Dealing with sensory anxiety

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I'm pretty good at dealing with social and general anxiety. I'm reading a book on CBT and it's good but it doesn't help me out with sensory anxiety.

By sensory anxiety I mean when I expect that I'd get overwhelmed by sensory things. I suppose some CBT might work for that too.

To tackle the many sounds I wear earplugs or listen to my iPod.
The visual anxiety is a bit harder to deal with. I usually just look away or try to think of something that takes my attention off whatever is bothering me. Usually it's lights or crowds. Sometimes I just have to get as far away as I can.

What does everyone else do to deal with these issues?

Avoid. For years I thought I had a dog phobia, but I wasn't scared of the fangs, it was the sudden high pitch bark that tipped me over. Nasty.

Ipod and sunglasses.

Before that, it was Discman and sunglasses.

Before that, walkman and tinted glasses (as part of my prescription).

If it gets bad, walk briskly to privacy and cover ears and shut eyes . . . and usually, rock.

At work, when it gets bad, I take off my glasses. Brightness remains, but it is now an ambiguous blur and darker, and (perhaps it is an associative reaction) it is harder to hear . . . as though my ears suffer blurriness too.

If I were a vulgar person, I would explaion what CBT means to the average gay man.

I am dubious that either that, or the other CBT, would be useful with sensory anxiety. I assume that this is at a functional level below thought, and there are no thinking patterns that CBT could identify and modify.

Also, the earplugs, iPods and sunglasses are avoidance behaviours, which are very non-CBT, or even CBT-failure. In my view, avoidance is a valid and effective mechanism to deal with sensory anxiety when the overall loss through avoidance is less than the gain in participating in a greater range of activities.

I hate large groups of people, i.e. the mall, sporting events, school events, etc. If I have to go, I usually keep my eyes closed when ever possible to avoid the sensory overload, but the noise is still a problem. Closing my eyes also helps with bright light and the sun. I listen to my iPod before I go to bed to shut out the world and help be decompress. If all else fails, I avoid the situation.

I tried CBT and it did not work for me. I have a lot of anxiety in general and it only gets worse in high sensory input situations and can lead to a very bad anxiety attack if I am not taking my medication.

-Johanthan

I just get paraniod, and also extremely restless in crowds, or even at family get togethers. i can never seem to relax for some reason, and so usually end up going home and distanceing my self even more from people

To decompress, I go someplace quiet with a book. My imagination is in charge and I can make the story as intense or muted as I wish. Then I can return refreshed to the world I don't control.

I am fine with light, smell, touch and taste - but I am not an endurer of loud noise. Whenever somebody tells me there's going to be a loud noise at any time today, I spend the whole day panicking inwardly. I'm on a course at the moment, and in every room there is a fire alarm on the ceiling (even in the hallways). And every Monday morning they have to test the alarms, at any time between quarter to 9 and quarter past 9, so there's no exact minute it'd go off. Here's the dilemma: I can't sit there with my fingers in my ears because I feel stupid (and I've just about made friends there with NTs in my peers and I don't want to blow it). I can't wait about outside for half an hour because 2 of the others get on my bus with me and so we walk in together, and it's minus 2 so they will think I'm mad waiting about outside for nothing. I don't smoke, so I can't make that as an excuse. I can't sit in the toilet for half an hour. I can't pretend to make a phonecall because I could just do that inside. I don't know what to do, except sit there and wait for the noise. If I try to do something else to take my mind off it (like talking to the others or fiddling on my mobile), it will still make me involuntarily jump out of my seat, which I don't like doing. It's horrible when you're an Aspie and a loud noise makes you jump. It's a horrible feeling to me. And the alarm is so loud and sudden - ohh, there's nothing I can do to escape it! What do I do? What do I do??

I am 40 years old now and I don't know of anything that helps with sensory overload except to avoid it.

One thing that can help with some parts of overload is to not try to make sense of anything. This won't cause the sensory bombardment or its results to stop, but it will stop some of the additional effects that can happen when you're clinging to "things must make sense" for dear life. If you let go, it hurts a lot less.

Aside from that, there aren't really cognitive strategies that can be used against overload. Overload results from too much information coming into your brain at once. You can't control that. All you can do is find ways to adapt to it.

Joe90 - do you have long hair that you could wear down so that it is covering your ears, then wear earplugs for the first half hour of class each day (the hair over your ears would hide the fact that you're wearing earplugs). You can get soft foam ones from chemists and they would make the alarm sound significantly quieter.

Bright flashing lights are the worst for me and as someone who sees live bands a lot I have to deal with this a lot. Last time I stopped looking at the stage, although I tried to put more focus in the musicians. There was a background screen with eyes on it and that was really distressing. But I stayed at the back (after I was finished taking photos), with ear plugs and just sort of stimmed up the back with my friend. My friend wasn't stimming though.
Noise is a hard one to just let go of. Because I don't always have my earplugs with me.
CBT is really hard in those situations because sensory things bombard all at once, like you said. But I try to remember it for social anxiety.

I now bring a lot of stim toys with me at concerts like light up toys (sonic screwdriver UV torch), books and my phone applications. They seem to be the best way to deal with these issues.
I seem to be doing a bit better now. I can take myself away from the area where lights or noise are causing me discomfort.

I avoid what I don't have to deal with, and I learn to cope with what I can't avoid. Sometimes that means noise-cancelling headphones, but usually I just try to put up with stuff unless I absolutely can't take it. My CBT can't help me with the sensory issues themselves, but it's helped with the way I think about them. Like, I hate snapping my fingers. The feeling of fingertips rubbing together is horrible; it makes me shudder just to think about it. But there's no reason why I should learn to tolerate this. Why do I need to snap? What does that accomplish? Nothing. So I just don't do it. CBT has taught me that I don't need to put up with everything.

I avoid a lot of stuff that sends me into sensory overload but the most difficult to avoid is light and then sound. Florescent lights are the worst and make my eyes feel and look like my pupils are going to squeeze shut. I'm getting a pair of sort of indoor sunglasses to help with that.

For sound I have to go be in a quiet place.

I do have long hair, yes. But, just this second I'm writing this, a very brilliant idea has popped into my head (but if it wasn't for your answer I wouldn't have found this good idea ). I mentioned it's a cold week, and I could go into the tutoring room, still wearing my hat, and wear earplugs underneath, just to be extra safe that nobody definately will notice. I will still be able to hear things, but any threatening noise won't make me jump. I know the others won't make a judgement on wearing my hat, because I can just say that I will take my hat off when I warm up a bit.