Hyperawareness and How to Stop Overthinking

Table of Contents

Last Updated on February 27, 2023 by Mike Robinson

What is Hyperawareness?

Hyperawareness is a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that involves putting too much mental and emotional energy into unwanted thoughts, sounds, physical sensations, bodily functions, or visual abnormalities.

Over-focusing on external stimuli is a common symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Someone with hyperawareness OCD may perceive whatever their mind is preoccupied with as being much more intense than similar thoughts of everyone else. They believe that if they can’t eliminate these thoughts, they will ruin their future, ability to function, and happiness in the long run.

Although they would rather ignore these distractions, their brain has a firm grip on these stimuli, making it impossible to let go. Cars going down the road, the neighbor’s radio playing, children laughing outdoors, flickering light bulbs, the air conditioner humming, etc., are all everyday objects of focus in hyperawareness OCD.

Overthinking Your Thoughts

In addition to being too aware of what’s happening around you, hyperawareness also means being too aware of your thoughts. How we think, make decisions, and decide between options is through the internal monologue of our thoughts.

A person with hyperawareness OCD will feel completely distracted by their thoughts, thoughts about their own thoughts, and the idea that they shouldn’t be thinking about their thoughts.

Examples of Hyperawareness Obsessions

man wearing black crew-neck top — Hyperawareness makes it hard to focus on daily responsibilities.

You can remember when you didn’t have this problem. But now you’ve changed, and you don’t know when, why, or how this change happened. This statement is one of OCD’s cruelest and, to be honest, most lazy attempts to get your attention. Once it gets you to sign the contract that says you’ll be unhappy as long as you’re this way now, it has total control.

Hyperawareness, also called sensorimotor obsession, is a condition in which a person worries too much that their attention will be drawn to an otherwise unconscious or involuntary bodily process. In other words, we do many things without thinking about them, so it’s weird to start focusing on them. Here are some things that people with hyperawareness obsessions often have trouble with:

Blinking their eyes
Swallowing and breathing
Hearing and feeling their heartbeat.
Hunger and thirst levels
Minor pain in muscles or joints
Mustache hair touching their lip.
Awareness of the location of body parts (i.e., where are my hands? am I slouching? where are my feet when I sit? etc.)
Things in the line of sight (e.g., the nose, eye floaters)
Background noise (e.g., the fan blowing)
Just being aware that thinking is occurring.

As with any obsession, there is some overlap with other obsessions. Obsessive fears about sexual issues often cause people to be overly aware of the position or feelings in various body parts. Another thing that can cause obsessive fears of hurting oneself or others is being too aware of how things feel in your hands.

How the Mind Gets Stuck

Sometimes, it may seem like you are too sensitive or can’t handle certain kinds of pain. But the problem with this type of OCD is that the mind has become too attached to a specific target and is stuck there. Trying to pull the mind away from its target makes things worse. You may wonder why most of the time, OCD keeps you from getting rid of unwanted, upsetting thoughts (e.g., about illness or unwanted sexual or violent thoughts).

People with these kinds of obsessions don’t want to be stuck there but want to feel like they have a purpose. The most frustrating thing about hyperawareness obsessions is that the person who has them is not only stuck but also feels as if they have no sense of purpose.

But it’s not true that people with hyperawareness obsessions don’t have any fears. The obsession with being aware of things you don’t want to be mindful of is often just the surface of much deeper worries. Here are some related obsessive thoughts:

These thoughts will always keep me from doing what I need to do.
I’ll never be able to know what it was like to do this without thinking about it.
I’ll always be sad because this thought will keep me from enjoying the good things in life (e.g., my wedding and the memories thereof will be ruined by my focusing on my blinking).
I’ll make a fool of myself publicly because I can’t focus on anything but these thoughts.
Because I keep thinking about this, I will have a mental breakdown, a panic attack, or go crazy.

What are Compulsions?

