Curious Mind Grapes
Curious Mind Grapes is a podcast where we explore all the strange, wondrous, interconnected things in life. In each episode, sometimes with guests, we explore topics like psychology, health, energy medicine, science, pop culture, and so much more.
Curious Mind Grapes
Sensitive Souls in an Overstimulating World
In this episode, Mary and Christine explore the challenges of being a highly sensitive person (HSP) in today's demanding work environments. Mary shares her struggle with returning to a five-day office schedule in an open workspace with 770 people, where constant Zoom meetings, fluorescent lighting, strong fragrances, and overwhelming noise levels make it nearly impossible to focus on complex analytical work. What started as complaints about her commute evolved into a deeper realization about sensory processing sensitivity and how environmental stimuli can profoundly impact productivity and well-being.
The conversation reveals how highly sensitive people pick up not just on physical stimuli but also on others' emotions and moods, creating both advantages (like better situational awareness) and challenges (like emotional overwhelm in crowded spaces). Christine relates through her own experiences with sound sensitivity and family dynamics, while both hosts discuss the importance of understanding these traits as neurodivergent characteristics rather than pathologies. They emphasize that labels like HSP, or Sensory Processing Sensitivity, are only useful when they lead to practical coping strategies and self-understanding, noting that about 30% of employees in Mary's workplace report noise as a significant distraction—likely much higher among those actually working in the office daily.
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Resources:
Sensitive Refuge https://highlysensitiverefuge.com/sensitive-book/
The Highly Sensitive Person https://hsperson.com/
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
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Feel free to share your questions or episode requests. Thank you for listening!
Welcome to Curious Mind Grapes with your hosts Mary and Christine.
Mary:Hey Mary, hey Christine, How's it going Good? You know how I've been essentially complaining about my work environment lately. Like I love my colleagues and the work and all that, it's just challenging and fun and interesting. But I've just been overwhelmed by this five day a week in the office, two hour commute each way, thing that's going on.
Christine:Yeah, yeah, they pulled you back in. I mean, originally the job was you were going in occasionally and now you are. You have this massive commute and you're in the office with everybody else every single day and it just sounds like a lot.
Mary:Yeah, yeah, and I think it's a lot for many of the people I've talked to, especially the ones that have something of a commute, but there's only one other person who has the same, or maybe a little bit longer commute than me, and I don't think they're loving it either. So but the thing I've come to realize is that it's not just the commute itself, it's the environment once I'm in the office, actually the environment once I'm in a subway, going into the office and then being in the office. So it's just this bombardment of sounds and people and smells and artificial lighting, all these things that I realized I've never had to deal with on a regular basis before, and in the past I've always had either my own office or maybe one office mate who is generally very quiet because we were researchers and we tend to not spend the whole day just blabbing, and or I've been in places where there are more like corrals or cubicles. So there was some kind of noise buffer or visual buffer, like now I'm in this open space where you can see everyone walking by and when you're on Zoom, you can see those people walking by behind you. Sometimes they're talking so loudly right behind you that it actually cuts out the sound for other people who are talking.
Mary:Oh yeah, and many people have complained about that, the noise level is insane. There are a lot of people who are not situationally aware of this. So all that together, plus the harsh lighting and like people wearing very not it luckily it's not many, but a few were very strong fragrances oh, I hate that. That actually gives me migraines sometimes, plus distracting to me. Yeah, yeah, and I mean some people are doing really well. Others, I've noticed, are just saying that it's like the whole thing's so painful to them, and they've done surveys of the employees and the sound level is something that a huge percentage have said is an issue. They said 30 percent of people said that noise is so distracting it's hard to get work done, and that's 30 percent of all the people they surveyed, but 100% are not in office. They still have quite a few remote people or even hybrids still in certain offices and aren't ready. So I really want to see the percentage of people who are actually in office every day. That's probably more like 50 to 60%.
Christine:Yeah, yeah, it doesn't seem fair to be taking a poll from the people who are still home, although it sounds like they're noticing it, because if they're on a Zoom from home, they're picking up on the fact. That sounds distracting. But no, it sounds super distracting. Yeah, and you were saying that it's hard to even get your work done.
Mary:Yeah, it is because I have to do for my work.
