Hypervigilance is a symptom that is often found in anxiety disorders and traumatic stress disorders. Hypervigilance is being on high alert, extra aware of their surroundings, high anxiety, fearful, or avoidant of threatening things. Commonly hypervigilance appears after a stressful or traumatic event that threatened the individuals emotional or physical safety. It can look different across a variety of individuals and populations but there are a few common symptoms.
What are symptoms of hypervigilance?
These symptoms include, having exaggerated startle responses, or being excessively jumpy when exposed to loud noises or unexpected stimuli; hyperarousal, or increased heart rate, shaking, and shallow or quick breaths. Additionally, an individual may feel that they must be constantly aware of their environment. This results in scanning people and places for threats, or positioning themselves against a wall or near an exit. It can also result in having difficulty with trusting others and trying new things.
How can hypervigilance be helpful?
Hypervigilance can be useful in the right circumstances and is often what keeps people in dangerous situations such as combat or domestic violence relationships, alive. It can however, become unhelpful, harmful, or exhausting once the individual is safe and not currently in any danger. Mindfulness, grounding tools, re-establishing a sense of safety, and therapy are all tools that can help reduce the uncomfortable symptoms of hypervigilance.
What can I do about hypervigilance?
If you are looking for a place to start on your own try thinking about the things, people, or places that make you feel safe. Visualize it in your head, write a list, draw, paint, or make a collage to remind yourself what safety looks, feels, smells, or tastes like. Try to include all your senses in this activity and be as detailed as you can. Additionally, nothing is too small or trivial to be included. Your safe space can look however you want it to, it can be something that exists already, or something that only exists in your head. Feel free to use your imagination.