for all of us, including those of us on the less social end of the scale.

However, while we all need at least the option of social contact in order to be at our best, there’s a large portion of the population who also need to be able to retreat to somewhere quiet to recover from too much social goings-on.

Clinically speaking, this sometimes gets called introversion, or at least a negative score for extroversion on the “Big Five Inventory”, the only personality-typing system that actually gets used in science. Today we’re going to be focusing on a term that typically gets applied to those generally considered introverts:

The “highly sensitive person”

This makes it sound like a very rare snowflake condition, when in fact the diagnostic criteria yield a population bell curve of 30:40:30, whereupon 30% are in the band of “high sensitivity”, 40% “normal sensitivity” and the remaining 30% “low sensitivity”.

You may note that “high” and “low” together outnumber “normal”, but statistics is like that. It is interesting to note, though, that this statistical spread renders it not a disorder, so much as simply a description.

You can read more about it here:

Sensory-processing sensitivity and its relation to introversion and emotionality

What it means in practical terms

Such a person will generally seek solitude more frequently during the day than others will, and it’s not because of misanthropy (at least, statistically speaking it’s not; can’t speak for individuals!), but rather, it’s about needing downtime after what has felt like too much sensory processing resulting:

The Effects of Multifaceted Introversion and Sensory Processing Sensitivity on Solitude-Seeking Behavior

If this need for solitude is not met (sometimes it’s simply not practicable), then it can lead to overwhelm.

Sidenote about overwhelm: pick your battles! No, pick fewer than that. Put some back. That’s still too many 😜 

Back to seriousness: if you’re the sort of person to walk into a room and immediately do the Sherlock Holmes thing of noticing everything about everyone, who is doing what, what has changed about the room since last time you were there, etc… Then that’s great; it’s a sign of a sharp mind, but it’s also a lot of information to process and you’re probably going to need a little decompression afterwards:

Experiences of Adults High in the Personality Trait Sensory Processing Sensitivity: A Qualitative Study

This is the biological equivalent of needing to let an overworked computer or phone cool down after excessive high-intensity use of its CPU.

The same goes if you’re the sort of person who goes into “performance mode” when in company, is “the life and soul of the party” etc, and/or perhaps “the elegant hostess”, but needs to then collapse afterwards because it’s more of a role you play than your natural inclination.

Take care of your battery

To continue the technological metaphor from earlier, if you repeatedly overuse a device without allowing it cooldown periods, it will break down (and if it’s a certain generation of iPhone, it might explode).

Similarly, if you repeatedly overuse your own highly sensitive senses (such as being often in social environment where there’s a lot going on) without allowing yourself adequate cooldown periods, you will break down (or indeed, explode: not literally, but some people are prone to emotional outbursts after bottling things up).

None of this is good for the health, not in the short term and not in the long term, either:

Sensory processing sensitivity as a predictor of health-related quality of life outcomes via stress and sleep quality

With that in mind, take care to take care of yourself, meeting your actual needs instead of just those that get socially assumed.

Want to take the test?

Here’s a two-minute test (results available immediately right there on-screen; no need to give your email or anything) 😎

Want to know more?

We reviewed this book about playing to one’s strengths in the context of sensitivity, a while back, and highly recommend it:

Sensitive – by Jenn Granneman and Andre Sólo

Enjoy!

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Vote on Which is Healthier

Yesterday we asked you to choose between radishes vs endives—both very respectable vegetables, but we picked the endives (click here to read about why), as did only 28% of you!

Now for today’s choice:

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One-Minute Book Review

Generation M: Living Well in Perimenopause and Menopause – by Dr. Jessica Shepherd

Menopause is something that very few people are adequately prepared for despite its predictability, and also something that very many people then neglect to take seriously enough.

Dr. Shepherd encourages a more proactive approach throughout all stages of menopause and beyond; she discusses “the preseason, the main event, and the after-party” (perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause), which is important, because typically people take up an interest in perimenopause, are treating it like a marathon by menopause, and when it comes to postmenopause, it’s easy to think “well, that’s behind me now”, and it’s not, because untreated menopause will continue to have (mostly deleterious) cumulative effects until death.

As for HRT, there’s a chapter on that of course, going into quite some detail. There is also plenty of attention given to popular concerns such as managing weight changes and libido changes, as well as oft-neglected topics such as brain changes, as well as things considered more cosmetic but that can have a big impact on mental health, such as skin and hair.

The style throughout is pop-science; friendly without skimping on detail and including plenty of good science.

Bottom line: if you’d like a fairly comprehensive overview of the changes that occur from perimenopause all the way to menopause and well beyond, then this is a great book for that.

Click here to check out Generation M, and live well at every stage of life!

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Wishing you a peaceful Sunday,

The 10almonds Team