Mary:I have to either plan out research, like think of all the details and all the pieces that need to go together and come up with rationale for it and what resources are needed things like that, which is like planning stuff. Actually conducting the research, which involves either writing surveys and making sure all the logic flows and programming those surveys, making sure that there are no glitches, or conducting interviews with with customers, which involves like writing scripts for what we're going to ask them and then actually listening, like like actively listening to people so that I capture what they're saying. I mean, we do have automatic transcripts, but I want to make sure that whatever they're saying, I'm picking up on like subtle things that need follow-up or like further probing, and also so that I look engaged, I'm not like looking around like quiet. Yeah, the person said that when they they had just hung up with the customer from an interview and someone standing behind them staring at their phone like yelled fuck really loud oh yeah, they're also not professional, in addition to being very distracting.
Mary:Not professional at all, but also that would have been so embarrassing and like uncool, extra, extra. Anyway, I haven't had anything like that.
Christine:So, and it sounds like it's more than like. I mean, a lot of people were working from home and I'm hearing about that in the businesses near me. People are being called back into the office, you know, in droves. In some cases People aren't used to it, but I don't know. It sounds like it's more than just that.
Mary:Yeah, yeah, to do is statistical analysis, which involves coding and combing through tons of data and making sure that I'm catching the things or catching errors in my code, or just thinking clearly that I'm not missing any steps.
Mary:Yeah, so it's stuff like that where I really need a quiet space and I also need room to not have constant meetings, because when I'm constantly interrupted, like if I just get like an hour done here, half an hour done there, it can lead to a lot of mistakes for me, because I have trouble. It's shifting in and out of mode. Like once I'm really in depth on something, I could do it for hours and then I'm making sure that, like I have this stream of thought, that so that I can see the whole picture, but if it's interrupted or chopped up into little pieces, this makes it really hard and easier to miss stuff yeah so yeah, and I think it's interesting that you said to all these things, in addition to even just even just the walk-in with, like, the artificial lighting and all the noises, yeah, you've never really been in a job that had that type of environment to even know what it would do.
Mary:Right, yeah, I have never been in a big open space with like a couple hundred people all talking on Zoom at once or talking to each other, and it feels more like a call center. You know how, when you call service and you hear all these people in the background, that's what I'm picturing when you're talking about it.
Christine:It just sounds like I, I, just I. I personally would not be able to function in that environment either. Um, although it's funny working in an elementary school, you think that would be hard for me. But somehow I tune out like the sound of like the kids working. But if there was like if someone was playing country music while they were working, I would lose my mind or had some weird diffuser going where I didn't like the smell. Then I would be driven to distraction.
Mary:Right, or a ping pong table with people just ping ponging all day.
Christine:Yeah, or yelling fuck, like that doesn't happen. A lot at work for me, but yeah, it's interesting the things that you can grow accustomed to and tune out versus things that just are so distracting.
Mary:Yeah, I was looking up noise-canceling headphones or ways to block out sounds. There was an article in the Times the other day about the best earplugs for listening to concerts and things in the Times the other day about the best earplugs for listening to concerts and things and they said that noise canceling headphones are not as effective in environments like that because it's more like where there's a drone of sound that you can block out, and I had tried noise canceling headphones at work but they don't block out things like the sudden expletive or people just all of a sudden standing next to you talking at the top of their lungs about something very silly that really doesn't need to be talked about number one or should be taken somewhere else and not talked about so loudly.
Christine:All right. So what is this making you think about work? So you tried the headphones.
Mary:You tried the headphones? Yeah, I found a little nook where the lighting is less harsh and it's the one place where there are plants all over, so it's just really nice little Zen space and people do walk by and sometimes people sit at the other tables and have meetings of varying volumes, but from like 11, 1030, 11 to about 130 or 2. Um, it's right next to the cafe, so people have really loud conversations, uh-huh, and it's funny because it's not everyone, but there are several people who really don't seem to get the volume of their voice. It's like, um, it's interesting and I can't go around telling everyone to keep it down oh you could, but yeah, then you'd be that person at work yeah, which is funny, versus that person at work who talks like, yeah, unaware no, I could relate to that.
Christine:Just the different those, those sounds that you aren't expecting. That just interrupt your day and then it almost like it just sets your brain off in another direction.
Mary:You just it's hard to get the focus back right, right, because for me it's just like I'm just waiting for that next interruption, yes and so, and so it's like, okay, I'm not going to go into this problem solving mode right now, because I know I'll lose track of what I was doing.
Christine:That's interesting. You're starting to anticipate it. You're waiting for that next thing. It's your primed and sort of yeah.
