Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Welcome to but why? Real Talk on Messy Minds and Messier Systems, the podcast where two psychologists overanalyze everything so you don't have to. We're here to unpack the weird, the worrying, and the wildly unjust with just enough existential dread to keep it interesting. I'm Dr. Kristen.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: And I'm Dr. Laura. Let's dive into the mess.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: I'm so glad I didn't say dread again like the first time I tried to do the introduction. Instead of dread, it's dread now.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Existential dread. I think that summarizes probably how we're feeling right now. It does.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: I literally did a post about existentialism yesterday because I was like, that's what it feels like. It feels like existential dread.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep. Definitely doesn't think about it too much. I feel like my brain is, like, going a million miles an hour lately, and I just need to, like, stop thinking about everything in the morning.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: I was thinking that this morning, you know, I was like, it's a really nice summer morning, and I was just out with the dogs. I was making my coffee, but my brain was already going so fast and thinking about everything that's going on. And I was like, I used to enjoy these mornings so much, and there's just so much going on that I can't slow my brain down. I need to really do some mindfulness and work on being very present in the moment instead of immediately being like, this is going on. I need to do this before this happens. And July's already almost over because it's the 8th.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And I think that is what is. Can be so hard. I think I also get very much, like.
I don't know, like, the overthinking just, like, catches up with me in a way.
And then once it's there, it's really hard to, like, change it or sometimes even to recognize it. And sometimes it can even feel kind of good, like, to get lost in it. But you know that, like, at the end of the day, that's gonna. It's gonna be too much. I don't know if that makes sense.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: No, it does. Like, on Friday, when we were both having moments of rage, we both channeled that into, like, useful projects that hopefully will make positive change or will make us learn more or develop or something like that. And so that was useful, but it was still really tiring. But on a day like today, when you don't have the capacity to use that for positive. And you just wanted to be able to be Present.
It's just more of a annoying struggle that takes away, raises your cortisol for no reason. And then it's kind of hard to still get yourself out of.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: Definitely. And I often notice after almost quite an intense or even kind of hyperactive period, if you like, of thinking and expressing myself, even if it's something I'm enjoying to do, I can feel that energy. And afterwards there's always going to be a crash. And it's then like, I'm like two completely different people.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: 100%. I felt that on Friday.
So for context, I got really annoyed about something, guys, and I decided to write an editorial about it. And I wrote the whole thing in like three hours.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: What did you do?
[00:03:40] Speaker B: I was like editing it and then I did like multiple rounds of edits and. And then like two, three o' clock hit and I just got a massive headache and just crash. And I was like, yes, I'm done. I am done. Because also the thing that drove the editorial was a lot of like, critical emotions, essentially. And so I feel like engaging in that much like, emotive work for hours on end, as well as using your critical thinking skills, is so draining. And so it was like, I'm also pissed off and I'm using your brain and I'm like, you know, you know, you're just like, engaging in your hyperfocus, I guess, can be quite tiring.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Yeah, it's funny that, isn't it? It's like, that is the, like a paradox. It's the you're doing what you love and you're excited to do it, but at the same time, you're putting like, so much intensity and energy into that thing that it is not sustainable. Even if we want to keep sustaining it, keep going, keep going, it isn't sustainable.
And I guess that's one of the, Well, I guess some of the many, like, pros and cons of, I guess, hyper fixating on something or having a really intense passion for something and perhaps, I don't know. Is this a good tangent to go into what we're talking about today?
[00:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah, let's. Let's dive in.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Let's tangent away. I feel like we didn't even tell you what we were going to do. Sorry, guys, let's tangent away.
Okay, so. Well, we're excited about today because I think it's something that we both experience a lot and it relates a lot to kind of, yeah, people who are neurodivergent, but also just everybody to an extent. But we're going to be talking about the very often, like, overlooked world of sensory stress. So we're going to be discussing, like, what it is, how it shows up and why it matters, especially for neurodivergent people.
So for many autistic individuals and people with adhd, for example, just going through your everyday life can be very overwhelming because there's lots of sensory stuff going on which we don't necessarily, necessarily control.
And it's not because we're, like, too sensitive to things, but it comes back to this idea that the environments we are in often aren't built for us, aren't built with sensory needs in mind.
So we're going to dig into that.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: Let's do it.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: Off I go.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: Oh, oh, no, you go. You go. No, no, no, no, no.
I'll get into my thing, guys. I'll get on a little informative tangent later. No, no. I exist on the high horse, Laura. I exist on the moral high horse.
But a lot of this is down to how neurodivergent people process information. It's not just like it's just happening. It's down to how your brains and bodies process information, which is just different.
