Why Sensory Safety Is a Key Part of Your Autistic Wellness.
Image description: There is a graphic of a woman laying on bed with headphones on, she is smiling. At the top of the graphic the title reads: “4 steps to creating sensory safety.” There are four arrows pointing from the image of the woman to text that reads: “get to know your sensory needs”, “create conditions of sensory safety”, “bring a lot of compassion to your sensory needs” and “create an emergency sensory plan.”
As a late diagnosed autistic learning how to tend to my sensory needs has been such an important part of creating a life that’s autistic affirming and accessible. I’ll always remember how the first time I put on a noise cancelling headphones and how I wanted to sob in relief. Slipping on a pair of noise cancelling headphones felt like I could breathe again. I remember immediately wondering how I had survived 35 years on this noisy overstimulating earth without headphones. I believe that the miracle of realizing our neurodivergence later in life is that we can now begin to focus on supporting our neurodivergent health and well being-including tending to our sensory safety.
The reality is that we all deserve sensory safety. For many of us late diagnosed autistics and AuDHDers we might have received messages that our sensory needs weren’t important. Perhaps you were told that you were “too sensitive” or invalidated around your sensory experiences. It can be tender work to slowly begin to heal from past harmful messages and learn how to advocate for our sensory needs. In this blog post I’m going to share what sensory safety is and how you can begin to tend to your sensory needs.
What does sensory safety even mean?
Sensory safety is a way to describe the experiencing of feeling safe in our sensory experiences. That means that we’re sensory regulated, are in environments where we aren’t experiencing sensory trauma or sensory pain and are able to stay within our window of capacity. When we’re sensory regulated we’re:
Able to stay focused.
Feel emotional balanced.
Get pleasure and joy from our sensory experiences.
Feel comfortable in our sensory experiences.
Our internal state of arousal matches our external level of stimulation.
What happens when we don’t experience sensory safety?
Being in unsafe sensory environments can have both short term and long term impacts. When we don’t feel sensory safe we can experience sensory pain and sensory trauma, get sensory overloaded, we might experience meltdowns and shutdowns, be emotionally dysregulated, have difficulty regulating our actions and behavior as well as difficulty with focus and executive functioning.
On a personal note I’ve experienced long term effects of being chronically sensory overloaded and I’ve noticed a very really impact on my nervous system and autistic well being. If you’ve also experienced long term sensory overstimulation and sensory pain then it’s important to be extra compassionate with yourself and to ideally dedicate time to recovering from chronic sensory overstimulation.Let’s explore some doable ways you can tend to your sensory health.
Image description: Over a pink background a title reads “Sensory Self Care Bingo” and the text written over small bingo squares reads: “take a sensory break”, “identify your sensory boundaries”, “use noise cancelling headphones”, “get to know your sensory profile”, “identify your sensory triggers and sensory soothers”, “create a Sensory Emergency Plan”, “spend time with things that are sensory soothing”, “make a sensory portable bag”, “validate that you deserve to be sensory safe.”
1.) Get to know your sensory needs and validate them.
An important way to begin to identify your sensory needs is to bring a sensory lens to your experiences. Dr. Neff of Neurodivergent Insights refers to a sensory lens as a way of perceiving and interpreting the world through the lens of your sensory experiences. You might imagine looking at your experiences with a sensory microscope and asking yourself:
What are things that cause me sensory pain?
What is my sensory profile? For example: am I hyper sensitive or hypo sensitive? Note: you can be hyper sensitive in some senses and hypo sensitive for others.
What are my sensory triggers or sensory no’s?
What are my sensory soothers or sensory yes’s?
How do I experience the 8 Senses? There are 8 senses (tactile, auditory, visual, gustatory, olfactory, interoception, proprioception and vestibular) and it can be supportive to read more about each sense and learn which ones you’re hyper or hypo sensitive to.)
What sensory accommodations do I need to feel sensory safe?
It can be supportive to then validate that your sensory experiences are valid. That could look like telling yourself that your sensory needs matter or validating that how you respond to sensory experiences makes so much sense based on your sensory profile. It can also be healing to have someone in your life (such as a loved one or a trusted practitioner that you work with) reaffirm that your sensory needs are important and so valid.
2.) Create conditions of sensory safety.
Now that you’ve identified your sensory needs and your sensory profile, we now want to focus on creating safe enough conditions for your sensory needs. Creating conditions of sensory safety is about three things:
Identifying the accommodations and tools you need to feel sensory safe. This could look like making sensory safe environments a priority, using sensory aids (such as noise cancelling headphones or sunglasses) and limiting things that aren’t sensory accessible for you.
Explore what your sensory boundaries are. For example: what are things that you aren’t willing to do because they are sensory painful? It might be helpful to create scripts for sharing your sensory boundaries or to practice with a friend.
Tend to your sensory needs in small doable ways. Tending to your sensory needs on a daily basis is an important part of your sensory health. This could look like taking sensory breaks throughout your day, being proactive about your sensory regulation and making time for sensory soothers.
