Mental Illness Can Overstimulate Your Brain

Here's what's happening on the HealthyPlace site this week:

• Mental Illness Can Overstimulate Your Brain
• Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans
• From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs

Mental Illness Can Overstimulate Your Brain

Have you ever wanted to throw your hands over your ears, sink to your knees, and shout, "Make it stop"? And by "it" you mean the raucous noise, the garish lights, the overbearing smells, and the irksome sensation of things touching you. This "it" is sensory overstimulation, and it can aggravate our brain and negatively impact our mental health. Many different mental illnesses are associated with a heightened sensitivity to stimuli from the outside world, among them post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, attention deficit (and hyperactivity) disorder (ADD/ADHD), and more.

With overstimulation, the problem isn't the senses themselves. The issue is with the brain and how it processes input from the world. It's as if the brain becomes confused and loses its full ability to filter out input it doesn't need. The result is that sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations are intensified. This can make us feel overwhelmed, pressured, irritable, emotional, wired, and exhausted all at the same time. We can become overstimulated in large, crowded, noisy places or at home with a just a few friends or family members.

While we can't directly control how our brain processes all of the information flooding it, we can take care of our brain, practicing self-care and soothing it to reduce overstimulation and increase calm.

Related Articles Dealing with Overstimulation

• Noise Sensitivity: When the World is Too Loud
• Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder, Overstimulation
• PTSD: The Holiday Season’s Unwelcome Guest
• PTSD and Fatigue: Is It Normal To Feel So Tired?

Your Thoughts

Today's Question: How do you react to making changes in your life? We invite you to participate by commenting and sharing your feelings, experiences and knowledge on the HealthyPlace Facebook page

Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans

Here are the top 3 mental health articles HealthyPlace Facebook fans are recommending you read:

1. Can Exercise Really Help Bipolar Depression?
2. Eating Disorder Support Groups and Where to Find Them
3. Psychiatric Drugs and Weight Gain

If you're not already, I hope you'll join us/like us on Facebook too. There are a lot of wonderful, supportive people there.

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From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs

On all our blogs, your comments and observations are welcomed.

• Using Running to Fight Depression and Too Much Facebook Can Worsen Depression (Coping with Depression Blog)
• Facing Change? Anxiety Can Be Related to Adjustment Disorder (Anxiety-Schmanxiety Blog)
• Three Steps to Help You Choose the Practice of Presence (Living A Blissful Life Blog)
• Depression – I Can’t Make a Decision, Everything Feels Wrong (Breaking Bipolar Blog)
• Three Reasons the Mental Health System Suffers (Recovering From Mental Illness Blog)
• Are There Symptoms of PTSD Missing from the DSM-5? (Understanding Combat PTSD)
• Why Treatment for Trauma is So Important for Children (Mental Health Treatment Circle Blog)
• How Long It Takes To Heal Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Varies (Trauma! A PTSD Blog)
• Journal to Improve Self-Esteem and Keeping Calm When Others Put You Down (Building Self-Esteem Blog)
• Help for Men Experiencing Depression and Mental Illness Stigma (Surviving Mental Health Stigma Blog)
• Binge Eating Disorder and Body Shaming (Binge Eating Recovery Blog)
• Why is Self-Injury So Prevalent in Borderline (BPD)? (Speaking Out About Self-Injury Blog)
• A Story of Bipolar Denial (Your Mental Health Blog)
• 7 Ways 12-Step Groups Help Anxiety Disorder (Treating Anxiety Blog)
• How To Recover From Emotional Trauma of Domestic Abuse (Verbal Abuse in Relationships Blog)
• My Mother with Mental Illness (Life with Bob)
• What I Wish Insurance Companies Knew About Eating Disorders (Surviving ED Blog)
• What is Mental Illness Recovery? (Getting Through Tough Times Blog)
• Officially Coming Out as Queer and Mental Health (The Life: LGBT Mental Health Blog)
• Forgiving Yourself for Embarrassing Drunken Behavior and Minimizing Risky Behavior Caused by Substance Abuse (Debunking Addiction Blog)
• Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder, and Ableism (Creative Schizophrenia Blog)

Feel free to share your thoughts and comments at the bottom of any blog post. And visit the mental health blogs homepage for the latest posts.

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Stand Up for Mental Health

Thousands Have Joined the Stand Up for Mental Health Campaign

But we still need you. Let others know there's no shame in having depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, trichotillomania, OCD, ADHD, schizophrenia or any other mental illness.

Join the Stand Up for Mental Health campaign. Put a button on your website or blog (buttons for family members, parents, mental health professionals and organizations too). We also have covers for Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

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Latest Mental Health News

These stories and more are featured on our mental health news page:

• FDA Approves REXULTI As Adjunctive Treatment For Adults With Major Depressive Disorder And As A Treatment For Adults With Schizophrenia
• ADHD Medications Linked To Cardiac Problems In Children With Hereditary Heart Disease
• Regular Exposure To Death And Trauma Causes Death Anxiety In Emergency Nurses
• Researchers Identify New Spectrum Disorder Called ALPIM Syndrome
• FDA Approves REXULTI As Adjunctive Treatment For Adults With Major Depressive Disorder And As A Treatment For Adults With Schizophrenia
• Eating In The Absence Of Hunger: A Recipe For Expanding Waistlines
• People With Schizophrenia Have More Rare Genetic Mutations

That's it for now. If you know of anyone who can benefit from this newsletter or the HealthyPlace.com site, I hope you'll pass this onto them. You can also share the newsletter on any social network (like facebook, stumbleupon, or digg) you belong to by clicking the links below. For updates throughout the week:

• follow HealthyPlace on Twitter
• or like HealthyPlace on Facebook.