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Hypervigilance and High Sensitivity (The HSP Owner’s Guide)
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In this week’s episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we look at the relationship between sensory processing sensitivity and hypervigilance.
As we finish our journey through the first HSP Owner’s Guide, we turn our attention to hypervigilance. that feeling of being permanently “switched on,” unable to stop scanning for danger, even when we’re safe.
For highly sensitive people, vigilance is a natural part of sensory processing sensitivity. It helps us read the room, pick up subtle cues, and stay attuned to what is happening beneath the surface. But when vigilance tips into hypervigilance, it can leave us in a state of chronic over-arousal, disconnection, and exhaustion.
In the episode, we explore why hypervigilance is such a common experience for HSPs, how it shows up in everyday life, and ways we might support our nervous systems in returning to a sense of safety and connection. I examine hypervigilance within a social and cultural context for HSPs, rather than from a clinical or individual psychological perspective.
Vigilance vs. Hypervigilance
Vigilance is an intrinsic feature of sensory intelligence. It anchors us in the awareness to notice and predict useful information to help us survive and thrive together.
Hypervigilance is what happens when vigilance overspills, and we get stuck in a state of alertness with limited capability to move our nervous system into a state of connection.
This can have roots in early life (especially for HSPs who are more impacted by their formative environments). But it can also develop over time because of the pressures and rhythms of the modern world, with constant notifications, cultural glorification of busyness, and a never-ending expectation to perform and prove our worth.
Possible Signs of Hypervigilance
Hypervigilance is not always dramatic. Often it shows up quietly and gradually, for example you might notice:
- Feeling flat or detached, as if life is happening behind glass
- Difficulty taking action, even on small plans
- Unusual tearfulness
- Brain fog and trouble focusing
- Ruminating thoughts on repeat
- Disrupted sleep cycles
- Anxiety or panic attacks seemingly “out of nowhere”
- Harsh self-criticism or low self-esteem
If these feel familiar, they may be signs that your nervous system has been in “stay safe” mode for a long time.
Why Hypervigilance Happens
Hypervigilance is the nervous system’s over-lean into the message, “stay safe by staying alert.” This is obviously appropriate in certain contexts, but when we carry this story everywhere, it takes its toll and can be a difficult pattern to get out of.
Some common contributing factors include:
- Early Environments: Growing up in conflict or unpredictability can train the nervous system to always be on guard, especially in volatile environments where safety could be torn away at a moment’s notice.
- Past Experiences: The nervous system may overlearn from painful experiences, remaining alert to avoid “ever letting that happen again.”
- Cultural Pressures: Hustle culture, social media outrage cycles, and global crises all create a background hum of threat.
- Worldview and Meaning-Making: Certain belief systems (political, religious, ideological) can divide the world into “us vs. them,” keeping us in a state of perpetual alertness to nefarious outside actors.
- Physiological Factors: Poor sleep, hormone shifts, or nutritional deficiencies can lower our threshold for perceiving danger.
These are rarely isolated and often overlap in ways that reinforce one another.
Meeting Hypervigilance with Creative Gentleness
A helpful (though, not easy) way to meet everyday hypervigilance is to slow things down. Not necessarily by stopping altogether, but by letting engagement become gentler and more deliberate. Rather than rushing to solve, fix, or control, we can allow space to notice small sensory glimmers, those subtle cues that tell us we are safe, connected, and welcome in the moment.
Sometimes hypervigilance disguises itself as a need to gather more knowledge or prepare more thoroughly before we act. The desire to have the perfect plan, the ideal response, or the flawless understanding can be part of the protective pattern itself. Learning to sit with uncertainty, to laugh about situations (especially with others), and to experiment imperfectly can be a gentle way of softening the grip of hypervigilance.
We do not have to do this work alone. Bringing trusted people into our experiments, letting them see us try, fail, and try again, can help retrain our nervous system to experience safety and belonging in moments of vulnerability. Over time, these practices reshape our inner landscapes, reassuring the nervous system that imperfection is safe.
Over to You
When do you notice yourself holding your breath, bracing for something that never quite arrives? Or looking out for threats, even when you’re safe. I’d love to hear if any of this rings true for you. Feel free to get in touch and let me know.
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