How to stop being so sensitive – it’s time to battle with your emotions –

A wise Hindu philosopher once said that being well-adjusted to a deeply sick society is unhealthy.

You look around you and all the people seem to be immune to a lot of things that break you down emotionally and simply don’t let you live.

You are often told that you are overly sensitive. But have you ever stopped to think that it is actually others who have become desensitized to the world?

Maybe if we were all a little more sensitive, the whole world would be a much better place. But unfortunately we cannot stop the inertia of others. What we can do is find a balance.

Let’s accept it. Mockery, criticism and insults are a daily part of our lives.

Maybe at home we were raised in an emotional glass bubble, but it is impossible to avoid them once we go out into the real world, like school or work, for example.

In the concrete jungle the law of the fittest still reigns. People test themselves all the time, aggressively or cruelly, to test each other and see “what they are made of.”

Whether we like it or not, whether we consider it correct or not, that’s how things are. And the worst thing that can happen to you in a hostile environment is to be too sensitive.

Because, let’s admit it, not having the ability to endure, ignore or return some unpleasant words, jokes or attitudes from others, even if they do not exactly come from a bad intention, puts us at a huge disadvantage.

Overly sensitive people sometimes lose objectivity and fail to distinguish between real hostilities and attitudes of aggressive camaraderie or a simple sense of humor.

Much less, deal with them assertively.

If when reading the previous paragraphs you felt bad, offended or felt like crying or blaming others, we are sorry to tell you that it is very likely that you are too sensitive.

A hypersensitive person usually ends up on the verge of tears, screaming or exaggerating their emotions whenever they feel threatened by something or someone.

Sometimes, hypersensitive people who expose their vulnerability in a group end up being subjected to very real and cruel hostilities only because they have already been labeled as the weak individuals in the pack.

Most social groups value aggressively competitive attitudes and minimize or despise people who are too sensitive to avoid feeling hurt about it.

Maybe not in a conscious and individual way, but on an unconscious and collective level.

But you’re right about one thing: there’s nothing wrong with being sensitive.

Being a person who does not like aggressiveness and who is able to connect with their emotions and let them flow is not bad. In fact, psychologists believe that one in five people is like this.

It’s just not very assertive to show it in most social circles.

Having an emotional “thick skin” that allows all those things to slip through us is an important part of emotional intelligence. Some individuals are born with it, others have to develop it, but it is not impossible.

In this article we will give you the keys you need to stop being so sensitive.

Read our guide on how to stop being the toxic person in your life

Characteristics of very sensitive people

1) They normally need more time than others to process social information from the environment.

2) They react very intensely and exaggeratedly on an emotional and physical level.

3) They are extremely empathetic and react to others’ emotions as if they were their own.

4) They are hypersensitive to the most subtle stimuli of rejection or criticism.

Psychologists believe there could be a physiological reason why overly sensitive people are like this. Apparently your nervous system processes information differently.

Maybe you’ve ever seen someone embarrassed and you start to feel embarrassed too, even to the point that you blush and start sweating from your palms.

These types of extremely empathetic reactions are an important characteristic of hypersensitive people.

Not everything is bad when you are hypersensitive. There are some benefits, such as a great ability to tune in to the emotions of others and understand their feelings.

You may also notice that someone is having a hard time or hiding something before others.

However, this can often be a disadvantage.

How to “turn off” your excess sensitivity?

When you are overly sensitive, you usually focus too much on information that you really shouldn’t care about or that is irrelevant.

Someone casually tells you that they don’t like your favorite band, and you can’t help but think about it frequently and feel it like a personal criticism.

Maybe intense emotions appear that make you want to “defend yourself” with verbal or physical attacks, or you simply want to tell that person that it is their favorite band that sucks.

But let’s stop for a second and think objectively: it’s very likely that there are some people in the world who hate your favorite band. But that doesn’t mean they hate you.

Furthermore, and on a much more important level, what the hell do you care what that person thinks about your music?

Is that person in charge of choosing which playlist you listen to? Or buying tickets to your concerts? No. At the end of the day, whatever I think is not important or relevant to your existence.

