Sensory Overload

I have not posted for a long time. Life is getting in the way. In a good way most of the time! I have joined many Facebook groups dealing with “brain attacks.” One of my favorites is the “TBI Life Coach.” I am posting this whole article because it is very helpful. For me anyway!  

Sensory Overload

Sensory over stimulation
Sensory over stimulation or 'Flooding' occurs after brain injury because the brain's 'filters' no longer work properly.

Sensory over stimulation or 'Flooding' occurs after brain injury because the brain's 'filters' no longer work properly. It is an exhaustive situation if more pieces of information or stimuli are received than the brain can handle. A stimulus is information that we perceive through our senses; see, hear, smell, taste, touch (external stimuli) or through our mind or our body / proprioception (internal stimuli).

In over stimulation feelings of panic can prevail upon the brain-injured. Our study showed that fear can be overcome if the person with brain injury has been exposed frequently to over stimulation.
The person may be sweating, have tremors, can be vomiting, and thinking is difficult.

These are the basic reactions of the body to survive in a situation that is perceived as very dangerous. It is also called the fight or flight response. One person is going to flee from the overstimulation of the noise or stimulus of the moment. The other person faints. Most of them cannot think anymore or are very upset first.
The basic emotion of fear and the ensuing responses are generated and directed by the amygdala. The amygdala is part of the oldest part of the brains, the limbic system. This system is a kind of emotional sentry. All that matters is survival. If there is danger, immediately adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol are released into the body to flight, fight or freeze.

Amygdala
At the same time, the neo-cortex, also called the rational mind, will stop the mind from thinking. Because, after all, in threatening situations there is no time to decide what the best plan of action will be.
A rapid response of the amygdala thus ensures that we can avoid the danger before we realize that we find ourselves in such a situation.
On this page you will find some videos about this problem.

Summary: By over stimulation people are no longer able to rationally deal with the situation. Fear can prevail and the amygdala creates a fight-flight-or freeze reaction. After brain injury the processing of stimuli is often disrupted.
This often gives a brain fatigue/neurofatigue.

It's not all in your head,flooding /sensory over stimulation can't be seen, unless sometimes in some individuals signs like sweating or a red head...or people think that you are in panic, for it reminds them in a way of that.

SOUNDS
Overstimulation by sounds occurs in background noise where the sounds cannot be cut out. Not being able to follow a conversation with multiple sounds. Noise intolerance. Irritation in rhythmic sounds, ticking of a clock or buzzing fluorescent lighting. Shoe steps on a wooden staircase or wooden floor, squeaky doors, etc.
Many complaints are reminiscent of or equal to hyperacusis. Hypersensitivity to sound. Many people also experience pain in sound.

Sensory overstimulation occurs when seeing patterns or colors. Seeing a variety of nice stuff at home. Letters that are too close to each other with no blank lines. Seeing movements, seeing moving hands or people who wiggle their legs but also seeing a multitude of people. Seeing a multitude of some objects. Seeing details like prints, shades, bricks etc.
Even seeing unordered higgledy-piggledy or 'for sale' articles can give too much stimuli for the brain to see it in a shop. Like a bargain basement, not stacked shopping baskets, etc., etc.

LIGHT
Sensory overstimulation by light occurs in reflected light, in certain lights (halogen! fluorescent lighting!), Backlight or changes of shadow and light while driving, bright light, lots of light, flickering candles etc.
Notorious is car driving on a road where are many trees and low standing sun behind the trees.

FEELING
Sensory overstimulation by feeling occurs in people who suffer from motion, touch, being moved, vibrations etc..

SMELL
Sensory overstimulation by smell can come about by enhanced sense of smell and can include nature smells, food smells, natural odors, body odors, perfumes and deodorants (including nursing staff and caregivers!)

MULTITUDE OF THOUGHTS OR LISTENING TO WHAT IS BEING SAID

Chronic overstimulation
Chronic overstimulation is not healthy. It is pure stress.
The endocrine system changes (increased stress hormone level) and long-term chronic overstimulation also changes ones nervous system. Actually this can even make an individual more sensitive to overstimulation than he already was. Symptoms include physical symptoms like headaches, stomach problems, decreased resistance, disturbed sleep, extreme fatigue, or even depression, burnout or anxiety.

Our perception takes place by:

Senses
Vision - seeing
Auditory - hearing
Tactile sense - feeling
Olfactory sense - smelling
Taste - tasting
Nociception - sensation of pain
Thermoception - feeling of heat or cold
Sense of balance - balance
Proprioception - body awareness
Cognition – what we learn to know by the senses
Percieve (basic cognition *)
Attention and concentration (basic cognition)
Thinking (basic cognition)
Memory (basic cognition)
Applying knowledge (basic cognition)
Understand (basic cognition)
Language skills (basic cognition)
Assessing (metacognition)
Reasoning skills (metacognition)
Sense of reality (metacognition)
Emotion (social cognition)
Empathy (social cognition)
Practical language skills (social cognition)

Sensory overstimulation is caused by:

Damaged filtering
All stimuli, the important as well as the unimportant stimuli, enter with the same strength. They are not filtered.
Detour = Delay
When stimuli of brain cells need to be guided around brain injury this causes a delay in the perception. This is not only the case with focal, localized injury, but also with diffuse injury that is spread across the brains. It also takes longer to interpret the stimuli. That is one of the causes for a person with brain injury to be flooded by stimuli. This is also called delayed information processing.

There is an abundance of stimuli in idle mode which cannot be processed. Just like a PC that crashes through having a slow processor.

Fragmented perception
Many people with overstimulation by brain injury perceive every independent detail by hyper selection. It is difficult to see connections between details and to see, to oversee or to hear the whole.
This can occur both in the auditory and visual area. As long as there is one sound stimulus, the conversation is central and there is no music playing in the background, there is no problem with experiencing sound. However, in the case of buzz or loud noises in the background, the processing of auditory stimuli is not done properly.

This can also happen in the visual area. People cannot ignore details in the image. In the case of rain, they see each drop on the car's windscreen and the windscreen wiper. They see each individual in a group or every cobble on a cobblestone road.

Distorted processing can cause overstimulation
Hyperacusis - hear too much
Cerebral Visual Impairment CVI - double vision, seeing varying sharpness, depths may be huge or not, spaces may seem larger or smaller
Agnosia - not being able to recognize an object, a sound, smell etc.
Non-synchronous processing of stimuli in the brains. Signals do not enter the brain area synchronously.
Low frequency noise
Some people have problems with low frequency noise.

You may find these links useful https://www.retailmenot.com/…/sensory-overload-while-shoppi…
http://www.oneplaceforspecialneeds.com/…/library_sensory_pr…