Sensory overload happens when you’re getting more input from your five senses than your brain can sort through and process. Prevention tips include identifying and avoiding your triggers.

Multiple conversations going on in one room, flashing overhead lights, or a loud party can all produce the symptoms of sensory overload.

Anyone can experience sensory overload, but triggers are different for different people. Sensory overload is associated with several other health conditions, including:

Symptoms of sensory overload vary by case. Some common symptoms include:

  • difficulty focusing due to competing sensory input
  • extreme irritability
  • restlessness and discomfort
  • urge to cover your ears or shield your eyes from sensory input
  • feeling overly excited or “wound up”
  • stress, fear, or anxiety about your surroundings
  • higher levels than usual of sensitivity to textures, fabrics, clothing tags, or other things that may rub against the skin

Your brain functions like a beautiful, complicated computer system. Your senses relay information from your environment, and your brain interprets the information and tells you how to react.

But when there’s competing sensory information, your brain can’t interpret it all at once. For some people, this feels like getting “stuck”: Your brain can’t prioritize what sensory information it needs to focus on.

Your brain then sends your body the message that you need to get away from some of the sensory input you’re experiencing. Your brain feels trapped by all the input it’s getting, and your body starts to panic in a chain reaction.

Anyone can experience sensory overload. Sensory overload is also a common symptom of certain health conditions.

Research suggests that autistic people experience sensory information differently. Autism is associated with hypersensitivity to sensory input, making sensory overload more likely.

With attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), sensory information competes for your brain’s attention. This can contribute to symptoms of sensory overload.

Mental health conditions such as generalized anxiety disorder and PTSD can also trigger sensory overload. Anticipation, fatigue, and stress can all contribute to a sensory overload experience, making senses feel heightened during panic attacks and PTSD episodes.

Fibromyalgia is related to abnormal sensory processing. Researchers are still working to understand how this relates to fibromyalgia pain. Frequent sensory overload can be a symptom of fibromyalgia.

Some people who have multiple sclerosis (MS) report experiencing sensory overload as a symptom of the condition.

Since MS is a condition that has to do with nerve impulses, it makes sense that too much stimulation from your senses can trigger sensory overload, especially when you’re having a flare-up of MS symptoms.

Other conditions related to sensory overload include:

Sensory overload in children can be a challenge to recognize, treat, and cope with. If you’re aware of a medical condition that presents sensory overload as a symptom, you may already be familiar with the strong reactions that sensory overload can cause.

A 2017 study reports that older research estimates that 5% to 16.5% of children in the United States have symptoms associated with sensory processing challenges.

A child who experiences sensory overload doesn’t necessarily have a related condition. Children’s brains are still developing and learning how to sort through different kinds of stimulation. That means children are more likely than adults to experience sensory overload.

Learning to recognize the signs of sensory overload early on can help you manage your child’s reactions. If your child cries uncontrollably when their face gets wet, reacts intensely to loud noises, or becomes anxious before entering a group gathering, your child may be experiencing sensory overload.

Once you’ve learned to recognize your child’s triggers, you can slowly teach them how to recognize sensory overload.

Giving your child language to explain what’s happening and letting them know that the way they’re feeling is normal, valid, and temporary can help them cope. You may find that certain situations that trigger sensory overload in your child are easiest to simply avoid altogether.

Sensory issues may pose significant challenges for children at school, where young students must negotiate a vivid sensory environment. Children who experience sensory overload may be able to work with an occupational therapist or other specialist to adapt to the school environment.

Frequent sensory overload symptoms may indicate that your child has a sensory processing condition. Early signs of these conditions include:

  • limited expression of emotion
  • lack of eye contact
  • trouble concentrating even in quiet or subdued environments
  • delayed speech development

Speak with your doctor about any concerns you have about your child’s learning and development.

Resources are available to help children and parents who are highly sensitive to stimulation. Consider the following organizations. They each offer resource pages with helpful tips, success stories, and community directories that you can use to find support:

Your child’s pediatrician may also have advice on how to help.

If you know that your senses get overwhelmed and trigger sensory overload, you can cope with the condition by recognizing your triggers. It might take some time, but work to understand what your sensory overload experiences have in common.

Some people are more triggered by noises, while others are triggered by pulsing lights and large crowds.

You can try to avoid triggers of sensory overload once you know what causes it for you. But you may also want to do the same activities and attend the same events that you would if you didn’t have this condition.

You can be proactive about sensory overload by creatively reducing sensory input when you’re in triggering situations.

Asking for the lights or music to be turned down and closing doors to limit noise pollution when you enter a social gathering are preemptive steps you can take before sensory overload sets in.

Other tips include the following:

  • Take a list to the store to help you focus on the task at hand. This can help you avoid becoming overwhelmed by the options, scents, and sounds when you’re shopping.
  • Hold conversations in the corners of the room or in separate rooms when you’re at a big gathering.
  • Keep a plan with you when you enter a highly stimulating environment. Write down your triggers, identify safe spaces ahead of time, and share the plan with someone you trust. This can help reduce anxiety over sensory overload.
  • Plan to leave events early so you feel you have an escape.
  • Get plenty of rest and drink lots of water. This helps your brain function at optimal levels.

Even though sensory overload triggers are different for everyone, here are some common scenarios where sensory overload happens:

An after-work holiday gathering

At a gathering of co-workers, you may be excited about socializing with people you’re used to seeing in a work setting. But you may also feel self-conscious and unsure of yourself.

Celebrations and parties tend to have loud music and take place at night. So, in addition to feeling anxious, you’re now trying to hear people speak through the music, and you’re tired after a long day to begin with.

Add alcohol to the mix, and you may be feeling a bit dehydrated. Once the party really kicks into gear, a co-worker turns on a strobe light and tries to start an impromptu dance party. The strobe light is the last straw — you feel trapped and like you need to leave the party immediately.

While the strobe light triggered your symptoms, in this scenario, the combination of factors really causes sensory overload to set in.

At the pool with your young children

Your son or daughter is looking forward to showing off their newly learned swimming skills at the community pool. But once you arrive, there’s so much loud noise from other children playing that you notice your child become hesitant.

Everyone gathered around the pool seems to have a loud, squeaky pool toy or is crunching a loud snack. When your child dips their feet in the water, they start having an emotional outburst — running out of the water and refusing to try again.

While the water was the trigger factor in this scenario, it was the other environmental stimulants that caused sensory overload.

There are not many treatment options for sensory overload. Most “treatment” involves avoiding trigger situations and keeping one’s body as rested and well hydrated as possible.

Occupational therapy and feeding therapy can help children manage stimulation and triggers. A method of therapy called sensory integration has found support among researchers and therapists, although researchers are still working to understand how sensory integration helps the brain.

Treating related conditions can improve sensory overload symptoms. For example, according to a 2023 research review, the medications risperidone (Risperdal) and aripiprazole (Abilify) may also help improve sensory processing in autistic children.

Sensory overload can feel overwhelming, but identifying coping mechanisms that work for you will put you back in control. When you’re experiencing sensory overload, there’s nothing wrong with removing yourself from the situation to cut down the stimulation your brain is experiencing.

If your child is experiencing sensory overload, try to give them words they can use to explain how they feel. If it happens to you or your child often, speak with a doctor about possible related conditions.