In Dr Annemarie Lombard’s book, “Sensory Intelligence – Why It Matters More than IQ and EQ”,
she divides those people with high sensitivity (HSP’s) into two categories: sensory sensitives and sensory defensives/avoiders.

Sensory Defensives (saving sensory sensitives for next newsletter!)

“The sensory defensive or sensory avoidant HSPs … are likely to be more proactive [than sensory sensitives] in changing, reducing or avoiding the stimuli around them.
They may establish rituals and routines in order to increase the predictability of their life, avoiding ‘surprises’ or novelties that may prove to be overwhelming.

If you are a Sensory Defensives you:
• need to reduce the intensity and amount of stimuli
• need to soften the stimuli and slow the pace of activity
• need less information at the one time (you are already ‘taking in’ so much from surroundings!) in order to avoid overwhelm
• need quiet and/or formal surroundings
• need PERSONAL SPACE
• need ‘structure and predictability, sameness and routine’ (Lombard, 2007)”
(Quotes from Mark’s upcoming book)

I am a proud Sensory Defensive. My “routine” for a trip to our local busy supermarket is a ‘dead give-away’ to this fact! I make a list in my mind of what I need to purchase, I visualise each item in its exact location in the aisle, and then I pre-calculate mentally the most direct route through the supermarket. I move through the supermarket at a rate slow enough to allow me to swerve suddenly if I encounter an erratically driven shopping trolley but fast enough to collect my items and reach the ‘fast check-out lane’ in no time.
Unfortuneately, I often wind-up behind a shopper who is cheating by having double the number of items allowed in the fast check-out lane. Anyway, I can see the finish line and I am nearly out of there!
I do this because my ‘sensitive self’ finds supermarkets – the lights, the displays (“look at me”!!!), radiation, the crowded space, the concrete, etc – so over-stimulating and over-whelming.