So I'll get into the. The why behind that later. But I think that's something maybe to keep in mind now anyway.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Yes, definitely. So to start with, before I, like, introduce what it is in a.
Using words. Well, I'm still using words, but I wanted to kind of, like, paint.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: I thought you were going to interpretive dance instead.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: Really?
But I wanted to, like, share, like, a bit of a. I don't know how we'd call it. You could call it a vignette. You could call it like a little story excerpt. I don't know what you want to call it, but I thought I would share this just to try to help people to feel what this might be like.
So for those of you listening who do experience sensory stress, this might. You might. You might not enjoy this. So just like, trigger. Trigger warning here. Same for you, Kristen, but I'm going to read it as just your.
So this is what it can be like for someone who is neurodivergent or experiencing sensory stress kind of as they're getting up in the morning.
It's different for everyone, so not everyone will feel this way, but this is just an example of how it can show up in people's everyday lives. Okay, so I'm gonna read this out.
[00:07:53] Speaker B: I'm kind of scared. I know.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: I think you might be. Okay.
[00:07:56] Speaker B: I've got my Bulbasaur stim toy just in case.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: All right. So. So imagining this. So. The alarm buzzes. It's sharp. Synthetic. Splitting, bolt upright. Heart racing. The duvet feels too heavy on my legs. The tag on my pyjama top scratching my neck. I tug it off and wince as cold air slaps my skin. I step onto the ice cold tiles in the bathroom whilst the light blinds me from above. The hum from the extractor fan kicks in low, constant vibrating inside my skull. I try to brush my teeth, but the mint burns my tongue and the bristles feel like sandp.
The water's too cold, then too hot.
Downstairs, the kettle starts boiling. A screeching that drills into my spine.
My partner's chewing cereal at the table. I hear everything. The clink of the spoon, the scrape of the chair, the ticking of the clock. They ask me a question, but it's lost in the noise and I nod, pretending to hear.
[00:09:00] Speaker B: That was like, way too relatable to almost like my morning.
My morning. I had my weighted blanket on and all of a sudden I was like, oh, it's too much. And then it was freezing. I was like, jack, it's too light in here. It's too cold. And the spoon, literally, to the point where I now call Jack, like when he's eating something, like in a. Like a ceramic bowl or something, I'll be like, all right, Mr. Spoon, can you calm down? Like, literally.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: That's the thing as well.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: Like, if they don't get it, if they don't understand that how we are, like how all that sensory stress is experienced, then it seems like we are just overreacting to something.
But actually it is. It's hitting hard, hitting hard inside. And I get it a lot with the. The bit at the end, like they asked me a question, but it's lost in the noise. And I'm just pretending that I hear. I just. I don't even know. I don't have the attention to. Then listen to what somebody's saying to me because I've got all of these other things going on in my brain 100%. So if that related to any of you guys, you might be experiencing sensory stress.
So tell me a bit about what it is. I guess so.
So one of the, I think. I think important things for me anyway, around sensory stress is that it's cumulative. So it isn't just like one big thing happen, but it's lots of these, like, small discomforts like stacking over time. And that is often when, you know, sometimes we might be labeled as like, being overly emotional or Sensitive because it seems like something really small just happened, and now, like, we're overreacting. I'm doing quotation marks here. Overreacting. But actually, it's potentially because we've been going through our whole day experiencing these small sensory stresses, sometimes big sensory stressors.
So this sensory input, of course, can be experienced differently for everyone. So I'll go into these things in a bit more detail in a minute. But it can be like sensitivity to sound, touch, light, smell, taste.
But if we wanted to define sensory stress, we can say it's the emotional, physical, or cognitive overwhelm that results from sensory input.
So you might have even noticed, kind of listening through to that little story I was reading, how that can be challenging or can be difficult for someone to regulate their emotions when they are going through that experience and even tensing up physically in their body or cognitively overthinking or feeling overwhelmed by these experiences.
And for neurodivergent people, these sensations aren't just mild annoyances, but they can hit really hard.
So hopefully, again, that story kind of emphasize that. But what might just seem kind of a normal part of daily life, like putting on the kettle, can actually feel really loud and really uncomfortable and even, like, physically painful for some people.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: I don't really have any thoughts. I don't really.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: I was just.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: No, Yeah.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: I was just feeling stressed. I was just. I was just.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Literally, I was just thinking about it. I was just thinking about, like. Yeah, yeah. Yep.
Like, it hurts in my brain. Like, it's really hard to explain the actual feeling of, like, the competing information and, like, the. The physical pain that happens as a result.
