Sensitivities

Do you have vivid dreams and a keen imagination?  

Is time alone each day essential to you?  

Do noise and confusion quickly overwhelm you?  

If your answers are yes, you may be a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP).

A couple of weeks ago a friend mentioned a book - The Highly Sensitive Person, by Elaine N. Aron - that I started reading a number of years ago and probably need to dive into again. With the holiday season upon us, and its many activities that can overstimulate some of us, this month’s 1^st Wednesday wellness talks about sensitivities, specifically HSP (the Highly Sensitive Person).

Being consumed with activity (we’re presently house remodeling!) and feeling overwhelmed (I think I have some highly sensitive characteristics), I’m defaulting to some lazy research this month – here’s a few words from Wikipedia about HSP:  NOTE: if you're not interested in this middle section (I realize long emails rarely get read); feel free to skip to the bottom to "A COUPLE OF RECOMMENDATIONS" - for a few timely suggestions that apply to us all.


Definition and brief overview
A highly sensitive person (HSP) is a person having the innate trait of high sensory processing sensitivity (or innate sensitiveness as Carl Jung originally coined it^[1][2]). According to Elaine N. Aron and colleagues as well as other researchers, highly sensitive people, who compose of about a fifth of the population (equal numbers in men and women), may process sensory data much more deeply and thoroughly due to a biological difference in their nervous systems.^[3]

Attributes and characteristics: can be remembered as DOES:
Depth of processing
Over aroused (easily compared to others)
Emotional reactivity and high empathy^[25]
Sensitivity to subtle stimuli.

More susceptible to influences, both negative and positive, especially as kids
”Research by Pluess & Belsky ^[22][23] has shown that children with difficult temperaments in infancy are more susceptible to the effects of parenting and child care quality in the first 5 years of life. Intriguingly, these children not only had more behavioral problems in response to low quality care, they also had the least problems of all children when having a history of high quality care. This suggests that children with difficult temperaments are highly susceptible rather than difficult and therefore able to benefit significantly more from positive experiences compared to other less susceptible children.”

In work situations
“HSPs can be great employees—good with details, thoughtful and loyal, vigilant about quality, but they do tend to work best when conditions are quiet and calm.^[28] Because HSPs perform less well when being watched, they may be overlooked for a promotion. HSPs tend to socialize less with others, often preferring to process experiences quietly by themselves.^[27][29]
From the book: “HSPs may be the first to be bothered by an unhealthy situation in the workplace, which could make them seem like a source of trouble. But other swill be affected in time, so their sensitivity can help you avoid problems later.”

"Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.” ― Wendell Berry

Contrast with introverts
“Elaine Aron responded to Susan Cain's 2012 book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking and its related Time cover story^[31] by stating that Cain was in fact describing highly sensitive persons (defined^[6] in terms of sensory processing sensitivity) and not introverts (which Aron says is recently becoming defined^[32] more narrowly in terms of social interaction).^[33] Though Aron wrote that Cain and others blurred the lines between sensitivity and introversion, Aron called the Time article "a huge, huge step" for understanding HSPs, and that as more is learned, the 30%^[32] of HSPs who are social extroverts will be better understood.^[33]“


A COUPLE OF RECOMMENDATIONS
*When you hear yourself internally say about another “What’s wrong with you?” consider that that other person might be an HSP, or just plain different that you. Please, we do well to all keep working at respecting differences – honestly and truly RESPECTING that the other is wired differently than you, has had ridiculously different experiences than you, and will not respond exactly like you. And that’s okay. Actually, that’s good (we don’t really all want to be the same, do we?) We have NO idea what life has been like or is like for the other.

*During the holidays, put on compassion. I recommend again to practice lovingkindness meditation (which some name prayer, or empathy, or love; be good to yourself by actively listening to this 13-minute link). Even if we can’t understand the other person, we can always wish them to be well, happy, peaceful, loved. Both the other and ourselves benefit from the positivity.

I write these emails mostly to remind myself of what’s important and good. It’s a bonus if you also might consider being good to yourself and others.

I wish for you all goodness, all the time. May supreme love be your this month and always.

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, Love Divine,
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and Angels gave the sign.

