The Holiday Season Can Be a Living Hell for Individuals Living with Sound Sensitivity.
A 23-year-old is looking forward to spending time with her loved ones over the holidays, but notes one of the only ways she'll manage to get through it is by wearing her earplugs - especially during the main festive feast.
For her, Christmas is a particularly difficult time as the sounds of people eating, slurping and nose-blowing cause her extremely uncomfortable.
"I experience this sensation of immediate anxiety, my entire being will just tense up and it as though I'm in peril, and I need to stop these noises."
She has suffered from sound sensitivity for several years and for her that causes the Christmas time "deeply taxing".
Misophonia is a decreased threshold to particular auditory triggers, particularly those coming from individuals.
The condition is widespread in the UK. Experts discovered a significant portion of people suffer from it.
Typically it's noises connected to eating or drinking that cause distress, as well as examples such as crunching, heavy breathing, and foot tapping.
Triggering Stress
The sufferer notes: "You encounter so many assorted problematic noises at the holidays and that can be stressful and make you want to avoid it.
"My relatives are aware, but I'm very mindful that I don't want to upset others. It's like a constant struggle of enduring my distress to guarantee everyone else is happy."
So it's easy to understand why the supposedly joyous season can transform into a source of agony for sufferers.
Noises that may appear innocuous, like someone slurping a Buck's fizz, unwrapping gifts, or eating the holiday meal can provoke a strong emotional response that can even result in them avoiding social settings altogether.
Jenna, a university student, who has dealt with sound sensitivity since aged 10, states the approach she intends to use is to use headphones to cope. Usually, she would usually isolate herself in a separate space to avoid problematic noises.
She notes her condition is more pronounced around people she's most familiar with, so the holidays is always "hard".
"There's an expectation to be around loved ones, and I want to, but it's draining.
"The sensation is this uncontrollable anger takes hold, which can feel shameful, or I'll feel panicked and begin to weep and then fight-or-flight will kick in.
"It may seem as if I'm being difficult and overreacting, but it's hard to explain unless you've experienced it."
Three Ways to Manage
If you suffer then there are a few methods you can attempt to manage the situation, based on advice from experts.
- Visualise Something Else: Mental imagery is crucial. Work on connecting the triggering sound affecting you with something completely different. So for example, try to envision someone's noisy drinking is just a sink draining water. This technique is to retrain your mind that the sound affecting you poses no threat.
- Make it a Game: Introduce playfulness and make the irritating noise into a challenge involving the source. As an example, if someone is eating noisily attempt mimicking the sound. Through participation, instead of feeling like the sound is unwanted, you become an willing part. And the game aspect should help distract your brain and make you somewhat less sensitive.
- Develop a Narrative: Another technique is to try to fabricate an explanation about why the person creating the sound is having to make that sound. For example if someone was making a nasal sound, it could be that they're not in good health or could be emotional. The idea is changing the meaning of the sound. While the noise stays the same, your reaction of it moves from being irritating, to feeling a bit more accepting towards it.