[00:12:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that word's so important. It's the competing part. It's not necessarily. It's just that one thing is that there is so much competing information.
And I'll often get this, like, if I'm having, like, in a social space, having conversations. I remember this one time, it was just a terrible social setup. But, like, I was talking. There were, like, multiple people in the room, and I was trying to talk to this one woman across the room. And then, like, some other people were talking across us, and I was just like, I.
There's so much noise. I. I physically and mentally cannot.
I just can't process what you're saying to me. And then you're sat there trying to, like, pretend you know what's happening. But there is so much noise.
And it's not. I don't mean, like, it's really loud.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: I just mean, like, many noises.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, And a lot of information that I can't filter out. And we'll talk about this idea of filtering, I think, a little bit later. But I just wanted to give maybe some examples of, like, the types of sensory stress before we dig into that, just so that we're clear what we're talking about. So we've got auditory stress. So this one is maybe a more commonly known one. So this is when we might be overwhelmed by sounds that maybe they're too loud, but they also might be, like. I was just explaining there. It might be that they're, like, layered within the environment. There's multiple competing sounds. Maybe they're quite sudden. Maybe they're really repetitive. I. Sometimes I have to skip songs because they're just playing the same thing, like on a loop.
It, like, grates me inside.
We also have, like, a visual kind of sensory stresses. So this might be things like lighting, brightness, movement. Even visual clutter can be a cause of sensory stress. Which is a really good reason to get people to help you tidy up. But it never happens.
Just gotta do it on your own anyway.
Then we've got, like, tactile or touch. So this is discomfort from. So it might be physical touch, like you're getting hugged or someone's, like, tapping your shoulder for some reason. It could be textures of clothing, of toys, of, I don't know, keyboards. I have a keyboard in front of me who knows anything that's kind of tactile. Again, it really varies across what some people can, well, are okay with and what some people are not. So it can even be, like, seams on clothing or how tight your clothing is.
Things like this. So smell.
Smell. Yeah, smell, taste. Like texture and. And taste of food. I have quite big ones around that. And then just for a few that are maybe a bit less well known, because I think at least the ones that I know less about, we also have, like, proprioceptive kind of sensory stress. So this is when we might find it difficult to, like, sense our body position or, like, our movement in space. And it can make us feel really uncomfortable.
[00:16:01] Speaker B: This is literally describes my life. Like, I especially. My legs are covered in bruises. I literally ran directly into the corner of my couch that comes up to, like, here, like, the end of it. Like, I could just have no awareness of where my body is going.
Like. Yeah. And, yeah, it doesn't usually stress me out because of the lack. I'm just not aware of it.
But it's definitely a lack of pre.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: Mine is. Is always knocking, like, my sides against door handles just oh my God. And I'll often get, you know like the little loop like in your jeans.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: You get stuck, stuck in, in it.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: And I'm like, how have I managed to do this? Or like knocking myself on. That literally happens.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: It's weird, isn't it? Yeah.
Surely I should have learned how to avoid this.
I know, preocceptive stuff.
Okay, other ones. So two more. So we have vestibular stress. So this is more related to balance and movement. So it might mean kind of experiencing dizziness or like motion sickness, for example, even in like video games. So I. If I play first person video games, I can't do it. Yeah, I don't do it because I can't do it because it makes me feel sick. So I unfortunately can only really play like third person video games.
Otherwise. Yeah, I feel really nauseous. That makes sense to do with that.
And then last one, interoceptive stress. So this one. Well, we talk about this quite a lot, don't we? So this is when we might have difficulty recognizing are like internal bodily signals. So you struggle to notice when you're hungry or when you're thirsty or how hot or cold you are or if you're experiencing pain.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: That actually is. I think I messaged you yesterday because I was having such a, like a.
I've had a really stressful couple of weeks that I think this week is just my body and brain kind of coming down from it. And yesterday I could not even regulate my temperature. One second I was really hot and then I was shivering. I was like, what is going on? This is so annoying.
But you just. I never thought about it as like a sensory thing.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: No, me neither. And I think it is.
I think it's interesting, at least for me because I've only been like recently diagnosed is like thinking about my own like sensory profiles and what things do I guess bother me if you like and what things perhaps don't so much.
And I think it is useful to kind of reflect on, on these things, especially if you think that you are experiencing some sort of sensory stress. But it's really hard. I struggle with it. I always say to Kristen, I don't know how I'm going to know. How do I know if this is this or not?
[00:18:56] Speaker B: Anyway, you just figure it out over time. Like for example, when I figure it.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: Out together before we do.
[00:19:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a very collaborative process at this point. Like for example, I used to think I, when I first got diagnosed that I don't have any sensory issues.