- Christina Rossetti

“So, friends, every day do something that won't compute...

Give your approval to all you cannot understand...

Ask the questions that have no answers. Put your faith in two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years...

Laugh. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts....

Practice resurrection.”
― Wendell Berry, The Country of Marriage

Just think

The mind is its own place, and in it self/

Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.

– John Milton, Paradise Lost

A headline recently caught my eye:

“Many people prefer any activity to simply sitting quietly – even an electric shock.”

Such is a conclusion of a study led by Professor Timothy Wilson at the University of Virginia and published in the journal Science, (Wilson et al., "Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind." Science JULY 2014 • VOL 345 ISSUE 6192) with article pdf here.

The study findings:

·         49.3% of the 413 college student participants reported enjoyment that was at or below the midpoint of the scale when asked to “spend their time entertaining themselves with their thoughts” in an unadorned room for 6 to 15 minutes and then rate how much they liked the activity on a scale from 1 to 9.

·         32% of the 200 college-aged subjects admitted to "cheating" by listening to music or using their phone when asked to do the task at home (online instructions were to sit quietly for twelve minutes entertaining themselves only with their thoughts); on average, participants rated their enjoyment lower than in the laboratory setting.

·         54% cheated of the 61 community participants (average age 49, recruited at a local church and farmer's market) doing the same at-home entertain-yourself-with-your-thoughts task; their enjoyment ratings were only slightly higher.

·         67% of the male and 25% of the female college-aged participants choose electric shock over the quiet task (of the 42 participants {total of 55 in this study} who had previously said they would pay $5 to not experience the shock). Subjects were expressly told to entertain themselves with their thoughts and nothing else for 15 minutes. But they also were told that they could shock themselves by pressing a button, if they wanted. (Intriguingly, one outlier shocked himself 190 times; he was excluded from the results.)

The study’s author concludes:

“Research has shown that minds are difficult to control, and it may be particularly hard to steer our thoughts in pleasant directions and keep them there. This may be why many people seek to gain better control of their thoughts with meditation and other techniques, with clear benefits (see references in article pdf). Without such training, people prefer doing to thinking, even if what they are doing is so unpleasant that they would normally avoid it.”

 83% of Americans recently reported to the Bureau of Labor Statistics that they spent no time "relaxing or thinking" in the previous 24 hours.

Don’t just do something, sit there.

Why disengage from doing?
The mind is the tool that changes neurobiology: for example, think of the placebo effect, or think of choosing to dwell on the positive and how that affects your emotions. Consider: possibly giving attention to our thinking might help us feel or live well; and the alternate, of NOT examining our thoughts, might bring us to un-well.

All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” – Blaise Pascal, 17^th-century French philosopher

One benefit of quiet thinking (for me):
Being alone with my thoughts brings me back to the important rather than the urgent: quiet gives opportunity to remind myself of what I value, what gives meaning, how I want to live and love (attending a conference recently on habits of happy people was a needed reminder to me to purpose again to—be grateful, live out my virtues, savor the moment, smile, be vulnerable, choose forgiveness, offer myself compassion).

Benefits of quiet (in general)
Googling this brings up much information and I'm sorry, but this time, distilling it down is more than I have energy for at the moment [I’m thinking I need time rather to merely sit with my own thoughts :)] Maybe you’ll be intrigued and want to do your own investigation on benefits of quiet?

Better yet, I invite you to just sit, for a few minutes, with your thoughts --
Observe them.
Avoid judging what comes to mind: merely notice it, and then let it go, like a cloud drifting away.
Please be kind to yourself.
Maybe the thoughts will bring an internal noticing of what’s truly important or meaningful to you.
Or just breathe: you don’t have to think much.
Give yourself a break: simply enjoy noticing each inhalation and exhalation, be grateful that you're still breathing.
Rest.
Appreciate the pause.

Especially during this month of Thanksgiving holiday, when you sit with your thoughts, I hope that the many good things in your life will come to mind. May we all realize our blessings.

I wish for you love and light, wellness, and all good things.

