Because of my latest book, Spirituality Through a Highly Sensitive Lens: An Objective Look at Meditation Methods and Enlightenment, my blog posts now have two parts in each post—Part I will give brief reviews of a selection of recent research, and Part II will be in keeping with the tone of the new book, something more “spiritual.” For that, scroll down in this post to Part II.
Part I. Interesting Recent Research
HSPs Listen in a Fundamentally Different Way Than Others
Kondo, H. M., & Pressnitzer, D. (2026). Sensory processing sensitivity is associated with state-dependent stabilization of perceptual organization in auditory streaming. Communications Psychology.
I especially like to tell you about research articles that show differences between HSPs and those without the trait that are basic differences in how we think and perceive rather than differences that could be biased by differential susceptibility (e.g. a good or bad childhood). Alas, some of these studies are very difficult to follow, but here goes. This one involved 46 participants (the number was determined statistically to be the minimum required to show a difference if there was one). They each engaged in a classic listening task: two pure tones, we’ll call them A and B, at different frequencies, presented repeatedly in a triplet pattern ABA-ABA-ABA-… (with letters identifying tones and the hyphen denoting a silent gap).
When listening to an ABA- sequence, listeners spontaneously alternate between hearing it as an integrated “one-stream percept,” typically heard as a galloping pattern (ABA-ABA-…), and a segregated “two-stream percept,” typically heard as two concurrent, equal-length streams (A-A-A-… and -B—B–…). Although a simple method, it captures a fundamental function of hearing—sorting out what you are hearing so that you can figure out where it is coming from, communicate in complex environments, and even appreciate music.
Interestingly, individual listeners show remarkably stable switching patterns in this task, which can persist over months or even years. This suggests a trait-like difference in auditory information processing even at the most basic level, so these researchers decided to see how being an HSP might affect this switching. They found that high scores on the HSP Scale were associated with maintaining the two-stream percept once established. This pattern is consistent with a listening style that places relatively greater weight on fine-grained acoustic structure, a tendency that may be beneficial for source separation in complex scenes such as speech-in-noise or polyphonic music.
There is a lot more to this article if you are interested. Right now, you can download the pdf without charge here.
Bottom Line: Not surprisingly, research finds that we listen in a fundamentally different way than others do, validating once again that this trait is real and involves deeply processing the information we receive.
An HSPs Brain Shows a Unique “Resting State Synchrony”
INOMOTO, O. (2026). Sensory processing sensitivity is associated with localized, band-specific increases in resting-state EEG synchrony. In International Symposium on Affective Science and Engineering ISASE2026 (pp. 1-4). Japan Society of Kansei Engineering.
This is another difficult article to follow, but well worth the trouble in that once again it shows how our brains are, on average, operating in a fundamentally different way than that of others. This study used electroencephalography to look for brain “phase synchrony” in HSPs. Phase synchrony means that specific groups of neurons in specific regions oscillate in a coordinated, lockstep rhythm. Rather than relying on the sheer volume of neural firing, phase synchrony acts as a dynamic communication channel. When brain waves share a stable phase relationship, in “lockstep,” they can better exchange information, integrate sensory inputs, and form memories.
Participants were 188 healthy Japanese adults who had taken the old HSP Scale, and analyses and results were based on scores on the Scale’s Ease of Excitation factor (the biggest, containing 12 of the 25 items in the old scale). The higher their score on that factor, the more they exhibited right frontal lobe (the thinking part of the brain) phase synchrony at rest in the theta and beta frequency bands. When theta is present, it means we are poised for rapid detection of what is important, including any conflict or errors, and getting ready to act. Beta frequency means we are maintaining a mental set, letting in the appropriate information, and, again, getting ready for action. This means that even when resting, HSPs high in Ease of Excitation are showing a bias towards rapid orienting and sustained prediction and control of their thinking and action. The authors note that because this synchrony is only on the right, in a three-electrode triangle, this makes it a small, easily targeted measure of SPS.
Bottom Line: This study shows that even at rest we are processing deeply so we are ready to go when we need to be. No wonder we get more easily tired.
More Evidence for Differential Susceptibility, the Key Element in HSPs’ Lives
Nhem, M. K., Personette, C., Childers-Rockey, Z. A., Bissa, M., & Rioux, C. (2026). Environmental sensitivity to social environments in the prediction of mental health in adulthood: a scoping review of studies examining diathesis-stress, vantage sensitivity and differential susceptibility. Current Psychology, 45(4), 394.
