tips for handling sensory overload

APR 18, 2026

inkhaven

In the following, I use the terms sensory overload and overstimulation interchangeably.

I get overstimulated pretty easily, which usually looks like "waitaminute, why have I been staring at a wall for 20 minutes at a house party?"

It's not the end of the world, but it's also useful to have explicit strategies to handle it. Here are some tips I've gathered over the years.

know yourself

An oft-underestimated part of dealing with sensory overload is identifying that it is happening in the first place. In my experience, overstimulation can creep up on me over hours, and it's hard to notice because of the frog-in-a-boiling-pot effect.

My strategy is to identify high-stimulus situations and watch out for signs of overstimulation accordingly. In practice, this means thinking "I am at a party, and I have noticed that I have stopped talking. This probably means that I am overstimulated and should apply some coping mechanism."

For me, the most common high-stimulus situations are:

  • Group hangouts
  • Parties
  • Conferences
  • Concerts

Some common signs of overstimulation include:

  • Zoning out/difficulty focusing
  • Not talking unless expressly spoken to (and even then, sometimes accidentally ghosting people)
  • Eye contact getting way harder
  • Tension in my neck and shoulders

Of course, the situations and signs you watch out for are probably going to be slightly different from mine. You should learn what overstimulation looks like for you. When you tend to get overstimulated? In what environments? Which senses are the most likely to cause problems?

get trusted people who know what's going on

Okay, but how should you figure out what overstimulation looks for you?

One strategy is to ask your close friends/family/partner. As external observers, they probably already know your triggers better than you do. You can ask if they notice that you "zone out" or otherwise seem stressed during classical high-stimulus situations, and see if they have any insights. I strongly suggest you do so. My close friends and partner trivially knew most of the common situations and signs above, which took me years to observe on my own.

Having trusted people around is useful for other reasons, too. First, they can help you realize that you're being overstimulated before you do. A simple "you seem quiet" or "you okay?" can encourage you to check in with yourself and implement some coping mechanism before it gets too bad. Also, trusted people are grounding and help reduce anxiety, which, in my experience, makes sensory overload less likely to occur. For example, I virtually never need noise cancellation at the climbing gym when my partner is around, even though the gym is a "lots of people talking at the same time" kind of place that would usually cause me trouble.

reduce noise

You can close your eyes but you can't close your ears, so I highly recommend finding some form of noise reduction that you can use in high-stimulus environments. The two options you have are passive noise reduction (block the sound) and active noise reduction (cancel out the sound with some fancy electronics).

Passive noise reduction works well when you need the volume down, but can't afford to turn it all off. One option is the Etymotic ER20 earplugs, which I had originally gotten to protect my hearing while I played piccolo. Because they're made for musicians, they turn the volume down without messing with sound clarity, which is useful if you want to be able to talk to people normally. These days, I usually wear the Loop Quiet 2, which have a bit more noise-reduction power. They're easier to carry around (I have the case on my keychain), but they don't preserve sound clarity as well as the ER20s.1 Both are pretty discrete and can be worn comfortably for long periods of time.

If you need to kill all the sound, you want active noise cancelling. Most flagship earbuds these days have active noise cancelling, though I myself can only vouch for the quality of the AirPods Pro 2. (The first time I used them, it was magical. The whole world just…shut up.) There are also over-ear headphones with active noise cancelling like my favorite Sony WH-1000XM4. You can combine over-ear headphones with earplugs or earbuds, though I usually don't find it necessary. Do note that active noise cancelling requires battery power, which means they tend to be more conspicuous than the passive noise reduction methods. Also, people tend to assume that you're listening to music or are otherwise unreachable when you are wearing AirPods or over-ear headphones. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but good to keep in mind.

identify and fix internal contributors

It's easy to lose track of all the things that are contributing to the sensory overload because there are just Too Many Things and everything is Too Loud and oh no what is Going on. In particular, bodily sensations like hunger and thirst can contribute without being as obvious as the Very Loud Thing or the Flashing Lights. Luckily, addressing these is pretty straightforward if you know what to look for.

When I'm overstimulated but can't/don't want to remove myself from the situation, I like to go through this checklist:

  1. Do you need to use the restroom? If so, go to the restroom.
  2. When was the last time you drank water? If it was more than an hour ago, drink water.
  3. When was the last time you ate something? If it was more than a couple of hours ago, eat something.
  4. Are you in any physical pain? Is it physical pain that you can address in any way? If so, address it. Otherwise, accept and respect that it is there.
    • If the pain is due to muscle tension, you can try to alleviate it by lightly stretching

Going through this checklist may or may not fix the overstimulation outright. In any case, addressing any of the items can making processing everything else a little easier. As a bonus, it gives you something to do, which can be grounding on its own.

engage in a familiar rote activity

If you've gone through the checklist of bodily sensations and still find yourself overstimulated (and still can't/don't want to remove yourself from the situation), you should find a rote activity to focus on. The more physical, familiar, and well-defined it is, the better.

Walking is a pretty good one, and it's almost always accessible. Bonus points if you can go outside and see plants somehow. Similarly, climbing stairs can be useful. Well-defined breathing exercises are another good option. These can be done pretty discreetly, which is nice (it's definitely more inconspicuous than climbing stairs). At big house parties, cleaning is a good activity. Everyone appreciates it, and it doesn't look too weird. No one will try to hard to stop you.

Try to have a couple of activities like this on hand. Otherwise, it's too easy to start scrolling, which just adds more stimulation to the mix.

accept that it happens

The last piece of advice I'll give is this: when you're overstimulated, accept that it's happening.

This means applying whatever strategies you can to alleviate it, but not trying to think yourself out of the overstimulation. You cannot tell yourself "I shouldn't be overstimulated here" to make it go away. Instead, take the fact that you're overstimulated as information. You now know more about how you react to a certain situation, and what the signs were — these are both valuable things to know! You can use this information to adjust your strategies next time.

I hope this helps. Good luck!

footnotes

  1. Loop also carries the Loop Engage 2, which are designed to keep conversations clear. I haven't tried them, but they're probably good. ↩

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