The Holiday Season Often Proves to Be a Living Hell for Individuals Living with Sound Sensitivity.
Lottie hopes for spending time with her relatives during the festive period, but admits a key strategy she'll manage to get through it is by wearing her hearing protection - especially during Christmas dinner.
For her, this time of year is a particularly difficult time as the sounds of other people chewing, drinking noisily and sniffling make her feel profound anxiety.
"There's this wave of instant dread, my whole body will just tighten and it as though I'm in a threatening situation, and I need to manage these noises."
She has experienced sound sensitivity since she was 16 and for her that causes the Christmas time "deeply taxing".
Misophonia is a decreased threshold to specific noises, especially noises coming from those around you.
It's surprisingly common across the population. Experts discovered a significant portion of people are affected by it.
Often it's noises associated with eating or drinking that lead to discomfort, along with examples such as crunching, heavy breathing, and foot tapping.
Triggering Stress
Lottie says: "You encounter so many various auditory triggers at the holidays and that can be stressful and make you dread it.
"My relatives are aware, but I'm very mindful that I don't want to spoil the mood. It's like a really big battle of managing my symptoms to guarantee others enjoy themselves."
So it's clear why the supposedly joyous time of the year can transform into a living nightmare for affected individuals.
Triggers that may seem harmless, like someone slurping a Buck's fizz, rustling a roll of wrapping paper, or enjoying festive food can cause a strong emotional response that can even result in them withdrawing from gatherings.
Jenna, a young adult, who has dealt with misophonia since aged 10, says currently her plan is to use headphones to get through dinner. On any other day, she would often retreat in a different room to escape problematic noises.
She says her sensitivity is worse around people she's most familiar with, so the holidays is always "hard".
"There is pressure to socialize with loved ones, and I desire to, but it's exhausting on all levels.
"I feel as if this uncontrollable anger comes over me, which can feel embarrassing, or I'll feel stressed and begin to weep and then the stress response will activate.
"It can come across as if I'm being difficult and melodramatic, but it's tough to describe if you haven't felt it."
Three Ways to Manage
If it's an issue then there are some different techniques you can attempt to manage the situation, based on advice from clinical psychologists.
- Imagine a Different Scenario: Creative thinking is key. Work on connecting the specific noise affecting you with a neutral concept. As an illustration, try to envision someone's noisy drinking is just a sink draining water. This technique is to teach your brain that the sound affecting you is neutral.
- Try a Competition: Introduce playfulness and make the irritating noise into a game with the person. For instance, if someone is eating noisily have a go at mimicking the sound. Through participation, rather than feeling like the sound is unwanted, you become an active participant. And the competition element should help redirect your focus and make you slightly more tolerant.
- Create a Scenario: Another technique is to try to invent a reason 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 at their best or are troubled. This approach is re-framing the context of the sound. Even though the noise doesn't change, your reaction of it shifts from being annoying, to feeling a slightly more compassionate about it.
