High sensitivity is a temperament or trait (not a medical diagnosis), that approximately 20% of the population has. These individuals are highly intelligent, creative & empathetic. They are deep thinkers, wanting to assimilate all the new information they encounter, with what they already understand. This is a gift in many ways.

Yet because a highly sensitive individual’s nervous system is more sensitive than those without the trait, they often struggle with overstimulation, which can lead to a vulnerability towards developing mental health issues. If you are a highly sensitive parent, you will likely relate to this challenge.

Highly sensitive people make wonderful parents – thoughtful, empathetic, creative & emotionally warm. 

As a highly sensitive parent, you may feel:

• A calling to love others well, & grow in your own health and confidence in parenting
• A desire to learn and grow in deeper ways, in your areas of interest & expertise
• Deeply touched by beauty, nature, creativity and story, to give meaning to life
• Utterly relieved when you get a few hours of quiet to yourself
• Deeply connected to your faith or spiritual beliefs

Yet highly sensitive people also often struggle in the daily life of parenting with the overstimulation of chaos & noise, and the constant demands of children.

As a highly sensitive parent, at times you may also feel:

• Very overwhelmed by the loud noise & mess in the house
• Out of sorts when there is no structure or routine
• Almost frozen when you are under a high amount of time pressure
• That your heart is too sensitive for this very broken world
• Almost claustrophobic with the constant demands placed upon you

These feelings can build up internally to a tipping point until they can sometimes turn into an emotional or angry meltdown. Then, because you are highly empathetic, you usually feel very badly that you had a meltdown.

Research has shown that Highly Sensitive People (HSP) are significantly more vulnerable to burnout than the general population. 

This means that self-care is critically important for you to manage your mental & emotional health, so that you can show up as your best self for your children.

Here are 5 Ways to Manage Stress as a Highly Sensitive Parent:

1. Take regular breaks alone. Ask your spouse, or close family member, to watch your children for a short time. If that is not an option, try getting up early, or finding some time when your children are asleep.

The time alone with your thoughts is important to give you space to process your feelings. Journalling (writing your feelings out on paper) can be very therapeutic to help you process your thoughts.

2. Use sensory decompression: A dark, quiet, cool room is heaven for a HSP (especially parents!). You may even want to try a weighted blanket for added sensory decompression. The sensory decompression helps your body return to calm, after overstimulation.

You can also take mini sensory decompression breaks throughout the day, like sitting in your air-conditioned car for a few minutes, or standing in front of your freezer, or putting noise-cancelling headphones while you watch your children play.

3. Place boundaries on news, media & other’s stories: As a HSP, you are naturally empathetic. This means that when you hear sad or worrying stories, you don’t just listen & then move on with your life; you take them in, processing them deeply & think about what you can do to help.

In our society today, you only need to reach for your phone or turn on the TV for 5 minutes, to be bombarded by these stories. So it’s important that you place boundaries on how much information & stories you’re exposed to.

4. Reduce how much you are trying to do in one day: Overwhelm is a very real experience for HSP. It can be tempting to try to consistently push yourself past what you can handle because you “have to”. Looking after children, household chores, work responsibilities, extended family or friends demands have created a tidal wave of overwhelm.

For a HSP, if you try to achieve too many tasks in one day (placing yourself under a high degree of pressure), your days will just be filled with meltdowns.

5. Prioritize sleep. Sleep is a tricky subject with parents, because even when we desperately want to sleep, we often have people we love very much, waking us up.

Yet it’s important to know that HSP have a higher need for sleep than those without the trait. This is because they are taking in more sensory stimuli throughout the day, so their brain needs the rest of sleep to decompress & recalibrate. This means that whatever the recommended amount of sleep is, HSP are at the higher end of the recommendation – sometimes needing more than the recommended amount.

Even if you’re not always able to get the sleep you need (because of the night-time waking of your children), just knowing that this is a high need for you personally, can help you brainstorm ways to catch up on sleep and make it a priority of recovery.

As a Highly Sensitive parent, you are a gift to your family. You are warm, empathetic, thoughtful, & creative. But it’s important that you prioritize self care so that you can enjoy mental & emotional health, & show up as the best version of yourself for those you love.