Hello everyone and welcome to the Awaken Together podcast.
I am Jen and we don't have Kat today, but I have a very special guest that I want to
introduce.
We are going to cover the topics of neurodivergences and sensory needs, which encompasses all
kinds of stuff.
So we're going to talk it out with you.
So welcome my good friend, Haley.
Hi everyone.
Excited to be here.
We're so happy to have you.
Me and Haley met on a random bachelorette party trip and connected right away.
She is an occupational therapist, so she's in the rehab world with me.
And yeah, we connected right away and since then have had so many breakdowns of conversations
on sensory needs in general, what that looks like.
I think we can nerd out on this subject forever.
Oh yeah.
One of my favorite topics.
Yeah.
So tell us a little bit first of what your job entails and then I can kind of share my
personal experience with the term even neurodivergences and what sensory needs actually even means
to you.
Yeah.
As you said, I'm an occupational therapist, but I work in the realm of children under
OT.
That's scope.
We get to do sensory integration and we work with a lot of kids on autism spectrum, Down
syndrome, just kind of all over the board with diagnoses specifically.
Yeah.
Like you'll kind of see an OT swinging kids around on different spandex equipment or swings
or getting it like slides.
There's just the equipment is what usually people like think of first when they think
of OT, I feel like.
So yeah, it's all that good stuff.
Very cool.
Yeah.
Do you guys actually use the term neurodivergences?
Do you hear that in your professional world or more just outside of it?
So we use that and we'll say like neurotypical and like neurodivergent.
Yeah, we'll use both of those.
Okay.
And so neurodivergences, if you've never heard that term and you're listening, the everything
it kind of encompasses like the full spectrum, which can include ADHD, sensory processing
disorders, dyslexia, autism, Asperger's, OCD, all of that.
Correct.
Oh yeah.
All that good stuff.
I think kind of is like the umbrella term.
Yeah.
And so I had not even heard the word neurodivergences.
I personally was diagnosed with ADHD like very young.
I think they told my mom that around age five, but she didn't really believe in treatment
stuff.
I got no help with that growing up.
So I went through school, like I was known as the problem child that just like wouldn't
sit still, like constantly like sit down, Jennifer, stop talking, always getting in trouble
for my behavior.
My mom was a little bit, she liked my uniqueness and I think she did stand by me with that
side pretty well.
So she would just be like, that's how she is.
So she kind of embraced it as being who I am, not really a mental kind of disorder that
maybe I could get some like outside help to assist with.
She was just like, Jennifer's just quirky, you know?
That's how it got written off.
But as I got older, I got treatment for it in college.
I could not believe when I was first like medicated for it, like the night and day difference.
And I was like, if my brain is supposed to work like this, the difference between the
two is like profound.
And I was shocked by that.
And then I read, I think the big turning page where I got like even deeper into this was
the book, The Divergent Mind, where I really got to read kind of the newer studies on what
has been done, especially in women in the neurodivergent field, which is still relatively
newer and just hearing all the different details, what that looks like and how much it actually
was playing out in my day-to-day life in ways I didn't realize.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, girls and boys present in completely different ways, especially with like autism,
that's kind of who I see the most.
They're presented so differently that boys are a little bit easier to diagnose and you
can diagnose them sooner, as early as like three years old.
But girls can go a lot, lot longer, just kind of like, we use the term masking.
You can mask like your different, I get people will say their quirks or their sensory needs.
And there's like adult women our age that probably have some sort of level of autism,
but will never have never been diagnosed.
And I think the schools are doing a lot better these days of giving kids IEPs to like allow
them to have like a fidget in class or like some extra movement breaks or to help some
of those kids like you that were like the quote unquote problem child when they just
really needed some like additional sensory supports.
So luckily they are making strides in that.
But that is good to hear.
Can you explain masking a little bit more?
Because that is, that was definitely a term that I had not heard and didn't really realize
until I read that book, which you've also read.
You said they made you read it in school, which I freaking love that.
Yeah.
Tell me a little bit more about masking and also how masking do you see that?
I guess you don't see as much in children because they are hiding anything, but I'm
sure you see it in the parents behavior too.
Yeah.
And so the children I see haven't learned how to mask yet.