I am always attracted to studies of differential susceptibility because it is so central to who we are. This one was a “systematic scoping review,” which is the result of a “structured, transparent” process intended to identify, select, and evaluate all existing studies on a specific research question. (This differs from a meta-analysis, which is an optional statistical technique used within a systematic review to mathematically combine the data from those studies to produce an overall effect size. This study did not involve a metanalysis.)
There are numerous systematic reviews comparing the three common models of mental health outcomes for the highly sensitive. These three are diathesis-stress (the more stress, the worse off); vantage sensitivity (the better the environment, the better off); and differential susceptibility (which combines these–the more stress the worse off, but the better the environment, the better off). Most of these systematic reviews have been done of studies looking at mental health in children. This review sought to see how these three models worked in studies predicting adult mental health.
The authors began with eight “foundational” articles, using these to find 36 more studies that met their inclusion criteria. They found inconsistency in testing the three different models, with most studies not following best recommended practices. Still, all three models were supported. The effects of one’s childhood environment when one is an adult tended to show stronger support for the differential susceptibility model, while one’s adult environment showed more balanced evidence between the differential susceptibility and diathesis-stress models. Of course, the conclusion was that more studies are needed.
Bottom Line: We continue to see strong support for differential susceptibility in HSPs—this time looking at studies of mental health in adults. The result was that having a good or bad childhood seems to have the biggest impact, even after adulthood has been reached. So if your childhood was tough, be sure to get the help you need to get over its lingering effects on you.
An Important Study of Just One HS Student’s Success Despite Vulnerability
Nakajima, A. Stimuli and Emotional Responses in English Language Learning:—A Very High Sensitivity Person’s Qualitative Research. Paper presented at a conference held by the Incorporated Association for Cultural Resources Studies in Japan. Link to study here.
I normally only describe research for you that has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, is qualitative (uses statistical methods), and involves enough participants to provide valid results. But this paper, a quantitative study of one person, resonates so much with my experience, and I think that of many HSPs, that I decided to include it.
The author, an educator, explored the experience of a highly sensitive (i.e., very high score on the HSP Scale) Japanese woman student learning the English language in high school over six years, which is when most Japanese do learn it. At the end, her score on the standard English fluency exam was extremely high (148 out of a possible 158). But it was earned at a high cost.
For this research the woman student underwent five semi-structured interviews (during which she often cried), each lasting approximately one hour. The narratives obtained were analyzed using a standard method for qualitative research, the Grounded Theory Approach, to trace her psychological processes over the six years.
The findings revealed that the participant noticed two categories of stimuli: mere external stimuli (e.g. noise in the classroom) and those external stimuli that provoked emotional turbulence (e.g. the highly competitive atmosphere in the classroom, a routine teacher’s impatience). “The latter’s impact was profound, triggering internal stimuli that further destabilized her emotional state and ultimately culminated in a pervasive sense of self-negation that persists in her daily life.” The author discussed all of this in terms of DOES (depth of processing, being easily overstimulated, having strong emotional reactions and empathy, and noticing subtle stimulation) in an insightful way.
This life-altering traumatic experience for an HSP was the result of a normal English-learning experience in a Japanese high school, but the researcher felt certain it applies to most language learning environments, and probably most learning environments, throughout the world. Because of a negative classroom environment, HSPs find these lessons to feel harsh and have a bad effect on them. The author further cited research that a harsh learning environment negatively affects all students, so improvements in how HSPs are taught would almost certainly yield better results for everyone and for society.
Bottom Line: Most of us have been in classrooms that damaged our self-esteem, even when we outperformed others. Often this was before we knew we were HSPs, so it is important to reframe any especially strong experiences like this as due to our trait so that we no longer feel something is the matter with us because of our reactions.
Highly Sensitive Nurses Found to Have Enormous Assets to Offer in Their Workplace
Danelius Alvrud, S. (2026). How highly sensitive personality traits among registered nurses are reflected in their professional practice: A descriptive qualitative study.
Here I am providing you with another qualitative study, and another one not published in a standard academic journal. But it fills a serious gap. This article at least involves 10 registered HS nurses, not just one, each with a variety of experiences, but all in various types of somatic inpatient wards (the most stressful nursing environments), this time in Sweden. Five interviews were conducted face-to-face and five were conducted via video conferencing. The interviews were all recorded, transcribed verbatim, and then analyzed using an inductive qualitative content analysis.