Mary:It's like if I know I have to stop in 30 or 15 to 30 minutes for a meeting and have to concentrate on that, then I often will start to lose track. Well, not lose track, I'll lose concentration what I'm doing, because I then start getting anxious. Because when I'm heads down and no one's interrupting me, if I'm in a quiet space, I have like worked right through meetings and totally forgot what time it was. I've like worked right through meetings and totally forgot what time it was. So, um, yeah, so I get hyper alert so that I don't miss meetings.
Christine:Yeah, well it's. It just sounds like you are noticing some things about yourself that you'd never noticed before.
Mary:Yeah, and I guess I noticed them here and there, but it wasn't like a consistent. I was not in an environment where it was consistently noticeable.
Christine:Yeah, and I guess I noticed them here and there, but it wasn't like a consistent. I was not in an environment where it was consistently noticeable. Well, I spent my life being told by my family I was super sensitive, right, like just like tags and shirts. You know, I couldn't wear certain things. It would drive me nuts, but it was sounds and smells. So you know, I would hear things or sounds would bother me and I would get that same sort of like almost patronizing not not just for, but from people in general like oh, that sound doesn't bother me and there's that subtext of and therefore it shouldn't bother you.
Christine:And I've just learned to sort of ignore that. I beat myself up for it for a long time and then, when I started working with students who sort of had the same issue, I'm like, oh no, this is just for whatever reasons, the way I operate like really sort of related the idea of like a, like a very loud, aggressive, violent movie. I kept thinking, well gosh, like my grandma could watch that movie. What's wrong with me? Like you know, like going to the sweet old lady down the roads watching that movie or reading that book, and I just finally gave up on trying to fit into that and I'm like, for me it just doesn't work, and I remember teaching that to some of my students.
Christine:I'm like, for me it just doesn't work, and I remember teaching that to some of my students. I'm like, look, I've got news for you. Can keep trying, but you may never be comfortable with this type of television or movie or book or whatever. But yeah, even now, if I'm at my parents' house, they can tolerate the volume on the TV in a much different way. And it's not just because, like it's not that they're older and losing their hearing and turning it up louder, it's just the commercials when they come on. First of all, I'm not used to commercials because I use streaming, but it's jarring to me now when these commercials come on and I feel like it's like when you were describing the bombardment of stimuli coming in from the subway. So I asked them to turn it down every time and for a while they were like what is the big deal? And I'm like I don't know, I just can't hear this right now. It's setting my teeth on edge.
Mary:Wow, oh yeah, that's interesting. I've heard other people say that it makes their teeth hurt. It's like maybe it's like a clenching of the jaw or just your nerves being so intense in your as you're like trying to like all the nerves or muscles in your body tensing up from whatever it is I feel jangled.
Christine:That's like. Imagine like a bunch of metal and pots and pans falling on the floor, being thrown on the floor aggressively. That's what my nervous system feels like with like loud noises like that.
Mary:I have noticed yeah, a couple months ago I must have been watching actual television for some reason, yeah, and I noticed that I feel like they intentionally have been turning the volume up on commercials because people are going to ignore them. People zone them out and they've known this Like research has shown this, for quite a while that people either leave the room just do something else, like go on their phones, and so they're trying to get attention. But it's obnoxious, not my parents.
Christine:We got to watch them all Really. Yeah, we got to find out what they're selling, what you're no, I'm just kidding. Yeah, so it it. It reminded me when you were described that. It reminded me a lot of that, and I think I've been that way my whole life.
Mary:That's so interesting that no one and no one else in your family is like that.
Christine:Not that I'm aware of. I mean, if they are, they're just they're coping with it in a different way. So when I started learning more about my gifted students and my own, like gifted journey and being identified as gifted as a kid and I started reading more, this idea of highly sensitive people, highly sensitive person, comes up a lot, or they call them HSPs. I think they're actually some people are starting to change it to not a highly sensitive person, but a person, someone with a sensory processing sensitivity right, so just switching the label around a little bit to make it sound like you're a person. First that has this.
Christine:And I definitely have always thought that I haven't done a deep dive into HSP, but I think I've always felt like I've fallen into that camp of being very sensitive to things, very sensitive to smells, like to the point like my dad could not chew watermelon gum in the car. If we were driving when I was a kid I would have vomited. I couldn't handle it. Perfumes, I find and it's not just that I don't like the smell you use, I think you use the word they are distracting to me. I literally can't focus if there's too much of a smell that they'll create migraines for me, and just the idea of the movies, but yeah, just the idea of being more sensitive than the average bear to certain things. Yeah, I think most people call it HSP or highly sensitive person now, even though they're starting to change the label a little bit.