“For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” 

– Isaiah 30:15

Today
Today I’m flying low and I’m
not saying a word.
I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.
The world goes on as it must,
the bees in the garden rumbling a little,
the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten.
And so forth.
But I’m taking the day off.
Quiet as a feather.
I hardly move though really I’m traveling
a terrific distance.
Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple.

by Mary Oliver from A Thousand Mornings. © The Penguin Press, 2012.

hints of gladness

“She said she wanted to see beautiful things. I took her to where I planted my seeds.”  ― Darnell Lamont Walker

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” ― John Muir

Plants make me glad, at least mostly (admittedly there are some weeds that bring me to less than glad, but happily they are far fewer than the many delightful plants all around). I enjoy watching all sorts of plants grow and blossom and change. And what a lovely riot of color we see in the trees this time of year in the northern climates: oh my!

So when I read of yet another benefit of plants, I take notice. I watched and appreciated this 2.5 minute NSF Science Nation video, and you might too? (Also below is a brief description worth a glance.)

Cactus "flesh" cleans up toxic water  

University of South Florida engineering professor Norma Alcantar and her team are using the "flesh" from Prickly Pear cacti, called mucilage, to clean up oil and other toxins from water. With support from NSF, Alcantar has spent the last few years confirming something that her grandmother told her years ago--that cacti can purify water.

“Using a natural product to clean water” – making water drinkable in places where every day there is contamination, or in places like refugee camps or disaster sites? – YES, please.

“Plants are nature’s alchemists, expert at transforming water, soil and sunlight into an array of precious substances, many of them beyond the ability of human beings to conceive, much less manufacture.”
― Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World

Enjoying and appreciating plants brings me to this poem that I recently came across and have been pondering. Before reading it and the quotes, allow me to wish for you opportunities to bow often, and many moments of goodness and much gladness.

“As dreams are the healing songs from the wilderness of our unconscious - So wild animals, wild plants, wild landscapes are the healing dreams from the deep singing mind of the earth.” ― Dale Pendell

When I Am Among the Trees, by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,

Especially the willows and the honey locust,

Equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

They give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, “Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,

“and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine.”

“God is not only something metaphysical, but also the physical world, the plants and animals, the mountains and rivers, the air and the sun and the earth.”  ― Jeffrey R. Anderson

“So you’ll go out in joy, you’ll be led into a whole and complete life.

The mountains and hills will lead the parade, bursting with song.

All the trees of the forest will join the procession, exuberant with applause.” - Isaiah 55:12

“Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.”  ― Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts

move, even if only for a few minutes

"If there's a fountain of youth, it is probably physical activity." – Toni Yancey

Over this past Labor Day long weekend, my husband and I celebrated the holiday by laboring. Lots: on our house remodel and front yard redo. There was excessive physical activity involved (maybe more than our 56-year-old bodies can handle, but let’s not talk about that). So of course it’s welcome news to read the research that shows benefits of physical activity to every organ system in the body. Not that we move so much all the time – we don’t – so reading of the benefits also motivates me to aim toward making physical activity a priority (at least a little? I still have my moments of just plain lazy).  

 With summer mostly over and many of us back to sitting lots, possibly we can consider this research, and intend on moving every hour of awake time, even if only for a few minutes.




Dr. Toni Yancey, a professor in the health services department and co-director of the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity at the University of California, Los Angeles, has worked for years on developing programs to motivate people to get up and move. Yancey says there are things individuals can do at their desks to break up a day of inactivity and get moving, even if just for a few minutes, and recommends a few minutes of movement every hour.




A couple of studies:




1) An Australian study (2008, mentioned in this npr article found that mini-breaks, just one minute long throughout the day, can actually make a difference. You can simply stand up, dance about, wiggle around, take a few steps back and forth, march in place. These simple movements can help lower blood sugar, triglycerides, cholesterol and waist size.

Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness. - Edward Stanley

2) Epidemiologist Steven Blair, a professor of public health at the University of South Carolina who has spent 40 years investigating physical activity and health, headed a study that looked at adult men and their risk of dying from heart disease. He calculated how much time the men spent sitting — in their cars, at their desks, in front of the TV. "Those who were sitting more were substantially more likely to die," Blair says. 
Specifically, he found that men who reported more than 23 hours a week of sedentary activity had a 64 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease than those who reported less than 11 hours a week of sedentary activity. And many of these men routinely exercised. Blair says scientists are just beginning to learn about the risks of a mostly sedentary day.