And then I learned that I just learned how to cope with them constantly. And I'm like, oh, actually, this is why I have to wear sunglasses.
I like, literally, if I walk outside, I'm like that. And wind is a huge one for me. It's physically painful to me because it's the sound and the pain, like, it actually, like, I remember saying to Jack all the time, God, my ears hurt so much when it's windy. And he was like, what? What are you talking about? So then I would just get to walk in Wales where it's really windy. I would just get a headband. And I was like, okay, well, sort it. I still don't enjoy it, but you just think everyone else is experiencing it the same way and then you just kind of like, crack on.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: Yeah, totally. And so I find sometimes as well, some days it's okay, and then some days, like, it is not okay. And I will get into that.
Oh, please. Okay, well, I suppose before we get onto that, I just wanted to.
I just wanted to kind of highlight how this is different from normal stress.
So, like we've said, so the sensory stress is not just about, like, the intensity of a sound or smell, but it's about, for example, how long is that thing lasting for?
It can be really hard to tune these things out, especially for people who are neurodivergent.
It depends on, I said, how layered it feels. So are there multiple competing stimuli in the environment?
It can also be down to if it's unexpected, uncontrollable, and how it builds across the day. So normal stress might be, for example, you've got, like, a deadline or, you know, you've got to have, like, a difficult conversation with someone that is stressful. However, with us with sensory stress, this instead, yeah, might build from, like we say, waking up in the morning. It might be from driving to work, from being in a supermarket for even, like, just 10 minutes.
So these situations might just seem very normal for some people. But those who experience sensory stress, it can mean that literally your nervous system feels like it's under attack.
But what's really tough about this, and I suppose similar in a way to normal stress, is that it's often not seen, so it's often kind of hidden. And again, we learn to hide it, to mask it. So we might be trying to hold it together, but inside it's really intense. It's too much.
So again, this kind of invisibility of the sensory stress can mean that it's interpreted by others as, like we said, being overly sensitive, overreacting.
It can mean that the. That person experiencing it kind of feel a lot of shame for perhaps not being able to say, regulate themselves within that environment.
And this can lead to things like masking, which we've spoken about kind of before.
It can mean that we are using, say dissociating or kind of using more avoidant coping strategies which can impact well being and mental health.
So one of, I guess the aims that we want to get across in this episode aim at 30 minutes in. But one of the aims I think is to try and I guess humanize and like normalize sensory stress and understand what it might be like to live with it, like for yourself as a human being. But also when we are encountering other people in the world, trying to understand that they might be experiencing sensory stresses even though it's invisible. We can try to have more of a.
Yeah. Empathy towards people who are experiencing that, I think.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: And empathy is a big ask right now with the way the world's going.
But like, I feel like a lot of people hear like even just some of the stories we were telling about like, oh, the wind hurts. And they can really go like, you're just being a baby, you're just minimizing. They could really minimize it because it doesn't sound like a big deal because they've not experienced it. Have you ever seen that video? I think it was the Autistic. National Autistic Society. They put out a video of this autistic boy in a mall with his mom.
And how they. I just. Let me search it real quick because I think if you're watching on the YouTube, it's really interesting. Let me hold on. On the YouTube.
[00:23:43] Speaker A: On, on the YouTube.
[00:23:44] Speaker B: Hello fellow children.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: The YouTubes.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: Oh yeah. It is the National Autistic Society. So if you're on like a podcast form and not on the YouTube. Give, give it a quick Google. So like the National Autistic Society. Just Google, can you make it to the end? Or autistic boy and mall. And It'll come.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: It's 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
Take my hand.
Go.
No, it's fine, isn't it?
I'm not naughty.
I'm autistic and I just get too much information.
It's making my chest hurt.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: I know, I know. It's so sad.
And like the thing I think to note in that video is no one has done anything wrong. Do you know what I mean? Especially maybe that judgmental lady at the end. But like everyone's just kind of going about their lives. There's people smiling like the balloon Guy was smiling at him and all that kind of stuff. But that doesn't mean like.
Like, kind of what I was saying when we were talking on Friday is the intent doesn't negate the impact of what actually is happening to the person. And that's what we talk about from an environmental perspective, that these environments are just not designed for how a neurodiverse brain processes information.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: And you know what makes me think how sometimes that can make it feel worse? Because then, because say someone is trying to be really nice to you, but actually you are just feeling so overwhelmed that you can't respond in, like, the way that you want to. And that's where, like, the guilt and the shame comes in. Because it's like to be enjoying this, like, I'm going to be having a good time, but I just. There's just something I just can't get past.
