Why Small Moments of Self-Care Matter So Much for Highly Sensitive People During Stressful Times

 By the end of this episode, you’ll understand why highly sensitive people often stop caring for themselves during overwhelming periods, and why small moments of recovery can still make a huge difference. In this episode, you’ll discover why highly sensitive people often stop taking care of themselves during periods when they need it the most, how all or nothing thinking around self-care can quietly make overwhelm even worse, and why even small amounts of recovery can help your nervous system more than you realize.

This is an edition of Strategy Fridays, where we think about specific things you can do to help manage stress as a highly sensitive person. When life becomes overwhelming, many highly sensitive people quietly stop taking care of themselves, not because they don’t value self-care, but because their attention gets pulled completely into the situation in front of them.

Maybe someone close to you is sick. Maybe work suddenly becomes intense and all hands are needed on deck. Maybe you’re going through an emotional crisis, a relationship issue, or a stressful transition that seems to consume all your mental and emotional space. And during those periods, self-care can start feeling unrealistic.

You think, “I’ll take care of myself properly once this settles down.” But sometimes those seasons last much longer than expected. And while you’re waiting for things to calm down, your nervous system slowly starts running on empty. One thing I’ve noticed with highly sensitive people is that we often stop caring for ourselves during periods when we need support the most.

Partly because highly sensitive people tend to become deeply absorbed in what’s happening around them. If someone else is struggling, your attention moves there naturally. That’s what we all do as highly sensitive people. If there’s pressure at work, your system organizes around that pressure. If there’s a crisis, your mind often treats your own needs as secondary until the crisis is resolved.

And during stressful periods, self-care can start feeling almost inappropriate. You can start thinking, “This isn’t the time. There’s just too much to do. I can’t focus on myself right now.” So recovery gets postponed again and again. And usually, this isn’t happening consciously. It shows up in small ways.

You stop taking breaks. You rush through meals. You stop stepping outside. You stay mentally on all day long. You stop noticing your body, or you stop giving yourself even tiny moments to settle and find some quiet Maybe you go straight from one emotionally intense conversation into the next task without a pause in between Maybe you’re caring for someone and you never fully relax because part of your nervous system is constantly listening for what they might need next You wake up already alert.

You move through the day tracking medications, appointments, emotional states, practical needs. And because someone else is struggling, it can start feeling wrong to slow down yourself. You may even feel guilty resting while someone else is suffering So your whole nervous system gradually organizes around the emergency.

And after a while, you barely notice your own internal state anymore Or maybe it’s work, a season where everything feels urgent. More emails, more pressure, more decisions, more deadlines, more people needing things from you. And you tell yourself, “Once I get through this week, I’ll slow down.” But then the w- next week arrives, and the next one, and eventually your system starts living in a kind of permanent postponement

This is something many highly sensitive people do without realizing it. We defer our own recovery. We postpone our own needs. We quietly place self-care into the future. “I’ll rest properly later.” “I’ll get back to myself once this settles down.” Or, “I’ll start taking care of myself again once life becomes manageable.”

But some stressful seasons last months, some last years, and the nervous system cannot indefinitely postpone recovery without consequences, especially for highly sensitive people. Because highly sensitive nervous systems process stimulation deeply, we experience more. We f- have more emotional information coming in that we’re picking up on.

We have more sensory input. We experience things with more complexity because of the nuance that we’re wired to pick up on. And we experience emotions in a more nuanced way. And because of that, depletion accumulates more quickly for highly sensitive people. But something else is true as well. Recovery can actually happen more quickly for highly sensitive people as well, and that’s an often forgotten little fact.

It’s called differential susceptibility. You put an HSP in a stressful environment, they’re gonna do worse than other people. If you put them in a less stressful environment or where they have tools to deal with the stress, they’re gonna do better than other people because they will more conscientiously use those tools.

So small moments matter more than many highly sensitive people realize The difficult part is that highly sensitive people often approach self-care in an all or nothing way. If you can’t do it properly, your mind may decide that it barely counts. So if you can’t take the whole day off or go on a retreat or completely reset your schedule or meditate for an hour or create the perfect routine, then your system quietly concludes I guess self-care just isn’t possible right now.”

