Dealing with sensory overload by shutting it down?

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This is a bit hard to explain.

I've done very little "stimming" unless under extreme stress for some years now, though I did it a lot more when I was younger.

I feel like my brain has dealt with sensory overload by largely shutting out most of the information. This lessens stimming, but I think it is putting a lot of subconscious stress on my body that's coming out in other ways (i.e. health issues with no known cause).

Has anyone else noticed a similar situation in their or another's life?

I would actually accept a great deal of my sensory sensitivity back, since they are not nearly as painful as the health issues I'm having now. I don't really know how to "turn off" the suppression after so many years, though.

Is this the sort of thing you're talking about?

http://everything2.com/user/Zifendorf/writeups/shutdown

Or this?

http://www.de-poort.be/cgi-bin/Document.pl?id=374

It is a little bit of both, Verdandi..but more subtle, and over a much longer period of time.

I do have rare occasions where I lose speech due to either a migraine or an acute reaction to food allergens.

I've developed peripheral neuropathy, migraines, IBS, chronic confusion, and word-finding problems that have no obvious cause (not linked to my autism or LDs). I was wondering if chronic stress from my brain trying to subconsciously divert extra sensory information could be a cause/explanation.

It seems very possible to me. I haven't had negative health effects other than stress headaches, but I know the more hectic my day the worse I function. I'm lucky to have quite a bit of downtime right now, but even one hour of nonstop activity causes my head to gum up. I can recognize I'm missing the obvious, but can't do more than that.