And that's really.
Yeah, it's. It's kind of. It's. It's sad. Like, I find that quite upsetting.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: Yeah. I think the guilt and the shame can be like a massive thing of, you know, thing like that. Like, for example, being excited for like a big birthday dinner or like something that you've been looking forward to and then something has happened where your brain just decides this is too much. And then, you know, you feel like you're letting people down or you feel like, what, you know, I should be able to do this. Everyone else seems fine, you know, to do this. And so I think that's something that doesn't get talked about. Like, we get. We talk a lot about what the actual sensory experience is, but maybe not the kind of emotional psychological impact of that, which we could totally do a whole other episode on.
[00:27:20] Speaker A: Yes, definitely. Definitely. And because I think that that does. Then that is. Then what I think increases. Like the masking, for example, in some cases, or which means that we have to withdraw from certain things which we might otherwise want to do.
Yeah.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: Yeah. So I guess with that in mind, it might be good to kind of dig into the why behind it. But why?
Why? Neurodivergent brains, how they process sensory input differently and there's a range of neurodivergence, but I want to focus just on two right now. That. So I want to focus on autism and adhd because they're interesting in their.
They can have similar appear, like, appearances, but they're actually for very different reasons a lot of the time, which is very, like, very interesting. But let's talk about first neurotypical people.
So neurotypical Brains have a more consistent filtering of information. So this is sensory cognitive information, psychological information, you know, just stuff going on in the environment, their thoughts. And because they are top down instead of bottom up thinkers, their brains automatically prioritize information that fits into pre existing hierarchies and, and they've already been able to kind of prioritize and predict that it's probably relevant in that situation. So when it comes to sensory information, this might look like, okay, well I know I'm in a restaurant talking to this person. My brain is able to filter out the other conversations going on around me and I can just listen to this person.
On the other hand, neurodivergent people have varied processing ways of processing and every version of neurodivergence processes information differently. That's why there are different types of neurodivergence, but they have different thresholds and filtering of information which can mean hypersensitive sensitivity, hyposensitivity, which is like being under registered. So for example, something like I have an extremely high pain tolerance because I have a hyposensitivity to certain kinds of contact, external contact, but I have a hypersensitivity to internal pain. So I'm like, like super sensitive if I get like a chest pain or something like that. And it could be quite stressful.
So I will go into autism and adhd.
Some of the main four or five things that impact this.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: I was just thinking how nice it would be if I could go to a restaurant and actually filter out the information I needed to filter out.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: Can you imagine my life?
[00:30:11] Speaker A: So much easier. Yeah, so much easier. Rather than like just being like, I need to have a drink, I need some alcohol.
[00:30:17] Speaker B: Well that can just. I was literally just about to say that I've said this to Jack a few times is every time I was in those environments I felt like the only way to dim those senses was alcohol. And so I would drink way more than I do now because I've recognized why that is. And it's definitely like the, oh, I've told Jack. The only time the brain shuts off, the only time the, like the over sensory, the overthinking etc shuts off is you know, when I've had a couple drinks and that is so like stressful.
Like I don't want that to be the only time, like can we just have a button?
But please love a bun.
So I'm going to go through autism first because there's a bit more to cover in it. So some people might call it decreased reliance on Prediction but really it's more sensory heightened sensory clarity when it comes to what you're experiencing. So when you're processing an autistic person has less assumed and more almost like realistic perception. And that's, you know, loads of researchers have described this for the last like 10, 15 years. And so rather than suppressing this kind of sensory sensory input based on past experience or expectation, autistic brains tend to process the raw unfiltered information. And this goes back up, back to the how autistic people process information is bottom up instead of top down.
So every time we go into a new situation, for the most part we are taking all the information that's there and forming an idea or an experience based off of that.
And not like making prior assumptions based off of.
I think I said this in a previous episode. It's our shortcuts aren't shortcutting because. Because basically we have like extra neurons that weren't pruned when we were kids. And so we prioritize what's present over what's expected.
And this is, you know, can be really useful. So like great attention to detail.
So yeah we, we favor bottom up sensory evidence over top down stuff. And then number two we have like a sensory hyper connectivity.
And this is another reason because we are neurons didn't prune the same way as a holistic person. So an allistic person is a non autistic person. We have heightened connectivity between the different sensory regions. So our visual region, that of our brain might have a really strong connection to our tactile. Whereas in kind of like a ballistic person this would have been dulled down a little bit because for the same reason babies have terrible vision when they're born. It's just a lot of. It's too much information information at once. And then it gets better. Better as they learn to process.