And this way of thinking can quietly make overwhelm even worse. Because recovery doesn’t only happen through large ideal experiences. The nervous system also responds to small moments, tiny moments, brief interruptions in stress accumulation. They make a huge difference. And this is important to understand.

Your nervous system is constantly responding to what you’re giving it throughout the day. Not just during perfect self-care routines, but small moments of quiet, those matter too. Small moments of softness matter. Small moments of regulation matter, especially during overwhelming periods. Sometimes self-care during stressful times looks very different than it does during calmer seasons.

Sometimes it’s not a perfect morning routine. Sometimes it’s standing outside for 60 seconds between difficult conversations, just getting outside, feeling the air, looking at the sky, seeing the clouds, letting your nervous system experience one brief moment where nobody needs anything from you Sometimes it’s sitting quietly in your parked car before walking inside.

No phone, no stimulation, no problem-solving, just one minute where your system gets to exhale slightly Sometimes it’s turning off background noise for a few minutes because your nervous system has been processing input all day long. Or drinking tea slowly instead of rushing through it while multitasking.

Just smelling the beverage, smelling it, tasting it. Just one second can make a huge difference in the internal tension that you’re carrying Or letting your should- shoulders relax consciously after realizing that they’ve been tense for hours. Just the awareness of that takes one second. Or placing one hand on your chest for a moment and simply noticing, “This is hard right now.”

Sometimes it’s allowing yourself one slower moment in the middle of a chaotic day, one less rushed breath, one less rushed response, one tiny interruption in the survival mode

And these things may seem very small intellectually, but highly sensitive nervous systems often respond strongly to small changes in stimulation, pace, and emotional pressure. That’s part of the trade. Small moments of recovery genuinely matter for us. And I think one of the deepest struggles here is that many highly sensitive people unconsciously believe if the situation is serious enough, my needs no longer matter.

Or if other people are struggling, caring for myself becomes selfish. But your nervous system is still part of the situation. You are still part of the equation. And abandoning yourself internally during stressful periods usually doesn’t create more strength. It usually creates deeper depletion, and that affects everyone and even the care that you give But it’s possible to approach these seasons differently.

Not by escaping responsibility, not by pretending hard periods shouldn’t feel hard, but by staying connected to yourself while life is difficult. By recognizing that your nervous system still needs moments of recovery, even during intense seasons. And that recovery does not need to be perfect in order to matter You don’t need the perfect routine.

You don’t need ideal conditions. You don’t need to completely fix your life before your nervous system can start receiving support again. Sometimes the goal is simply not completely losing contact with yourself while life is hard. And often, for highly sensitive people, those small moments of care accumulate much more than you may realize over time.

So the feeling I’m left with today is that it’s easy to get caught in all or nothing thinking when it comes to self-care. The balance lies in doing little things even when you don’t have much time to take care of yourself. In this episode, we looked at why highly sensitive people often stop taking care of themselves during the periods when they need it the most.

And this is because we tend to focus wholeheartedly on the task at hand, and we tend to organize ourselves around that to try to do the best job we can with it. And in doing so, we forget about our own needs. We also looked at how all or nothing thinking around self-care can quietly make overwhelm even worse.

And this shows up as when everything is settled, then I’ll go on a retreat, then I’ll take a vacation, then I’ll have time off and I will just sleep and read and relax. And this prevents you from taking one minute right now that could actually make a huge difference in your experience as it is. And finally, we looked at why even small moments of recovery can help your nervous system more than you may realize.

And that is because as highly sensitive people, we respond to subtle changes. A small change of just introducing a moment of reprieve can have a huge impact on the next hour or, who knows, the whole rest of the day. And if you do a number of those throughout the day, then the chances of getting overwhelmed go down dramatically So thanks for listening.

It’s always great to explore with you. This program comes out three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Join me next time for Breakthrough Mondays, where I share success stories and helpful insights for highly sensitive people on the path towards inner freedom.