So that's why they're obviously already at therapy.
They've been referred to because you know, they're already exhibiting these behaviors.
But as far as like adults go, we are kind of all masking our like sensory needs in a
way.
Like now you know your preferences of like how much you can tolerate like certain textured
clothings that might like irritate you.
Or I think the most common thing people will think of with masking is like your facial
expression.
Like when you're in a group of people socializing, you kind of naturally have this like happier
looking face.
You know, you're like want people to come to conversate with you and appear like you're
happy.
But sometimes neurodivergent minds don't see the need.
They feel like that's kind of trivial.
Like why does my facial expression have to match like what I'm talking about?
So they mask and you know, they'll kind of take off their mask later.
And it's more of just like you can see your facial expression just kind of go blank is
usually how they present when they're not masking.
It's kind of just like the way they present themselves to like in front of other people
basically.
Yeah.
And that was I started I think I really started like learning that term from TikTok and being
on neurodivergent TikTok and getting to see all the videos I really saw.
I really kind of connected that for myself.
There's so many things that I think because I didn't get like a proper treatment that
I just naturally started learning that, oh, people respond better when I'm not moving
so much.
And you know, I just did all these things to make people comfortable, which you hear
people talk about chronic people pleasing.
It could actually be that you've just kind of learned that when you act out in the way
that feels more natural to you, it kind of disturbs the person in front of you.
Like I notice if I'm tapping like as much as probably I'm like wanting to or wanting
to like rock more fidget, like it really does like rub a lot of people wrong if I'm like
all over the place.
So I think I naturally learned like, let me hold a little bit more still.
Let me make better eye contact and just these little things.
But I think what was profound for me to learn and I went on kind of a deep dive in addition
to that, that divergent mind book.
But masking really causes long term effects and we hear the term burnout and exhaustion,
like just chronic fatigue.
And a lot of that can be because it is so much to not honor those like normal ticks
and stems and just the things your body naturally needs to kind of output energy.
It's really hard on you.
And so I'm sure in your profession, Haley, finding a balance between the kids being able
to kind of exist in the world we've created, but also honor some of their own quirks.
There's like a balance there because you can't teach kids to fully not play the game we've
created, but at the same time, you don't want them having to blend in so much that yeah,
they're having to repress kind of all of their natural instincts.
Yeah.
And I mean, it's mentally exhausting for them.
I'm sure like you're constantly having to be on and they're not really giving their
brain like a break.
So it would be, I think just the more we talk about it and how people know like, okay, Jen's
over here like tapping away at the table, just let her do her thing.
Like she just needs that input right now.
And like that's okay.
And then, but you know, for the other person, like that tapping noise might be like an auditory
defensiveness thing for them.
And so then that's also a sensory thing going on.
So I just really feel like every person, whether you're neurotypical or neurodivergent has
some sort of sensory defensiveness or something going on.
Like I personally feel like I have a bit of like auditory defensiveness.
Like I just hate some certain noises.
I know that about myself and I know like how much of that input I can like tolerate before
I get tempered or start to get overstimulated, which we'll talk about.
Yeah.
You kind of have to, the first step is definitely identifying what your sensory quirks are.
Yeah.
And I want to build off of that exactly what you said.
It's not, I don't think it's that necessarily it was like unpleasing necessarily for the
other person to see me like rocking and moving, but I can be triggering overstimulation for
another person.
And it's so interesting because I think a lot of the things that we write off as people's
personalities really underlying all of that is probably some form of a sensory issue or
a neurodivergency.
And the problem is though, when we don't learn proper communication to explain it, it can
come off so personal.
And I think that's where the masking starts happening because you don't want to get hurt.
There's like a emotional connection to that.
So learning to communicate, like I don't want you to feel bad, like do what you got to do,
but that's just like kind of a lot for me.
So I just need a second.
And we're like just saying that you need space, but making it more about you instead of, can
you stop moving or can you stop making that noise or these little lines that I know a
lot of parents that probably never got diagnosed that are like on the brink of overstimulation
probably snap at their kids a lot for these little things, but there's really a real need
to learn how to communicate it and make it about advertising your own needs instead of
blaming the other person for what they're naturally doing.
