How Having Unmet Sensory Needs Lead to Anxiety and Depression
For all living beings, sensory experiences are not just background noise, they are a fundamental part of how the nervous system processes the world. When sensory needs are not met, whether due to chronic overstimulation, understimulation, or both, the result is a state of dysregulation that disrupts mental, emotional, and physical well-being. So many of the tools our culture offers for helping ourselves and one another to regulate our energy and emotions (find calm and peace) miss the mark in helping neurodivergent humans because the needs of the neurodivergent person are misunderstood and so the advice is not usable or effective.
Sensory Needs 102
The uniqueness of sensory processing needs cannot be understated, though it has flown below the radar of awareness for most of recent American culture and history. (American because this is my culture and what I feel free to comment on.)
These variations can encompass apparently heightened or diminished sensitivity to stimuli such as visual input, sound, smell, taste, and touch compared to neurocultural norms. While we are all familiar with the five external senses, this variation in sensitivity to stimuli expands into the internal world of sensation as well, which includes the body sensations, mental imagery, vestibular input, speed and loudness of thought that occurs internally with experience of perception and emotion. These sensory processing differences affect how we experience safety, comfort, and overwhelm.
The Nervous System and Chronic Dysregulation
When sensory needs are consistently unmet, the nervous system remains in a state of chronic dysregulation. I’ve mentioned dysregulation quite a bit but maybe we should define that?
The nervous system is the body's communication network, responsible for processing information(all information, this includes sensory input, thoughts, emotions, and body sensations), responding to stress, and regulating emotions, movement, and bodily functions. It has two key branches:
Sympathetic Nervous System (Mobilize through fight/flight; Immobilize through freeze/fawn/flop) – Activates in response to stress or danger.
Parasympathetic Nervous System ("Rest and Digest") – Helps the body calm down, restore energy, and return to balance.
Emotional regulation is the ability to recognize, process, and respond to emotions in a way that feels manageable and aligns with one’s needs.
Pro tip: This does NOT mean controlling or suppressing emotions, but rather understanding them, finding tools to navigate them, and building resilience.
So when I say chronic dysregulation - I mean being in a prolonged state of inability to recognize, process, and respond to emotions in a manageable way.
Daily Life Impacts
For many neurodivergent individuals, environments that others find neutral or even pleasant can be either overstimulating or understimulating depending on that person’s sensory experience. For example, someone with a sensory-seeking profile may tend to feel dysregulated when understimulated and so must fidget and stim in order to maintain optimal stimulation in order to stay engaged, calm, and connected. Whereas someone with a more sensory avoidant profile might find repetitive so-called “peaceful” music to be irksome and distracting. The constant need to navigate and compensate for these differences can be exhausting. So navigating the world outside of our controlled containers can force us into situations that push us outside of our optimal arousal zone - or the zone in which we can really manage our stimulation input and processing needs - and cause dysregulation. So a neurodivergent person may feel dysregulated by day to day experiences of just interacting with our normative culture!
On a daily basis, this might look like…:
Emotional fluctuations: Intense mood shifts, heightened anxiety, or emotional shutdowns.
Cognitive overload: Difficulty concentrating, brain fog, or executive dysfunction.
Physical exhaustion: Fatigue, headaches, or muscle tension from prolonged stress responses.
Social withdrawal: Avoidance of interactions due to sensory overwhelm or fear of being misunderstood.
Super hard to get anything done, connect with others, or feel a sense of well-being if this is what your day is filled with, huh?
Misconceptions and Societal Pressures
The variation individuals can experience across sensory needs are greatly overlooked and misunderstood. Culture tends to normalize environments and behavioral standards that cater to the sensory preferences deemed normative, leaving those with different expressions of their normally occurring human needs struggling to cope. Common misconceptions include:
"You need to toughen up."
"Everyone finds this a little annoying; you just need to get used to it."
"You’re so quiet, why don’t you speak up more?"
I’d like to give folks the grace of attributing ignorance and benign or even good intent in these utterances. Regardless of intent to harm, however, these messages are experienced as invalidating and pressuring neurodivergent humans to suppress their sensory needs, leading to masking, burnout, and even long-term health consequences.
Coping Mechanisms and Their Pitfalls
By the time someone who has chronically unmet sensory needs reaches adulthood, they will have developed an elegant system of coping mechanisms (some helpful, some harmful) to manage chronic dysregulation. Some of the more damaging may even be largely unconscious and may include:
Avoidance: All kinds of avoidance, which can lead to social isolation and promote understimulation and depression.
Numbing behaviors: Mindless scrolling, binge eating, drug use, or zoning out to cope with chronic stress they may not even be aware of.
Hypervigilance: Constantly scanning for potential sensory triggers, leading to anxiety and exhaustion.
Perfectionism: Overcompensating for struggles by pushing too hard, ultimately leading to burnout.
While these strategies may provide temporary relief and the ability to meet a goal, they also reinforce the cycle of dysregulation by avoiding the root issue - unmet sensory and support needs. (And frankly, the BIG and INTOLERABLE emotions lurking in the subconscious related to traumatic grief of said unmet needs.)
Pathways to Regulation
Chronic dysregulation is not a simple issue. It cannot be solved with simple tips and tricks, but starting to make sensory accommodations can help create enough stability to start to unwind this issue.
Accommodations can happen when you identify and honor sensory needs. Some helpful strategies include:
Sensory-friendly environments: Adjusting lighting, sound levels, and textures.
Intentional sensory input: Using weighted blankets, fidget tools, soothing sounds, ear plugs, noise-cancelling headphones.
Self-advocacy: Communicating needs at work, home, medical, and social settings.
Therapeutic support: Working with a psychotherapist, occupational therapist, or neurodivergent coach who understands sensory processing and nervous system regulation.
TL;DR
For neurodivergent individuals, chronic dysregulation is often created or compounded by unrecognized and unmet sensory needs. By building your awareness, exploring accommodations, and developing supportive strategies, we can create the possibility of self-regulation, which is - I feel confident to say - not found through constant struggle, judgment, and perfectionism.
If you are chronically dysregulated, you may not even realize it. For many of us, chronic dysregulation is just “normal.” I hope this blog has given you some food for thought in identifying if chronic dysregulation describes your experience.
Recognizing and honoring your sensory needs can be a transformative step toward your first experience of regulation and safety. Check out my resources to read more about sensory needs, regulation, and finding a therapist who can help you on that journey.
May the Force be with you,
Leanna
Note:
*This blog post was written with assistance from ChatGPT version 4. Most words are my own.
I recognize that there is concern around the environmental impacts of AI engagement. I have chosen to trust that denying myself access to available accommodations to support my ability to publish helpful information will not substantively reduce the current environmental crisis.