"We're finding that people who sit more have less desirable levels" of cholesterol, blood sugar, triglycerides and even waist size, he says, which increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease and a number of health problems.


Fall is a favorite season of many. Maybe this September holds for you some walks outside to take in the pleasant fall weather and colors? Or to possibly bike or dance or jump or rake or plant or _____ (please, fill in the blank).

May this September include intentional and enjoyable physical activity for you. 
May you be happy, and peaceful, and active, and healthy, and at ease.
May you love all the ways you move.  

 

PRAYER

May I never not be frisky,

May I never not be risqué.

May my ashes, when you have them, friend,

and give them to the ocean,

leap in the froth of the waves,

still loving movement,

still ready, beyond all else,

to dance for the world. 

– Mary Oliver

"May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ." - I Thessalonians 5:23 

 

to feel and to be better

"We spend very little time interrogating our own minds." – Richard Davidson

Why interrogate our own minds? Think about what we think about?
To feel and to be better.
This month I invite you to investigate the work of Richard Davidson, a researcher at U Wisconsin’s Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center and author of "The Emotional Life Of Your Brain." He's learned from his research--and from decades of personal experience--that meditation can be a powerful tool for curbing our negative emotions and boosting our resilience in the face of life's inevitable setbacks; meditation helps us “interrogate” our mind: to grow in heightened awareness of our mental processes.
I’ve talked about it before, and I’ll talk about it again, because I need the reminder: that to extend lovingkindness, to be compassionate, is good for all of us. Davidson’s research (to be published in Psychological Science), used a 30-minute compassion meditation (script here, audio file here) with their subjects each day for two weeks. They found scientifically valid changes, compared to the control subjects in
 - enhanced mental focus,
 - increased altruistic behavior, and
 - greater empathy evidenced by changes in neural responses to suffering.

“Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.” – I Peter 3:8

Davidson asserts that warm-heartedness and well-being can be regarded as skills to be cultivated. I find this fascinating. Our brains change in response to experience and training, even showing gene-expression changes within a relatively short period of time (in a day, for practiced mindfulness meditators: Davidson’s research team looked at gene expression in peripheral blood lymphocytes – looking specifically at genes that have been implicated in inflammation; see Rapid changes in histone deacetylases and inflammatory gene expression in expert meditators. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 40, 96–107).
So my summer warm wishes for you are that you might be open to continue learning, to be compassionate, and to be cultivating even greater skills of warm-heartedness. I wish for you to have joy and happiness, to be free from suffering, to be present, to be well.
In lovingkindness, Dee

Hurry is beside the point, useless, an obstruction.

  The thing is to be attentively present. 

To sit and wait is as important as to move.

  Patience is as valuable as industry.

What is to be known is

always there.

  When it reveals itself to you, or when you come upon it,

it is by chance.

 The only condition is your being there and being

watchful.

-  Wendell Berry

“I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.”
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

 “He has caused his wonders to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and compassionate.”

- Psalm 111:4

Feel your feelings

“Feel, he told himself, feel, feel, feel. Even if what you feel is pain, only let yourself feel.” ― P.D. James, The Children of Men

Soul without words.

That’s the meaning of the word alexithymia coined by Peter Sifneos in 1973 [from the Greek thumos (soul, as the seat of emotion, feeling, and thought), lexis (speech), and “a” (an alpha privative indicating no or without)].

I had never heard of the word alexithymia before reading about it in the July/August 2014 issue of Scientific American Mind, but certainly was and am acquainted with the idea of having difficulty in naming feelings (I am NO master at this feelings game). Alexithymia is a personality trait that’s marked by limited internal thinking and an inability to recognize internal emotional states; and people with this trait are at a higher risk for mood disorders, interpersonal problems and health problems.

Approximately 10% of the population possesses the more extreme characteristics of this inability to differentiate and describe emotions to themselves or others, with the rest of us falling somewhere along a continuum.