One of those things is when I get very excited with my ADHD, I talk faster and louder and
I the one wound for me is like, Jen, please like quieter, like stop.
And so then all of a sudden I just won't want to talk.
I'll be like, Oh crap.
Like I, yeah, sorry.
I was on like volume contrary.
I hear what you mean.
And so I think a way that would make me feel less hurt with that, that would also be addressing
is someone saying, Hey Jen, real quick, I'm like super sensitive to sound.
And I don't know, like there's just a lot of noise going on in the background and the
volume, like it's all just making me nervous.
Like, can I just have like a two second pause or like just sharing something like that?
And then I'll hear you without making it feel like such a personal attack.
You know, there's a way that we can find like a balance between those things.
And it's tough too.
Like if you don't know what your sensory quirks are, like if they're not able to communicate
that or haven't even realized, Hey, I'm feeling this way and kind of aggravated because of,
you know, that volume or something like, like if they can't make that connection and they're
just feel they're, they're probably gonna be like, I don't like her because you know,
she had a bad, um, I'm gonna try to like, like I didn't feel good around that person
at that moment.
Yeah.
Cause she's triggering for me, but they might not know why.
So that's also tough if they've never been educated in that either.
They've never heard of their sensory stuff.
Then.
Yeah.
That's why the, yeah, this is super important.
So yeah, let's talk a little bit about that.
We can also go into like what over stimulation and like what under stimulation looks like,
but you want to think of it kind of in terms of the senses, right?
Like some people take in way more visual input.
Some people take in more audio input.
Some people are very tactile sensitive.
So sensitive to textures.
Some people will see this as they eat just in textures with food.
Yeah.
Can you just go over a little bit more of what each of the senses and what that looks
like and maybe even how you guys do kind of evaluations on that?
Yeah.
So like the first place to start is everybody kind of thinks that there's five senses when
there's actually eight of them.
And so we'll go into these.
There we'll start with like tactile.
So your touch that is, I see it more of like kids who have aversion to like tags in their
clothes or light touches can be very like aversive for some of the children that I see.
Then we have your sense of smell.
We don't see that.
That is a really tough one to try to work on.
And some kids do have a really strong sense of smell and can, you know, are more susceptible
to like gagging from random smells.
Usually it's around food related.
That is like the toughest one to try to like treat.
But so we have our smell.
We have our sight.
Some kids are very visually overstimulated.
So you kind of try to like neutralize like their workspace, you know, or they might have
one eye is stronger than the other one.
So you try to do different activities to strengthen like their ocular motor skills.
And then we'll have our taste.
Obviously we work on feeding a lot in OT and we try to do it sensory based feeding.
So we try to start with can the child touch the food?
Can they now smell the food?
Can they now like kiss it, lick it?
And then we try to take bites.
And it's usually a very slow process to get through all the steps.
But we find that we do see a lot more success when you could do it, break it up into like
those, you know, each of those sensory areas with food.
So then we have our auditory.
So like I said, I kind of have some auditory defensiveness, but some of these kids are the
sound of the toilet is terrifying to them or like the hand dryer in the bathroom.
Sirens are a big one.
The vacuum, you know.
So all of these different sounds, sometimes they will just go into like a panic mode.
It's kind of like the fight, flight or freeze.
That's exactly what they're feeling.
They think, you know, we're being attacked basically.
The vacuum's coming to get us.
So we work on those sort of things.
So those are our all five senses that we all kind of know group learning.
So the other three are vestibular proprioceptive and interoception.
The vestibular is it's within our ear.
It has to do with like the crystals within inside your ear canal.
And it gives you it shows you where your body is in space.
Basically it's kind of the way of telling your brain, hey, I'm not floating around in
the sky like I'm standing on the ground.
So we'll provide the vestibular input through the use of swings or scooter boards or doing
yoga is a great way.
Anything that can like invert the plane that you're in, head upside down, rolling, anything
like that counts as vestibular.
So some of the kids that I see, they probably do feel like their body is floating around
in space.
They're just not within their body at all.
And then we have proprioceptive input, which is kind of any kind of input into your muscles
and your joints.
So think of like heavy work, kind of workout at the gym with weights, anything weight bearing,
stuff like that.
So that's, and it also gives you the idea of how much pressure that you need to use
for like pressure grading.