Our brains do the reverse in terms of pruning stuff that makes it inefficient or too much for our bodies to process. In holistic people there is a bit of what you could term like hashtags over connectivity in our sensory perceptual circuits. We and again have less capacity to filter that. So not only is there increased sensory perceptual circuits, the ability to filter those circuits is less. So what you might term as the brain's gatekeepers don't kind of discard that input arbitrarily. So that basically our brains ignoring that some information is irrelevant and it's like it could all be relevant, we just don't know.
So like Again, that, that, that, what do I call it, like, brain shortcut, Our evolutionary shortcuts that are in holistic brains we don't have. And that has a lot of positives, right, that can be great in terms of pattern recognition and a really present experience, but in the wrong, I guess, situation that can lead to like, a meltdown or a shutdown. Things like that, like we just saw in that video is that inability to send, to filter out that information. So that basically means that if there's a sound over here, a sound over there, and a visual thing over there, you're not filtering out any of that. They're all probably at the same volume, at the same kind of awareness in your consciousness as each other, which is quite overwhelming.
[00:34:47] Speaker A: I was thinking this is maybe a tangent, right? But as you were talking, I was thinking, is this also, like, one of the reasons why, say, autistic people like a lot of detail and clarity? Because with, because we're like, taking in all of the information, like, as a whole.
So unless it's really clear, we end up perhaps not knowing what to prioritize in that information or how exactly it needs to be done.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Is there like a 100%? So our, our need for context can make it really, us really good in certain situations, but it can also constrain us in other situations.
So what might seem obvious to some people is just not obvious to us because it's a slightly different situation. Do you know what I mean? So, like, say you move to a different role, but you're in the same job. You might just start from the bottom and work your way up. And I think we could do a whole episode on this because I find the processing of information so interesting. And it's not that autistic people like context. It's that autistic people need context to form ideas. And a lot of autistic people have this sense of needing truth, for lack of a better word, more scientific word. But it's this kind of, like, need to understand the. As reality, the reality of the situation as much as they can before engaging in something as well. So that can often make it seem like we're being annoying by asking extra questions. And, you know, first we're asking for context, but then we also want to be sure that it's being done properly and stuff like that. And so that can be almost an accommodation in a workplace because some people just do it and they get it. And you know what? That's, that's awesome for them or that they kind of, kind of, you know, Fake it till you make it. But for a lot of autistic people, that just doesn't work or being expected to do that can be quite stressful.
[00:36:48] Speaker A: And actually how that, say, having a lot of context or kind of details about, like, an environment you're going into then actually can help us to manage the sensory stress we might be experiencing. So even, like, what sort of activity are we going to be doing? Am I going to be really warm? Am I going to be cold?
Is it going to be loud? How many people are going to be there?
Like, things like that all help me to sort of then plan for going to an event or something that is more social.
But often I. I'll get in response, like, oh, I just don't know. I'm like, okay. Oh, just wait.
[00:37:31] Speaker B: Great. I don't really know what to do with that. I think that's why, like, I remember you and I, the conference we were at a couple of weeks ago. We brought so much, like, we brought, like, something for every possibility. And that was to make us feel better because you don't know if it's gonna be hot in there, what the weather's gon.
You just don't know what to expect. And some people are just walking in with a backpack, like, for the whole, you know, three days, and we've just got our whole cars packed with stuff. And that's like a coping mechanism to deal with potential to minimize any future stress. But it's just like that little bit of extra thing you do that you didn't realize the reason why. You're just like, oh, I'm over packing, like. But no, I'm just preparing for every possible situation.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: I don't know if you get this too, but I don't think I've ever spoken to anybody about this before.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: Oh, no, here we go.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: I feel really embarrassed when I go into, like, a hotel and say, I'm just staying for like, two nights and I've got loads of stuff. And I am always like, I'm going to, like, leave some of the bags in the car. So when I initially go in, it doesn't look like I've got loads of things so that that person isn't then going to, like, judge me about something. Like, well, I don't even know what they would judge me about. It's so silly. But I'm really never going to see again. Like, yeah, I really have to be like, no, come on, Laura, it's okay. Just take all of the bags in at once. It's fine. Like, you'll save yourself a trip. But I find I don't know why. There's something that makes me feel shameful about like bringing loads of stuff.
[00:39:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no, I get that. It's that it goes back to that perception management thing that we've talked about quite a bit. It's like there's this need. It's part of masking. It's just this need to like, like show that you're normal and heavy quotes.
[00:39:20] Speaker A: I swear I've only got one bag.
[00:39:22] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know where all these other ones. Like I just. So you know. And you're checking out and you have like 80 bags with you and you're like, I don't know where this came from.