The analysis identified three main categories of experiences related to being an HS nurse that arose in the interviews: Emotional and Relation Impact of SPS on Nursing Practice, Vulnerability and Work-Related Strain due to being an HSP, and High Sensitivity as a Professional Resource highlighting both challenges and strengths associated with a high sensitivity personality in nursing practice.
It is the last category that induced me to include this article. There are so many studies of burnout, especially among HS nurses. But because these quantitative studies just gather numbers, without sitting down and talking with the nurses, the benefits of being highly sensitive for nurses, their patients, and the world are typically missed.
The author concluded that high sensitivity was reflected in these RNs’ professional practice through increased emotional engagement and attentiveness in patient care, and as a resource contributing to thorough and responsible care, along with the usual heightened vulnerability to strain. Most important, “High sensitivity functioned as a professional resource by contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of patients and supporting careful, high-quality care. Participants described heightened attentiveness, responsibility, and an ability to perceive subtle patient cues, enabling early and individualized responses. This suggests that high sensitivity may function as a form of clinical intuition, supporting both assessment and care.”
The quotes from the nurses themselves are well worth reading. But the study is also relevant to the coming crisis in nursing. In Sweden alone, 6,000 nursing positions are unfilled, and the demand is expected to double in the next decade. In the meantime, as of 2014, around 11,000 nurses worked outside the Swedish healthcare system, with 60% saying they left it due to poor working conditions. This research also found that over 6,000 would consider returning if they had more control over their work situation. No doubt many of these nurses—both leaving and willing to return—are HSPs. The author concludes that HS nurses need to be recognized as having unusual strengths, given more time for reflection and recovery, and be able to work in supportive work environments with manageable workloads. Amen.
Bottom Line: Many HSPs are attracted to working in health care and are brilliant in these roles. It is good to see a study going into the details of why they are so good and why we desperately need them.
Part II. Who You Really Are
This is going to be short because I am not a spiritual teacher and cannot tell you how to realize the “really” in my title. But at least I can give you some glimpse, maybe putting your feet on a clearer path to finding who you really are.
The point of this post is to describe to you another way that enlightenment or awakening is sometimes seen. I did not write much about this in my book, knowing it would be too much detail for newbies. But by now you may be getting more comfortable with the idea of awakening.
Nearly every mystic or “realized” person, everyone truly awakened or enlightened, anyone in actual nirvana, will tell you (or try to explain to you) that “Self-realization” means no longer seeing yourself, primarily or basically, as an individual person. To put it another way, in that state you no longer identify as being the one who has thoughts and lives in your body. You still do live in your body and have thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. You are not confused about where those things are happening or unable to respond if someone speaks to you by name. But your perspective has changed. Who you really seem to be is pure, unbounded awareness (or emptiness from a Buddhist standpoint). You watch yourself acting from that perspective. That’s it. Simple.
Why make unbounded awareness the basis of everything? Because behind everything you think, feel, see, or do, what is common to all of it, is just that you are aware. What you think, feel, and so forth has changed over the years. But that one thing about you, that you are aware, has never changed.
How You Find Out Who You Really Are
While I did not discuss this perspective in my book very much, I did cite the many surveys that found that awakened or enlightened people seemed to think less, especially about their wants or opinions. It seemed or they actually said that their “small self” was smaller, as if overwhelmed by the Large Self, the unboundedness.
I also wrote about some of the ways people have found their way into that perspective. Meditation of course, all three of the main categories”–focused attention, open monitoring (usually from a Buddhist tradition) and automatic self-transcending (usually but not always from the Vedanta tradition, especially Transcendental Meditation).
But sometimes people just “wake up,” literally, maybe after going to sleep deeply troubled (Eckart Tolle) or even after being drugged and close to death (although rarely if ever from waking up after a psychedelic experience).
Sometimes people arrive there through another method, one used today by most spiritual teachers: “Pointing out.” This is done in a far more careful, elaborate way than I am doing here, usually face to face or by live video conferencing, but sometimes it happens through videos, books, or websites. And gaining that perspective of the self as really unbounded pure awareness almost always includes some form of meditation, to quiet the mind and make it more receptive. Although as one put it, “no one ever gets enlightened with their eyes closed.” You have to see the contrast between the relative world and the unbounded one.
Famous examples of teachers primarily using pointing out are Ramana Maharishi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, and in the West, among many others, Ruper Spira, Adyashanti, and Lucialorn.