So like, I know if I go push that door, how much pressure muscles I'm going to have to
use to like get it open without it flinging across, like breaking the glass or something.
So that's proprioceptive input and then interoception is all of the feeling you have inside your
body.
So like, I can tell when I have stomach ache, I can tell when I need to use the bathroom.
So that was also a tough one.
Usually see problems with that when like toileting and potty training comes up and they're having
a really hard time with that, then they'll come to OT.
So yeah.
Yeah.
So insightful, it's so insightful.
And it's so important that with all of those, all of those sensory needs, the fact that
we're starting to address them more in kids and seeing it as significant as it is, my
husband's also a behavioral therapist and works with a lot of the behaviors that are
coming up from what Haley's working on in OT from their sensory needs not being met.
And then it looking like really bad behavior when in reality it's one of these things just
not being addressed or not being received by the mind and body connection enough or
properly.
And I think so many adults are walking around having had these maybe limitations in one
of those categories or receiving too much information in one of those categories.
And then they're trying to move through life and they just are coming off like they are
very easily angry and frustrated.
And it's, I just all, once you learn about sensory needs, almost every behavior, I'm
just like, I link it to sensory stuff.
So I think it's so much of what we're actually dealing with and seeing within people.
To go on some of the ones you spoke of with my, I have ADHD and dyslexia and I definitely
have a lot of sensory issues, but who knows?
I'm going to fall on the spectrum even deeper if I go on more of a deep dive into that direction.
But I, as a child, I remember also like I would spend for hours a day and I loved to
spend like constantly on a chair, constantly to spend in the middle of the living room
and doing flips.
Like I did flips all the time, not realizing that I was just trying to like bring some
sensation to my body.
And I just had this natural instinct of doing that.
And I also never wanted to have clothes on.
I hated touch sensation on me.
I could not stand it.
And I think one of the interesting things, which I've worked on a lot more as an adult,
but as a kid, I never felt like I stopped feeling my clothes.
Like when they were on me, I felt them the entire time.
Like I have a shirt on and I know I have a shirt on all day, the entire day.
So the whole day I'm taking inventory of my shirt, all the sounds around me, probably
more sound input than the average person.
I'm very sensitive to overhead lighting and I'm just like taking in like triple the amount
of information in my environment.
And that was coming off as me being a behavior problem child.
And as an adult, I think I came off, I think I tried to start numbing a lot of it, like
high masking.
And then yeah, I would drink and just things to calm me down, but not doing any of probably
what the sensory needs I actually needed to do were.
So what do you think this looks like in some of these sensory inputs?
Do you see kind of the transfer into adulthood or have you learned some of the like cross
over on those things?
Yeah, I mean, so we try to get them just different skills to be able to like address those needs.
Like, it sounds like you were seeking a lot of input through, because you're all you're
trying to do is sit there in class and listen.
But like, how are you supposed to do that if your brain is only thinking about, you
know, your shirt on or the lights out above you?
Like that's a lot to do to try to focus.
So the spinning, I hate spinning.
Yeah, kids.
A lot of kids, they just they, like you said, they want to feel something they want to feel
like their body.
So spinning is a really easy way of getting that input right away.
But there's actually a lot of negative effects that come from spinning around 45 minutes
to an hour after a lot of spinning.
You get a lot of more behaviors come out.
You can get extra nauseous.
It really messes like your whole nervous system up spinning in general.
So those spinning kids, if you give them proprioceptive input, it combats that.
It's like the opposite.
So you got to try to give them a lot of input into their body through like deep pressure
or in a little box or anything to just get them back into their body.
It's going to try to prevent them from feeling those adverse effects later on in the day.
So I'm trying to teach these kids that you can do this after you spin if you really feel
like you need to spin.
And hopefully that'll translate over into adulthood if they still feel like they need
these certain inputs.
Just trying to give them as many skills as possible and make them as independent and
successful as they can be.
Yeah.
So good.
And yeah, I think I slowly started learning.
Yeah.
Deep pressure, a hundred percent was the answer that I would probably have been so good for
me to, for my parents to kind of know about my, it's so funny because my parents, yeah,
they did not ever see me as having like a mental health issue.