The difference between a person who is overly sensitive and another who is not, is that the next day they will continue to harbor resentment or continue to feel bad about the comment, and the other person will not even remember.

Being overly sensitive can sometimes be like a hole through which some of the energy and self-confidence we need to achieve our goals in life are drained, because you care too much about what others think.

You don’t feel comfortable being yourself if someone isn’t completely okay with it.

Unfortunately, it is impossible for 100% of people to completely like you.

What are the advantages of stopping being so sensitive?

If you notice, the most successful people in life usually have a very thick emotional skin.

It is quite difficult to make them feel bad because they are so committed to themselves that no matter what happens around them, they will not let themselves be affected, or at least, they will not show it openly.

There are many stories of people who went through very tragic childhoods and adolescence and developed a strength that allowed them to move forward and even stand out.

Some of them were extremely sensitive. It’s not that they stopped being, it’s just that they began to focus that emotionality objectively, to pursue their dreams.

It is almost a requirement to find this emotional assertiveness to be successful in life, because, ironically, the more successful one is, the worse and harsher criticism one receives from others.

Living your life, to a large extent, means that you stop giving a damn what other people think.

There are ideal moments to be empathetic and sensitive, but there are many others in which it is best to turn a deaf ear to the world.

How to become more resilient on an emotional level?

We are going to give you seven very useful strategies so that little by little you begin to become more resistant and everything stops affecting you so much.

As with any cognitive, physical or emotional learning, it implies commitment on your part and a real desire to change for the better.

Read our guide on how to stop being insecure: 10 things you need to remember

1.- Practice silence

You don’t have to respond to everything people say or do. The ability to understand that something is not important enough to respond to is one of the characteristics of strong people.

They simply let the words of others go with the wind and do not dedicate a second of their time to them.

2.- Learn to deal with criticism

An excellent way to learn to deal with criticism is to start exposing yourself to it little by little and progressively and allowing it to affect you less each time.

To do this, first invite people who you know love you and wouldn’t say anything to hurt you to tell you what they like least about you.

These will always be constructive criticism that can also help you be a better person.

Then compare those criticisms with those made by others, and you will realize that there is a big difference between a criticism from affection and one from a simple desire to annoy.

The latter are irrelevant, so you don’t need to worry about them.

3.- Get out of your comfort zone

Try to expose yourself to new things, even if you don’t like them or think you don’t like them. Hypersensitive people are sometimes like this because they haven’t realized that nothing happens when they step out of their routine a little.

It’s not about moving cities or quitting your job tomorrow.

Things as simple as watching a movie of a different genre than the one you are used to, listening to another type of music or allowing yourself to listen to the arguments of others, give you a different perspective on life.

When we do new things, we learn to embrace diversity as part of neutral life. Thus, we feel more secure in ourselves and stop feeling everything as an attack on a personal level.

4.- Pay attention to the things that offend you

When you feel that something hurts, offends or saddens you, before giving vent to that emotion, think about whether it is something that truly affects you.

It’s perfectly natural to get angry that someone used our parking spot, because it affects us. But feeling miserable because someone forgot to greet us at the office is impractical.

Maybe if you analyze the things that bother you the most, you can find a pattern that allows you to determine what the real emotion is that is causing all those negative outbursts.

5.- Avoid overanalyzing things

Hypersensitive people often overanalyze everything that happens around them.

This causes them to turn a completely irrelevant situation that has nothing to do with them into a personal tragedy.

Sometimes, even if you wear out your brain wondering what made another person act or say this or that thing, it would actually do you no good to come to the right conclusion. So why bother?

If Perenganita did not greet you in the office, do not interpret that she is conspiring with the rest of your colleagues to get you fired.

6.- Trust yourself more

You don’t need to seek people’s approval all the time. Remember that the only opinion that really matters is yours.

You can take advice and constructive criticism from people who truly know and love you. But if someone who is not important tells you that you do something wrong, why should you give them credit?

People make wrong judgments about others all the time. You probably even do them frequently.

The difference is that they affect you and others take it for what they are: random opinions with no basis.

7.- Highlight the good, not the bad

People are neither completely good nor completely bad.

We all have a mocker…