The Scientific American Mind article reports,
“some people honestly might be disadvantaged, on a neurological level, in understanding and communicating emotions.”

“Brain research is revealing that the neural processes supporting emotional awareness overlap with pathways that create awareness of inner states more broadly, such as stress and fatigue.”

A 2013 study by researchers at three universities in Germany found that individuals with alexithymia have less gray matter in the anterior insula, which helps to govern emotions as well as interoceptions (perceptions of one’s internal bodily states, such as hunger pangs or an accelerating heatbeat).  

Before offering some particulars of alexithymia’s associations to interpersonal problems and medical and psychiatric disorders (if you’re curious you can read more below) I want to first say that there is good news.

Emerging therapies show promise for helping people - that would be for any of us - develop an awareness of their emotions, enrich their inner lives, and improve their overall well-being.

Maybe we could explore or improve in some of these areas?

A few suggestions --

·         * Offer yourself a supportive approach (and/or find friends, counselor, spiritual advisor for support) and emphasize your strengths

·        * Improve your social skills: here’s one spot for ideas, but a google search will give many more

·         * Pay attention to your body: be intentionally aware of and responsive to physical sensations and emotions

Practice progressive muscle relaxation to learn difference between feeling tense versus relaxed/released: to try out, click this for a verbal how to, and this for a video

Be mindful of body cues in everyday moments (such as tense shoulders, constricted breathing typical of anxiety)

·         * Review basic emotions: recognize the difference between thoughts and feelings (sensation or emotion)

Revisit a feelings list  and practice naming your feelings and identifying what physiological sensations accompany an emotion; such as “I had a lump in my throat,” “butterflies in my stomach,” “my heart dropped” or “I was steaming”

·         * Practice mindfulness techniques – observing your emotional state without judging it

·         * Create a bodily map of emotions - learning from this 2013 Finland study described in an NPR blog offers a visual of body warmth or coolness for various emotions (note that love makes us warmest all over!)

“If you keep your emotions locked in a box, then when you want to open it one day you'll find that they're gone.” ― M.D. Arnold

Not becoming more aware of emotions has some rough implications for numerous aspects of life: see the alexithymia wikipedia page (with references and links) for more info and research citations.

Here’s some of what alexithymia has been linked with:

*interpersonal problems

-                 tendency to avoid emotionally close relationships: cold/distant, or non-assertive social functioning ^[35] )
-                decrease in relationship satisfaction between couples ^[38]
-                behaving less altruistically toward others: less distress at seeing others in pain ^[2]

*medical and psychiatric illness

-                 there are links to certain personality disorders,^[54] substance use disorders,^[55][56] some anxiety disorders,^[57] and sexual disorders,^[58] as well as certain physical illnesses, such as hypertension,^[59] inflammatory bowel disease,^[60] and functional dyspepsia.^[61]
-                with disorders such as migraine headaches, lower back pain, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma, nausea, allergies, and fibromyalgia.^[62]
-                possible prolonged elevations of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and neuroendocrine systems which can lead to somatic diseases.^[62]

Why is some of this so?

Hans Thulesius, physician at Lund University in Sweden, proposes that individuals who struggle to discern their feelings may fail to regulate stress effectively by being slow to act when the body’s fight or flight response kicks in, causing the body to maintain an elevated stress response leading the body exhausted and vulnerable to sickness.

“Indeed, several studies have found that the diseases most closely associated with alexithymia – coronary heart disease, diabetes hypertension and certain gastrointestinal disorders – also involve lower heart rate variability. This symptom is a marker of an unchecked stress response.” SA Mind p. 70

“Just like children, emotions heal when they are heard and validated.”
― Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey

Remember please: emotional awareness promotes healthier minds, bodies, and relationships. And most all of us can truly grow in this area, benefiting ourselves primarily and certainly also those around us.

How about, right now, filling in this blank with a feeling word: “I feel ______.” And how about being kind to yourself even if you’re not terribly happy about the way you feel? You can think what you think and feel what you feel.

May you have words for your soul's being and feel all your feelings this month. May these summer days include many welcome feelings, much joy! 

"You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart." Psalm 51:6

“All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.’” –Howard Thurman