It was really, Jen is just quirky as I said, but my dad has even said, he's like, when
you were a baby, you would cry all the time.
The only thing that would calm you down is if we squeezed you like really tight.
And like that is the most obvious, obvious sensory issues.
But you know, there wasn't even that much therapy for that at that time.
I don't think it could have gone a lot different.
But as I got older, I was constantly putting weight on myself.
I felt so much better when I would press into my body, when I, I obviously love like weighted
blankets and those are the things that I know, like help guide me back into sensations and
talking to the link into spirituality, which Haley's also deep into that with me.
It's it's just really cool because yeah, a lot of the things in yoga and stuff that I
was doing to just work on breath work and body were really great resources for so many
of my sensory needs as well.
Yeah, definitely.
I love deep pressure.
I sometimes at the end of the day, I feel like overstimulated from work and I have a
long drive.
So I really like have to do a bunch of stuff when I get home to just start relaxing.
And sometimes I just have my partner lay his entire body on top of me and just sit here
for a minute because I just need that input, you know, and it really calms me.
But we do like weighted vest on little kids, body socks.
I think I sent you a body sock link.
I love it.
They're super fun, but they're great, a great friend.
But yeah.
Haley, do you, do you look at people as being sometimes more prone to being overstimulated
versus under stimulated or is this a spectrum that is ever changing?
Because over is having like way too much input under stimulated is having way too little.
Is there some people that are more starting off with one extreme or is this just like
a constant up and down swing when you have one of these neurodivergences?
Yeah.
That's a good question.
Like I think it's all over the board for sure.
But I think in my job, I'm definitely seeing more of the overstimulation just because it's
impacting like their day to day.
So then that's when they're referred to therapy.
But like the under stimulated is going to appear as more like a really laid back chill
kind of kid might be kind of like lazy or not really seeking that much stimulation.
They're not usually going to be like categorized as like a behavior kid or anything.
But I think that there's still some needs there that could be met.
They could be, they could tolerate some like extra input, but it's not really going to
come across as like a big need as much as what the overstimulation is going to cause.
It's going to, you're going to see a lot of tantrums and meltdowns and stuff like that.
So, which is obviously more concerning for parents and teachers.
Yeah.
It doesn't fit our world very easily.
So, yeah.
So some of the things that I learned from that divergent mind book that I just want
to share on here, that was just wild to me.
She really talks about in the book about how our environment and the world we've created
is really so opposite of the design that would really accommodate the neurodivergencies,
which I think she said in the book, it's about 35% of the population.
So it's, it, we should have more of a world catered for this, but she talked about how
the infrastructure of even buildings, like with tile floors that obviously you hear like
the click clacking of your shoes and just the walls kind of not absorbing a whole lot
of the sound and a lot of that reverb and bouncing and just the fluorescent lights that
are in most stores that we go into and in our schools, it's, it's kind of a nightmare
for a sensory need kid to go into.
And then especially as an adult, when we're just in this constant bombarding of sensory
input, and then we're wondering why we're like so burned out and so tired and like have
trouble being productive beyond our job when this entire, if we had buildings that were
designed to absorb more of those sounds, lower lighting, maybe not the radio blasting and
echoing off the tile floors everywhere you freaking go.
And we were accommodated to this, maybe the overall energy we had at the end of the day
when we get off of work to do other things could be vastly different if our needs were
more met in kind of the outside worlds.
Yeah, absolutely, I think it's very overwhelming for a lot of a lot of people, not just kids,
but yeah, I definitely think there's something there.
And just the idea of like, expectation to have to sit at a desk for eight hours like
straight like who like that's insane, like to ask a child to have to sit at a desk and
like actively pay attention to a lesson for hours on end like it's just, whatever, for
whatever reason like that's the society standard and it's not great for everyone.
It's wild.
It's not great for majority.
I feel like it's a lot.
And I think, I think you see kids responding to the sensory up and downs more kind of in
the moment, but I think it's also important to know in your adult years that it doesn't
always hit you necessarily right in the moment.
Some of the times I had a very like overstimulated day like if I do a grocery store day, I usually
really feel that like hours later and I just feel like kind of zapped like I do think there's
sometimes a little bit of a delay.
