Do you Become more hypersensetive when stressed?

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Do you Become more hyper/hyposensetive when stressed?

How to explain this..

I think maybe most of you have either hypo or hyper sensitivities to various things, I have sensetive hearing, touch and smell, but one thing that I've noticed is that when I'm stressed and anxious, it seems like my already overly sensitive senses are made even more sensitive, everything is to loud and bright and I need to be in complete silence and cover my eyes and ears.

Is that normal?

And another odd thing that happens - and it might not be related, is that when I'm very stressed and I'm in a crowd I can "feel" people who pass within about 3 metres of me, I've said to family members who are with me at these times that I can feel them and I need them to step back, of course they are perplexed since they arn't actually touching me, if they are standing to my right then I will feel a lurching fuzzy anxious feeling (the same feeling I get when I'm actually touched) on my right side, if someone walks past me then I'll feel their direction move across my body, it's like radar
Any thoughts on that?

Yes, noises and bright lights and so on scare me even more than usual when I'm stressed.

I think that and the not being able to have people near you thing (which I sometimes experience too) are basic fight-or-flight responses (to use a dumbed-down term) which are amplified in autistic people.

Reasoning: If you're already stressed from some other cause, your body is ready to get away from any strange new danger you perceive (lights/noise).

When you're in this state, you also instinctively don't want people getting near enough that they could hurt you. Of course they're probably not going to, since we live in civilized society, but the part of the brain responding to their presence is much more primitive.

To the first: This happens to me all the time. The more stressed I am, the more hypersensitive I become. Also, overstimulation makes me more hypersensitive.

To the second: I feel kind of like this, I think, and it makes stores pretty stressful (on top of everything else) and makes people defensive when I find a quiet corner when the kitchen fills up with people and I don't know where I can move. I feel like it's proprioception, like, I don't feel like I know precisely where my body is relative to other people. I also feel like when people come into my space that they're intruding on me personally in some way. Distances varies, but the more someone is moving the more trouble I have being near them.

I'm not hypersensitive to any sounds, sights or smells normally, I am a little sensitive to taste and touch normally. However, when I am stressed, I become sensitive to noise.

I'm also hyposensitive to pain normally. However, when stressed, I become VERY insensitive to pain.

I am hypersensitive to rude or mean comments made by other people, but MUCH MORE when I am stressed, then normally.

These are the same feelings that I experience, when I'm stressed.

I don't have any major sensory issues, but I am normally fairly sensitive to certain sounds and smells and I am very sensitive to pain. When I am stressed all of those areas become worse.

YES! my main issue is sensory overload............places that are too noisy, crowded and smelly all at once. My sensory overload gets is much worse when I'm also stressed!

I get the nervous shakes. ever seen a earthquake in a person? well its exactly like that!
completley awful i tell you~

I do this as well, I'm very sensitive to light and sound and somewhat sensitive to smells and touch... if I'm stressed I can't handle noise, oddly the other things don't bother me. but sound is my enemy, I start hunting down everything that's making noise and unplugging it or switching it off. one time, I got so worked up that I started punching my radio because I couldn't figure out how to make it turn off.



I do this, but not just when I'm tired. I can feel people when they are close to me, or if I enter a room I can tell of someone is in there even if the lights are off, I can sense their presence... it's kind of a tingling feeling. it's pretty odd, but it does really cut down on being surprised.

Now, can you do it with other objects? or just people?
for example, I can close my eyes and then run my hand a few inches above a surface and be able to tell where everything is, especially if it's something metal or electrical...

For me, this is generally true.

My ability to cope with life is a matter of mental discipline, but like everyone else, there is a limit to how far I can stretch my mental ability to stay on stop of things. More stress = less mental resources to cope.

MooCow:

It's just people me, I know Nicola Tesla had what you have, he was super hyper sensetive.

When I am at my venue, I frequently go into panic mode..I have to wear noiuse cancelling earmuffs just from sounds of people talking..and there are numerous folk to whom I am unable to speak for reasons that are completely irrational.

That's always been a problem for me. My family never understood it. I used to just call it too much stimuli and do my best to leave the scene. When I am stressed, it's twice as bad.

I do both of those things.

Getting more hypersensitive under stress is normal. Stress takes away processing that could be used handling the stress of hypersensitivity.

I'm extremely sensitive to certain things (especially noise) and when I'm stressed and/or tired, my senses seem to go into overdrive and the smallest sounds are magnified to an almost unbearable level.