Mary:Right yeah, in in grad school we learned to say a person with asthma, not an asthmatic or stuff. Yeah, yeah, in in grad school we learned to say a person with asthma, not an asthmatic or stuff. Yeah.
Christine:But we know the label, the labels for us. If the label is there to help you understand yourself and to help other people understand you, so if it's, if it's working, it's working. If it's not, it's not yeah.
Mary:Right, right, yeah, and that is a really good point. Um, where in my grad school training, applied lifespan developmental psychology we came from the perspective that people are inherently whole and capable and healthy and to not pathologize people. So I've always been resistant to this idea of labels unless there is something that you can do with it. So just labeling people in general has not been something that's in my wheelhouse. But if you give someone information like that and say, and here's what you can do with that, there's nothing wrong with you. You're just in this spectrum of people with differing responses to environmental stimuli.
Christine:Yeah.
Mary:Yeah, let's go from there.
Christine:Yeah, I think we're moving from the label and this. This ties in with, you know, autism and ADHD and giftedness. It's a neurodivergence, but at some point we're just. I mean, if, like now, they say 30% of the population might could be labeled with ADHD, is that really divergence? I mean less people than that have green eyes, but we don't call that aberrant in any way.
Christine:Like, I think labels are hard too, because I've also looked into ADHD, because when you start to look at checklists, I mean all of a lot of these things autism, adhd they have a lot of things in common. So, like, if you only explore ADHD, you might think that ADHD is what's going on with you, but then when you start to look at HSP, you realize there's subtle differences and a lot of these things, you know, do they have some causes that are similar. I don't know if they've done research about that, but then you can sort of fall into a hole of calling yourself something and not realizing there might be something else that explains you more. I don't know. We both lived on this earth for a long time. I don't. I've never found anything that completely explains my situation. It's always maybe as high as, like 75%, but there's always a few things where I'm like eh.
Mary:Yeah, because every other thing we learned was individual differences, that you have these broad categories just to make it easier for, say, insurance companies to figure out how to re-immerse you, insurance companies to figure out how to re-immerse you. But the reality is everybody is unique and always changing too. So, um, yeah, so yeah, thank you for bringing up this hsp thing. I, through my work, um, I have access to therapy and so I've tried a couple of different therapists through our system who are both wonderful, and one of them actually she didn't say highly sensitive person, but she said it sounds like you are a very sensitive person when I described all that was going on with me and she talked about different coping strategies, which was interesting. Actually, maybe at the end she did say highly sensitive person and I had heard that term a while ago, but I hadn't really looked into it.
Christine:I kind of like the way she said it better, because why do you have to give yourself this age when you start to delve into it? It is a label that people use and even market off of, and and most people who are writing books about this or coaching people with this would be the first ones to say it's a cluster of characteristics and not everybody's going to have every one, but I yeah, so go ahead, keep talking yeah, yeah, and it's interesting because, like any diagnosis, it's not diagnosis, it's just a cluster personality traits, which I like too, in that they're saying these are the behaviors you exhibit.
Mary:It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you, it just means that you are more like this group of people, whatever percentage of people who respond to the world in this way, or certain aspects of what you do match with some of the aspects of these other people, and that's really helpful too. Um, rather than again a medical diagnosis or medical, a pathology, yeah.
Christine:Yes. So what have you learned in? You said you're looking into it. What have you discovered?
Mary:Well, one thing this therapist said which was interesting is that if you are sensitive, you pick up on other people's moods and emotions very easily. And so being in, say, the subway at rush hour, you're taking out a lot of stuff, and and being in that big open office where people are not happy to be there, um, just picking up on that, and and there are advantages to that too, in that it I find it easier to read a situation than some of my colleagues and I've always had colleagues say. So what do you think that was really about? Or what's your takeaway from that? Like, what was that person really saying? Yeah, so there are advantages to it, but it can be too much when there are too many people, and sometimes other people's stuff is just way too heavy.
Christine:It would be nice if, like sometimes I feel like when you are sensitive people want you for that skill, but they're not always willing to give you the conditions that you need, and you have to learn how to ask for them and sometimes not care if people don't understand. Thanks for listening to Curious Mind Grapes. Check out our show notes for more information about the topics we discussed today.
