Hello

Hi there, I am an autistic person who seems to struggle a lot with sensory issues like certain lights (overhead and bright sunlight), sounds, touch, smells etc. I've described myself as a hawk, a bloodhound in the past because I feel like my senses match these animals. It is extremely stressful to me where I can't even tell my emotions sometimes. An example I have is I cried because the sun was too bright, the snow was too white and traffic was too loud. I cried in the street and crumbled at home because of these things.

This is what I have personally done to help me in these situations, these work for me and obviously might not for everyone else.

I wear loop ear plugs, they are great and they have different ones depending on your situation, they even do children's loops too. I never go out without them in now.

I wear my sunflower lanyard most times because I like to be left alone, I hate social interaction and this makes me feel calmer just knowing I have it on.

I also never leave home without sunglasses in my pocket now. So even on a cloudy day I'll wear them if the light it stressing me out.

And finally I have a fidget cube with my tinker with in my hands when picking my son up from nursery as just standing around bugs me and if I feel anxious for any reason I'm messing around with the cube and my focus goes on that.

All these things combined have made me feel calm, less overwhelmed and more at peace.

I hope this helps a little.

Sensory Perception is something all life-forms have. As humans, we sense the external and internal world in order to navigate and communicate. With the right help, we can train our ears to hear exact frequencies, such as an audio acoustician, our smell to identify “notes” in coffee, wine and scotch. We can notice the difference between natural and unnatural light (LEDs don't have infrared which the human eye uses for contrast - things go blurry without it). We can 'listen' to our muscles when we need to stretch or pay attention when we need more salt, feel dehydrated, need a bit of citrus for vit C and so on. Humans used to be able to know what was happening with the weather without external instruments to read it. Some of us get nose bleeds when the air pressure falls too quickly or have trouble breathing when it rises too quickly.

Over the years, I started studying philosophical aesthetics. I also found that spending time just exploring, pausing, listening and engaging with nuances of differences help sharpen my own ability to be in-tune with and identify when there is a sensory problem so I can respond appropriately or in advance. 

But you can always start with sound or touch. Go to the park sit in the grass, close your eyes and just engage. 

I'm quite tired and it's late, but will follow up more later if this sounds interesting.