Compulsions are ways that people try to regain confidence that everything will be okay, that paying attention to these thoughts and feelings won’t ruin their lives, and that these thoughts will eventually go away for good. Unfortunately, compulsions may give short-term relief, but they keep a person’s attention on their obsessions and worsen the problem in the long run.

Since the things that cause the obsession are neutral (breathing, blinking, swallowing, etc.), the main compulsion is to get rid of the thoughts and hyperawareness. The hope is that if the person can get rid of the thoughts, even for a minute, they can return to their life.

Methods used to eliminate hyperaware thoughts:

1. Try to block out annoying sounds by playing music.
2. Attempt to control their thoughts by meditating or being more aware.
3. Become workaholics because they must always keep their minds busy.
4. Try to eliminate their thoughts by pushing them out of their heads.
5. Change everything they wear to avoid certain feelings.
6. Go to several doctors to find out what is wrong with them.

Actions That Make Things Worse

Even though these things seem like good ideas, they only feed the obsession and make it worse. Instead of seeing the thoughts and feelings as neutral and harmless, people with this problem treat the thought as something to be afraid of. Also, if we try to eliminate the thought by pushing it out of our minds, it makes itself more noticeable.

The first thing that comes to mind is to try to block, ignore, control, or get away from the problem. This usually means staying away from places or people, using distractions like loud music on headphones, constantly checking and comparing, and asking others for reassurance.

On the other hand, this obsession with stopping the problem makes the person pay more attention and feel more anxious because it takes so much mental effort to try to stop the hyperawareness and obsessive thoughts.

Hyperawareness OCD is like sensory-motor OCD, making people pay attention to how their bodies feel or work. Even though there are many similarities between these problems, we distinguish between hyperawareness OCD, which is mainly focused on the outside world, and sensorimotor OCD, which is primarily focused on the inside world.

Traits of Hyperawareness

As described here, hyperawareness obsessions rarely involve complex worries about hurting oneself or others. Fears are mainly concerned that automatic body functions or physical sensations won’t return to how they were before, “driving the person crazy” forever. Along with these worries, people often worry that the obsession itself will never end. Dr. Jonathan Grayson calls this “obsessing about obsessing” (Grayson, 2004).

Hyperawareness obsessions don’t usually go along with perfectionist beliefs or attitudes, but sometimes they do. For example, a perfectionist patient was always worried about smudges on his glasses and other imperfections in his sensory environment. By definition, people who have it say they are in a lot of pain, especially when they can’t focus at work, when with other people, or when trying to sleep. Sensorimotor obsessions usually lead to compulsions that involve repeatedly trying to use a distraction to break the fixation on sensory phenomena.

Treatment Options

man's portrait photo — Improving present-moment awareness and mental flexibility through mindfulness training helps reduce hyperawareness.

CBT is the suggested course of treatment for OCD with hyperawareness. There are five main strategies used in the CBT treatment process, including:

Cognitive reappraisal to find, question, and change negative or unhelpful thinking patterns about the concern.
Acceptance and cognitive diffusion are ways to return thoughts and feelings to normal.
Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) is a way to weaken the conditioned response to external stimuli.
Focus on attention training to improve the ability to pay attention and act quickly.
Improving present-moment awareness and mental flexibility through mindfulness training

Using EMDR (OCD) to Treat Hyperawareness

EMDR, which stands for “Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing,” is a proven good way to treat hyperawareness in OCD. The EMDR clinical protocol can be used independently or as a solid addition to cognitive behavioral therapy.

Conclusion

Hyperawareness affects tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people yearly. More research will help discover how common the problem is and how to best treat it. Until this kind of systematic research occurs, case studies and anecdotal evidence suggest that the best way to deal with sensorimotor obsessions is through a cognitive-behavioral framework. Psychoeducation, cognitive reframing, reassurance, exposure and response prevention, and some mindfulness and acceptance techniques can help reduce the distress of this frustrating and sometimes incapacitating experience.