Image description: Over a yellow background there is a graphic of pink cup filled with a hot beverage. There is a title at the top of the graphic that reads “fill your sensory cup.” There are arrows pointing from the cup to the following text: “take a sensory break”, “spend time with sensory soothers”, “use sensory aids”, “share your sensory boundaries”, “validate that your sensory needs matter so much”, “make a portable sensory bag”, tend to your sensory needs.”
The more conditions of sensory safety that we have, the more resourced we can be. That doesn't mean that we won’t ever experience sensory pain or become sensory dysregulated-but it does mean that creating consistent sensory wellness practices builds a strong foundation of sensory support for our autistic selves.
3.) Create a Sensory Safety Emergency Protocol.
Sometimes Sensory Emergencies happen and it’s important to have a specific protocol or plan to support our sensory health. Perhaps you’re sensory overloaded after a stressful sensory experience or maybe you made a “sensory mistake” and are noticing the very real impacts. Here’s the truth: Sensory Emergencies happen. But a Sensory Safety Emergency Protocol creates safety and lets you know exactly what you need to do. For your own protocol you’ll want to identify:
Identify your sensory soothers. What are some strategies or accommodations that support you when you’re sensory overloaded? Perhaps that’s a sensory break or using sensory aids for example.
What is a routine that will support you in recovering from a sensory stressful experience? Perhaps that’s limiting screen time, specific sensory boundaries, using your noise cancelling headphones 24/7 or using a weighted blanket.
What type of support do you need? Perhaps you need to reduce social demands, have a loved one support you with a task or give yourself permission to do the bare minimum at work or home. If it’s hard to identify the types of support that would be helpful, perhaps ask yourself: “what type of care would feel really loving and supportive to receive when I’m in a Sensory Emergency?”
It might be supportive to prepare a Sensory Emergency bag both for when you’re at home and a portable one you can carry with you. In it you can put any sensory soothers that support you in feeling calm and grounded. For example in your Sensory Emergency bag you could include stim toys, noise cancelling headphones or ear plugs, snacks, essential oils, a weighted eye pillow or something related to a special interest.
If possible, I encourage you to write out your Sensory Safety Emergency Protocol and/or to share it verbally with a loved one. It might also be helpful to create scripts to share with people when you feel sensory overloaded.
4.) Bring so much compassion to your sensory wellness.
I recently had an experience where I had to take two weeks off of tech due to being so sensory overloaded from making a pretty big “sensory mistake.” The process of recovering reminded me of how compassion and self-love is such an important part of our sensory wellbeing. If you’ve had experiences where your sensory experiences weren’t respected or tended to, you might find yourself being hard on yourself if you make a sensory mistake. Of perhaps you ignore your sensory needs because it feels scary to advocate for yourself. It can be so supportive to:
Remind yourself that it takes time to learn about your sensory needs and that sensory mistakes happen-and that’s okay.
That it’s so natural for your sensory needs to fluctuate depending on your hormones (such as where you’re at in your menstrual cycle), your stress levels or if you’re in autistic burnout.
To be so kind and loving towards yourself. That might look like telling yourself how important your sensory needs are or validating that it feels hard to advocate for your sensory needs right now and that’s okay.
To constantly ask yourself: “what would be the most loving thing for my sensory needs right now?” Perhaps that’s a sensory break, using sensory aids before you get sensory overstimulated or just reflecting to yourself that you deserve to feel sensory safe.
You deserve to feel sensory safe.
Investing in your sensory safety is so important and it takes time to learn about your sensory needs and to explore things that are supportive for your sensory health. If possible, I suggest exploring 1-2 doable ways you can tend to your sensory needs and to celebrate the ways in which you show up for your sensory health.
Tending to my sensory needs has been a key part of my autistic wellness and I love supporting my autistic coaching clients in supporting their own sensory needs too. I hope this blog was supportive in helping you create more sensory safety in your life.
Resources mentioned and/or consulted in this blog post:
Sensory Safety Plan by Dr. Neff of Neurodivergent Insights
8 Senses of The Body by Dr. Neff of Neurodivergent Insights
The Queer Autistic Podcast: Episode “Sensory Emergencies, Oh my!”
Thank you for reading!
I hope this blog post was supportive. If you’d like to share a bit about your own experience with sensory safety-please feel free to share in the comments.
The information contained in this blog post is for general educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical or mental health advice. The information provided is not a substitute for advice from a qualified professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation. We expressly recommend that you seek advice from a professional familiar with your specific situation.
Your autistic healing matters.
I hope this blog post was helpful in your own autistic healing journey. I truly believe that us late diagnosed autistics deserve autistic affirming healing and I hope you have the best practitioners, tools and support for your own healing.
If you’re seeking autistic support and healing, I’d love to support you in my 5 month program The Autistic Mentorship. It includes:
An intensive intake session & healing document to identify your goals and developmental objectives that we’ll work on in our program together.
Three (75 minute) sessions a month.
Lots of support & education: think recap emails + personalized practices sent to your inbox, neurodivergent workbooks and resources and a bonus check in call to use when needed.
You can find out more about The Autistic Mentorship here.
Tiffany Landry is a queer autistic coach and trauma resolution practitioner. She works with queer and autistic clients in her programs Slow and The Autistic Mentorship. Tiffany also writes a newsletter on Substack called The Queer Autistic Newsletter.