Understanding sensory overload
Do you like food to be predictable and have set favourite meals? Or do you seek novelty and actively look to stimulate yourself with hot, spicey, strong flavours and things you have not eaten before?
Do you need soft materials, clothes and bedsheets, and loose clothes? Or do you basically not notice textures on your skin?
Do you like meeting new people, and love moving country to meet lots of new people? Or do you have the same group of friends with the same routines as you've had for years?
Do you constantly move the furniture around, and like moving house? Or do you get antsy if someone moves your favourite chair?
These are some of the questions we asked with staff this week as we explored the ways we become overwhelmed and dysregulated.
These questions might seem trivial, but actually they reveal something quite important about us. The first two questions are about our sensory experiences, then social and then structural. What we know from research is that these three areas (and all their sub-components) are extremely important to our need for certainty.
In each area we tend to have different 'cup sizes'. For some the cup is small, and adding too much to it quickly leads to overwhelm. For others, the cup always feels empty, and the person will be constantly seeking to fill the cup.
Typically for example children with ADHD (and there is no typical child) will tend to feel an 'empty cup' around physical sensation, need for movement and stimulation. That's why 'fidget' or better 'focus', tools can help fill the cup creating a feeling of certainty. Equally many people with Autism or OCD will find their cup is small, and random noises and movements can be intensely irritating and distracting, and create deep feelings of uncertainty. But it is not just people with a formal diagnosis that this affects - it is everyone. In some areas our cup will be large, in others small. For example, my sensory cup is large and I like experiencing new sensations and will seek them out, but my social cup is filled very quickly and I just can't process a lot of social 'noise' - and tend to want to withdraw. This does not mean that I can't do these things, but rather it is important that I know how to mitigate and moderate reactions I anticipate in myself - and be compassionate towards myself and others.
You will know that increasingly regenerative, progressive and human centred schools like ISA let children (indeed encourage them) to take sensory breaks when they feel overwhelmed. What is less well understood is why. Essentially we are helping learners to understand which cup is overflowing... or feeling profoundly empty... and how to regulate these feelings until the overwhelm passes. Essentially how to process uncertainty.
To learn more you can read Jamie Galpin's very accessible book.
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