Why Would You Want to Gain This New Perspective?
First, once you are no longer so tightly identified with your individual body, thoughts, and emotions, you gain real distance from all these. Yes, feelings can be good, and good feelings actually appear to increase when you have gained this perspective, but anxiety, depression, all that? It is not happening to “you” anymore. You have stepped back from all that.
Second, this change in the sense of who you are opens new doors. You may have been thinking as you started reading that you already know who you are. Fair enough. But this changes with different levels of awareness. You think you know who you are in a dream, for example, but you wake up and see you have it wrong. The change in perspective that comes with awakening is a little like this. Those who have been there, and there are many now, say that once you see that you are really just unbounded awareness, your brain begins to evolve towards new states, new ways of perceiving the world.
This is all according to those following a tradition within Vedanta, the one Maharishi Mahesh Yogi brought to the west, but enough people have stuck with it to be now reporting these experiences. They say that you develop an awareness that that unbounded, seemingly flat field is actually full of waves, vibrations–sparkle as it were. They say that there are no words for all the beauty that is revealed once you wake up to yourself being the unbounded field of all existence and then begin discovering all that it really entails.
How could such a change happen? We are living in an ocean of electromagnetic waves, only a small percentage (0.0035%) of which are in the range of visible light that can be registered by our eyes, transferred into electric impulses in our eyes, and sent to our visual cortex for processing. But what if, as our brain changes due to a change in perspective, our visual processing also changed and we took in more from that ocean?
Just a note: I cannot guarantee this last part is fact, and I have no desire to push any of this. I care too much about you to do that. I only want to give you the chance to at least know about this possibility.
“Who You Really Are”
Most people would be amazed! Totally astounded… particularly if one has never had any significant exposure to authentic spiritual teachings (not ‘religious’) or had their own profound spiritual life-experience of some revelatory kind.
“… that state you no longer identify as being the one who has thoughts and lives in your body. You still do live in your body… but your perspective has changed.”
We are never just ‘in’ a body. Never. We are always a WITNESS of our experiences and ‘body’ (through our consciousness which is what we really are) and what we perceive as a ‘solid’ body but which is not such a thing and never has been or will be. And guess what? The energy which actually is our life ‘form’ has NO boundaries – it extends out beyond what we perceive to the limits of our skin. Sub-atomic particles of which our body is supposedly consisting of are actually known as Potential States or Waves by cutting-edge quantum physicists. Many spiritual traditions around the World have known this for Ages but today’s science is slowly trying to catch up.
“Why Would You Want to Gain This New Perspective…once you are no longer so tightly identified with your individual body, thoughts, and emotions, you gain real distance from all these.”
We all HAVE distance from these at every second of our lives. The only question is how aware and accepting we are of that basic reality. For some people it’s too much for them to understand, handle, or want to grasp. For others, this understanding is like coming home.
Every person who becomes enlightened realizes this ‘distance’ to be true. How could we ‘be’ our bodies when we never look the same from year to year? And every one of our cells is fully replaced countless times over the course of a lifetime. And the most important things about living like love and caring have NO physicality about them anyway (they can express ‘physically’ but the feelings themselves are spiritual and not of substance). And what any decent quantum physicist will tell you that when you go way down to the deepest level of ANY atom or sub-atomic particle – you know what they find? NOTHING. There is no physical tiny ‘bit’ of anything – it is all Energy.
What we perceive as Matter or Our Body is condensed and slowed-down energy. But this was and is and always remains totally Energy without anything ‘of substance’ about it – even after physical death. Our (true) Energy Body moves to a different cosmological rate of vibration and the Earthly realm can no longer perceive it or contain it.
We are SO much more than we have been taught or come to believe about ourselves. That is a whole subject in itself.
Your Body is a pleasant sensory illusion for a given number of Earthly years. But the real ‘You’ that is neither physical nor bound to Earthly time is far vaster thing that cannot be contained in Earthly limitations.
For a great many people… the day they truly meet and know themselves and what and who they are is an exciting day yet to be lived.
Hello. In my 70’s and always considered myself highly sensitive which early on I perceived – especially as a male – as a liability, something to be surmounted instead of embraced. I appreciate that you maintain your work.
Wonderful! Thank you, Elaine.
“But what if, as our brain changes due to a change in perspective, our visual processing also changed and we took in more from that ocean?”
haha! I’m studying with Dr Sam Berne, a Behavioral Optometrist, aka holistic vision therapist — to improve my vision by improving my perspective. https://www.drsamberne.com/
Hello!
