Are Your Sensitivity & Sensation-Seeking are in Conflict? Here’s How to Fix It
The Psychology of Being a Highly Sensitive & High Sensation-Seeking Person
My whole life, I’ve felt a peculiar tug-of-war: Exploration vs. retreat. Curiosity vs. stability. Sensation vs. sensitivity.
It’s as if I’m wrangling the impulsive curiosity of a joy-bound inner dog, while attempting to appease the prickly sensitivities of an easily-startled inner cat.
The relationship between these forces usually goes something like:
My inner dog pulls me into exciting relationships, titillating adventures, and stimulating environments, while my inner cat hysterically screeches into the void.
My inner cat draws me to the serene, the contemplative, and the quiet, while my inner dog pathetically whimpers: “Why have you locked your very good girl in the closet?”
I know that I’m not alone. I’ve encountered many highly creative people who struggle with the same tension: They’re intrinsically drawn to an exciting and colorful life while being simultaneously overwhelmed by intensity it brings.
While it’s tempting to pathologize this inner dissonance, labeling it as inconsistency, neuroticism, or even manic-depression, recent research reveals a much more productive explanation: It’s the result of being a highly sensitive and high sensation-seeking person [1].
First, let’s explore high sensitivity.
This is our inner cat. Us highly sensitive people possess a neurobiological trait called sensory processing sensitivity [2]: The increased sensitivity of our central nervous system results in deeper cognitive processing of physical, social and emotional stimuli. This means we’re more affected by external stimuli, like noise, lights, and smells, as well as internal stimuli, like pain, hunger, emotions, and cold.
On the bright side, our skills of perception, processing, and pattern-recognition offer us abundant creativity, ticklish empathy, and innate intuition. But on the shadowy side, our always-on-ness leads to overwhelm in highly stimulating environments, whether a bustling office or well-attended happy hour.
To counter this overwhelm, the prescription for us typically goes something like: Seek out calmness. Live out in nature. Pursue independent work. Drink your herbal tea. Which is all well and good, unless you’re also highly sensation-seeking.
Now, let’s turn to high sensation-seeking.
This is our inner dog. Us high sensation-seekers have a personality trait characterized by a strong desire for novelty, excitement, and intensity [3]. In other words, our nervous systems demand a higher threshold for complexity and newness to feel sufficiently alive.
Sensation-seekers benefit from a life of curiosity and adventure, which can lead to tremendous personal, professional, and social growth. But our curiosities can also lead us down a path of risky behavior, impulsivity, flakiness, and that gnawing feeling that everything will eventually get old.
Accordingly, our ideal life plan typically goes something like: Find the exciting people. Live in a city. Pursue stimulating work. Say yes to all of the things. Which is fun and all, unless you’re also a highly sensitive person.
Are we beginning to see the conundrum?
The appetites that satisfy one of these traits may be nausea-inducing the other. On this jerky rollercoaster of conflicting needs and desires, the highly sensitive and high sensation-seeking person may label themselves as too flaky or unstable to find meaningful success.
And yet, when these contradictory traits successfully co-exist within the same person — when we find ways to live harmoniously with our inner cat and dog — we see a foundation of explosive potential. When harnessed properly, these dyadic traits result in extraordinary creative gifts:
A demanding yet empathetic leader
A sensitive artist with the risk tolerance to scale their work
A visionary founder with a knack for connecting the dots
A perceptive academic who enjoys the thrill of visibility
Elaine Aron, the psychologist who coined the term “highly sensitive person,” estimates that 15-20% of the population is highly sensitive [4]. Of this group, approximately 50% are also high sensation seekers [1]. Said differently, up to 1 in 10 people are both highly sensitive and high sensation-seeking.
This means a double-digit chunk of the population is running around thinking they’re absolutely bonkers, when in reality, they simply need to accept their membership into this high potential group. A group with the unique creative, intellectual, and interpersonal gifts to, quite literally, change the world.
Let’s explore 3 simple ways to appease our inner cat and dog, optimizing for both chill and thrill:
1. Prioritize Creativity
The creative act is uniquely powerful in that it satisfies both the sensitive and the sensational. Through creative activities like writing, painting, singing, dancing, cooking, and designing, we can achieve a life of newness and excitement that doesn’t burden our more sensitive sentiments. If you’re sensitive and sensation-seeking and don’t have a creative outlet, I urge you to find one immediately (reach out, I can help).
2. Explore, Safely
Research shows that highly sensitive people who are also high sensation-seeking don’t engage in as much impulsive risk as pure-bred sensation-seekers. In other words, our thrill is more calculated, contemplated, and controlled. To keep your cat and dog in harmony, think through your risks, thrills, and stimulating adventures: Do you have a backup plan, escape route, or soft cushion if things get weird?
3. Embrace Duality
This isn’t intended to be as new-agey as it sounds. What I mean is: Accept that your life may require a bit more nuance and flexibility that most. You may need a nest in the city and country. Or friends for the club and the yoga studio. Or work that has its intensity and its seclusion. The less you think in ors (I am this or that) and the more you think in ands (I am this and that), the more harmoniously your cat and dog will coexist.