[00:39:30] Speaker A: Like I feel like I need to give some reason about why all these bags like, oh, but I needed to bring this coat and this coat because you didn't know what was going to happen. And then, and then it's like the over explaining and the over justification of things because you can't just be well.
[00:39:43] Speaker B: And that that's why a lot of people automatically assume a lot of autistic people are l.
Because of, because of our need for context and like just need to explain why we're doing something.
Most people if they're over explaining are lying. Where I like would term it as like justifying and explaining. Like I always appreciate more of an explanation, do you know what I mean? From anyone that like please over explain your point. Please over explain what I'm meant to be doing.
That's always appreciated. I hate under explaining so I try to reciprocate that and then I realize they either think I'm lying or annoying, which is just, you know, I guess the story of my life.
[00:40:25] Speaker A: Same, same, same, same.
[00:40:27] Speaker B: All right, let me get through these last two so I can. Oh yeah, give. Give ADHD some love.
Because I wanted. I could have skipped these, but I think that you might resonate with them.
But so it's.
We integrate different senses or different experiences when there's like multiple of them differently.
So rather than being able to just focus on one detail, it's all coming in.
It's all coming in stimuli. Oh my God. My brain just broken. But then sometimes, sometimes if there's a hyperfocus going on, it can be the opposite.
So researchers have found that there are like temporal binding windows for autistic people, meaning that stimuli are perceived as separate when other people might merge them if there's like a hyper focus going on. So I think thought that was interesting. Like if you're in your hyperfocus, you're just like, that's the stimulus coming in. Whereas if you're not everything things coming in. And then lastly it's that again like hyper or hypo awareness in the body. So let's move into adhd which I think you're going to find a little interesting, some of this stuff.
Oh no.
So the interesting thing about ADHD is oftentimes it's very much the opposite of autism in its processing.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: So.
[00:41:57] Speaker B: So some ADHD people find sensory input as a source of regulation rather than distraction. So ADHD brains often engage with sensory input as a way to maintain that kind of optimal arousal because ADHD's processing is very much dopamine engaged so it always wants to keep that dopamine going. So these can be like really good regulation tools on one side. However, for ADHD this is extremely context dependent. So something that on one day is a positive for managing their dopamine levels and their levels of arousal can become a hypersensitivity on the next day depending on mainly their emotional state.
So this sensory perception is really variable and like I said, it depends on emotional state interests, focus.
So while they might be able to tune out intense stimuli like hunger or noise, that's, that's my made up word for the day. Um, while they're in a hyper focus it could be the opposite. If so if they're bored or frustrated, a low level stimuli like Jack yesterday, his sock was annoying him and he was already, he was already annoyed, it was like unbearable. So like a ticking clock, something like that. So I think most autistic people under most circumstances would already find that like at least irritating. Whereas for ADHD people for the most part it's very much dependent on a lot of context. It reflects the kind of like how the salience network and the brain shifts its engagement throughout the day. So kind of like the areas of the brain that govern attention switching and sensory prioritization are constantly in switch. So it's not that they process information bottom up, it's that like what's getting focus is always moving.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: What they're kind of attending to is always like moving.
Like what do you mean by that?
[00:44:02] Speaker B: It's like chasing the dopamine essentially is a lot of it.
And also people with ADHD have a different, I guess interaction with the emotions in their BR as well. So this is linked to kind of your prefrontal cortex, the interaction in there and how that interacts with the amygdala. And it just works very differently to non ADHD brains. So emotional regulation is different, but also it's, it's really very dopamine and interest based adhd. Does that make sense?
[00:44:36] Speaker A: Yeah. And so like, so then for ADHD is it is like you say, more context driven.
So is that like on say one given day a certain stimuli might be fine and another day it might not be. Whereas for an autistic person it's like that's never okay?
[00:44:56] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean I wouldn't put it in such finite terms, but that's kind of okay. I need like, yeah, that's like essentially it. So like for example, I can find like for example the headphones on my ears on a good day like they're always going to be kind of annoying to me. But on a good day they're fine. But on a bad day it feels like they're squeezing my skull. Somebody who's ADHD might be completely unbothered by them and not even realize they're there on one day and then the next day it'll feel like they're squeezing their skull. Does that make sense?
[00:45:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
[00:45:34] Speaker B: And it's, it's significant love and have.
[00:45:37] Speaker A: Both of those things.
[00:45:41] Speaker B: That's why I was like, you might find this interesting.
But I think the really important thing to keep in mind is these sensory experiences are really entangled with kind of that general emotional tone.