Regarding the study by Danelius. It is important that it is not only Sweden nurses quit their work. It is a problem in Europe (?) that are going to be a real problem in the future with less resources.
As a nurse myself , I am interested in the article above. At age 47, not burnout but disillusioned with the healthcare system , I tuned into my patients, met their needs but worked under the constraints of documentation that took away from real care. I went back to university and completed a degree and masters in psychology , I am currently doing a phd looking at how student nurses are taught about night shifts and how to cope. My hsp intuition is helpful to guide me to capture the lived experience of nurses who often do not have the opportunity to share their voice . I believe that hsp qualities make the best nurses but not in a system that does not value the need for rest and recharge . Thank you for sharing this , it adds to clarity and understanding. It pushes more towards strength and positive attributes rather than feeling out of place in a world that currently feels broken and does not value empathy and understanding of the other.
Dear Elaine: Unless I have missed something, spirituality is not limited to the context you refer to as higher thinking and insight. It also has to do with ones belief in God and understanding about what he wants of his human children. Learning, understanding and applying that info in our lives makes for spirituality. Our relationship with God is significant. Not any God (Buddah etc.) but our heavenly creator.
In Buddhism, the ‘Buddah’ is not a God. I wish you Bright Blessings on your Journey. 💜🙏
Spirituality is definitely not limited to anything I have to say about it! I did try to write in my book about all that, including belief in God. The One God. Certainly not Buddha, who was never seen as a god. My emphasis in this blog is more on those subjects people are less aware of. I personally think God wants us to know God better and these are some paths there. But that is just me. I do not want to push any viewpoint onto anyone. Thank you for speaking up.
The research study about the high school student resonated with me. I was an intelligent student but also highly sensitive so learning carried more impact in how it was delivered. I may have mastered a subject or skill but was emotionally damaged by the instructor’s methods. I hadn’t thought of this before.
I’m thankful for all the work that is put into HSPs here! I’m past 50 and only just realizing that it’s ok for me to be sensitive. It’s not a negative thing!! And I no longer feel bad about myself when others tell me I’m too sensitive!! It’s especially hard to cope as an HSP in the fast pace world we live in today. I have a lot of empathy for children and the elderly because of this. Kindness is my strength and always will be! Thank you!
I myself am so extremely sensitive to suffering and harm. It is only through music especially classical, jazz, and blues that incorporates nature vibrations and rhythm that I can continue to exist. I’m Aspergers autistic and recognize vibrations that persons, animals and/or plants emit are quickly and deeply felt. My wife and two of our kids are definitely HSP that though they are impacted by music as therapy it’s not the same with me.
I have considered that humans are primates that are not chimpanzee or bonobos but separate species divided by displaying fake portrayals of what society expects in contrast to sincere and genuine neo-realism without masks. People either live to submit to fear or recognize fears and rise above fears to use critical thinking and logical decisions for acts. Not impulsive but composure and control. However it’s taken decades of living through extreme adversity.
I worry that my empathy or sympathy is too strong to my wife and kids with HSP. Our world and conditions turned more dishonest and harmful. Even worse is that we live a society that is entertained by logical fallacies and harms with no regard for human decency for any excuse especially hot words such as peace or democracy. These words deeply hurt because they arouse sentiment that exploit disillusionment to ethics and reality.
Elaine, thank you for the auditory streaming study. The part that stayed with me is that HSPs hold the two-stream percept once it forms, which means weighting fine-grained structure over the overall pattern. I work on face reading, and I see a version of this in how sensitive people look at faces. Most people take in the expression, the big moving thing, and decide from that. The sensitive people I’ve worked with notice the parts that don’t move: how the eyes are set, where the mouth rests when nobody is talking, the shape of the brow. Those fixed parts hold steady across moods, so they are the more reliable signal, and they are also the ones most people skip.
Do you know of any visual analogue to the Kondo and Pressnitzer result? Acevedo’s imaging work showed stronger responses to emotional faces, but I haven’t seen anything on whether HSPs parse structure versus expression differently.
The future of human beings will be about Evolution. The new Revolutions Of Evolution are necessary for the survival of our species. Even if the only eventual recognizable features are Compassion and Empathy, we will have come through the mutually beneficial co-evolutionary processes successfully. There is no fear, for the resonance of love will be our true currency. #RightsOfBeing #RightsOfSapience