So a scratchy shirt could be really tolerable when they're calm, but really unbearable if you're like anxious or annoyed, but like at the same time pleasant sensory input. So like music or a massage can soothe intense emotions. So there's this like kind of of constant interaction going on. Similar to autistic people is ADHDers often report like a lot of difficulty tracking those internal needs.
And it's that this kind of like inconsistent registration of signals due to how attention is fluctuating at any given moment. So it's a different reason but almost like the same outcome as autistic people. And so a lot of people kind of develop external scaffolds to manage this. So like they'll set alarms, they might have an aura ring or some kind of tracker stuff like that.
So it's really interesting to me to note that like, okay, it's quite similar but there's different reasons. So sensory filtering is like autistic people, it's constant and kind of like fine grained input.
But ADHD is like variable input filtering depending on emotion, task and state. And like there's that emotional sensory link. So for autistic people Sensory input can directly trigger like a shutdown or intense emotional response. But then for ADHD people, emotion modulates that sensory tolerance. Does that make sense?
[00:47:25] Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting.
[00:47:27] Speaker B: And I could go more into the compare and contrast because I think it's really, really interesting. Like, if we're looking at adaptation strategies for autism, you might look at like, predictable routines, like a diet that's like sensory friendly, texture and lighting control, stuff like that. And then for adhd, you might look at movement breaks. Novel. Adding novelty to their, to their day instead of like taking it away.
Adding sensory variety and like external reminders. So I think, I think it's really interesting. We call it dysregulation, but I think it's just a difference in how you're regulating things and the environment and your own state just impacts that constantly.
[00:48:06] Speaker A: Definitely. And I think part of that is as well. Yeah. Our own understanding of how it shows up for us.
And while no, like, not all of the.
I guess the responsibility should be on us to do. To do that, I think that we can have a big part in trying to, like, navigate our environments and speaking up when we perhaps need something different or if it's something that we can do or change ourselves, then prioritizing that for. For ourselves, which is difficult to do it.
[00:48:39] Speaker B: It's difficult, especially with the, like you said, the guilt and shame that can happen and then the judgment you get from other people no matter what. And so, like, when you're talking about coping strategies or designing spaces for sensory inclusion, you're not just looking at the actual, like, sensory needs. You're looking at the psychological and interpersonal personal things that surround that as well and can make somebody less likely to ask for accommodation or engage in the accommodation that's actually there. Like, I even, I struggle with that at work. Like saying, like, oh, well, I can't come to this xyz because I know it's going to be a sensory hellhole. Do you know what I mean?
[00:49:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes, definitely. And I think it would be fun to do an episode at some point where we dig into perhaps more of these practicals around how do we, One, support ourselves? Two, asking for accommodations. Or if you are someone who is able to kind of create change in your organizations, in your workspaces, what might that look like? Because I think that can sometimes be a difficult space to navigate in. Like, where do we first start if we want to make some change and actually recognizing that these changes are good for everyone, like, not just people who.
[00:49:51] Speaker B: Are neurodivergent 100%, 100%. Because like we say all the time, no one's brains are evolved to exist in the world that we exist right now, down to LED lights, down to how we're structuring our lives. Our brains still aren't, like, evolved for this. So any kind of sensory flexibility that people have in their lives is just going to help anyone, really.
[00:50:18] Speaker A: And perhaps just as a little closing reflection, it might be useful. Yeah, just to kind of go away and have a think about your own sensory world, your own the different kind of spaces and contexts you're in, whether you're neurodivergent or not, and think about kind of what soothes you, what stresses you, and also just how you can be more curious and tune in with other people's sensory needs and preferences.
[00:50:47] Speaker B: Love that reflection. Like an internal and an external reflection.
Yeah, guys, thank you so much for listening. Do let us know if you want us to do an episode on the more practical side of that, like, how do we actually act in like, okay, this is an educational one, but how do we enact this in our lives? Because as always, we probably left you with more questions than answers, which is just the point of us.
So we love digging into the messy kind of. Of often invisible layers of sensory stress and how so many of us and often neurodivergent people are asked to kind of tolerate environments that were not built with those people in mind.
So do you have any thoughts, any questions? We want to hear it. So please drop a comment, message us, or shout into the void. But like I say all the time, tagging us is much more effective. If there's a topic you want us to dig into next, get in touch because we're always up for the new rabbit hole. If you like this episode, don't forget to follow, like, rate, scream about it from a rooftop, whatever your platform allows. And tell your friends you can find all of our links on the but why Instagram page. So head to the bio for everything. And remember, the first step to understanding is asking, but why?
[00:51:57] Speaker A: Yay, Sam.