So I think when you start thinking in terms of sensory as you move through the world,
like knowing what you do, like maybe you love to go to social events, but then the payoff
of doing some of those things more often is kind of like, yeah, you have like a two week
period where I don't know, I just don't feel right.
It's really important to look at how much you're doing when you're doing it and maybe
what the payoff energetically is later because you want to find a balance.
The burnout is so real and if you're going into social situations where yeah, you're
saying hi to everyone kind of over happy, there's music, there's all this stuff, but
then yeah, for weeks you don't feel right.
Maybe you've never even thought of linking past event to what you're currently experiencing,
but when you start thinking in terms of sensory, those bridges between things, I think get
a little bit more insightful and clear thoughts on that.
Yeah, I think that that is exactly right.
We be invited to a lot of weddings and weddings are such big events and you're meeting most
of the people you might not know, so you're just constantly having these quick conversations
with basically a stranger and there's usually loud music and a lot of movement and a lot
of new foods and you usually have to travel and so it's a lot of over love stimulation
there.
If you don't come home and know how to regulate your nervous system back to your natural state,
then you're going to keep feeling the effects a lot longer than you would have if you hadn't
gone to the wedding or whatever.
Yeah, it's a balance.
I think knowing your neurodivergencies and the fact that you're going to have to build
boundaries along what you can take and manage is so freaking important.
Let's talk about options for sensory regulation.
I'll share a couple of mine and you can add.
Fidget toys are literally amazing.
I wish so bad that this would have been more of a thing in our elementary and middle school
years.
I, the little fidget spinners that got popular, I love, I have this little mesh, like little
mesh thing that has a marble in it that you can roll around.
Oh yeah, I like that.
But yeah, fidget toys are just giving your mind like kind of a constant where you can
play with something and that usually helps me to take in less of my environment.
So when I'm fidgeting more, I can focus more on what is happening in front of me than taking
in absolutely everything, which is what happens when I don't like find some kind of consistency.
I think without fidget toys, I usually like am rubbing my legs a lot.
I notice I do that all the time, like kind of self-soothing, like it's okay.
And I use noise canceling headphones a lot.
Like when I'm going around the house, it just turns the volume down on everything.
And then yeah, I can play music just in my headphones.
If I want, I play with 8D music a lot, which kind of circles the audio around you, which
is really good for kind of using both lobes of the brain, working, kind of giving you,
yeah, just auditory, consistent, more sensory activity.
And yeah, I obviously do regular kind of shaking and yoga just to like, yeah, get into my body
more.
So it was like a couple little things and trying to tell myself that I need to mask
a lot less and just let quirky Jen out again, because she is still here.
She hasn't gone anywhere and learning that I can communicate my needs.
Like, sorry, if I'm moving a lot, like I, yeah, I'm just kind of like, I've dealt with
a lot and you don't want to end up having a panic attack because you're repressing this
stuff down.
You need to just find a way that you can ebb and flow with what works for you.
And then, yeah, letting other people communicate what their needs are.
And if they are taking it personal, maybe have a conversation like, listen, okay, I
fall on a spectrum disorder and I need to be able to live my life in accordance to that.
And so, yeah, we might need to talk this out and see what's going to work or take larger
breaks when we're together.
Maybe you both go cool out for a second in the middle of hanging out.
Does that seem weird socially?
Yeah.
These are the kind of conversations we need to have so that we stop the repression and
masking anyway.
Hailey, tell me some of the other sensory management tools that you use.
Yeah.
So, the fidgets are super great.
I get to play with them all the time.
It's like literally right now as we're speaking, I'm bending the crap out of a paper clip.
I have my fidget toy too.
Yeah, it's just something that your body can do while your mind is trying to stay on track.
So we can use, the kids are allowed to use them in class a lot of the times if they're
on their IEP.
Or we typically will tie some TheraBand to the bottom of their chair legs so they can
bounce their feet on it.
Love that.
Yeah, those are fun.
Or there's adaptive seating where you could do a wobble seat or just something where you
can just kind of move slightly but you're not being overly distracted to the others
around you.
Definitely vibration is fun to play with too if you are with kids and with like for adults.
I usually, you want to try to self-regulate your nervous system like before you get to
the point of overstimulation of course.
So there's definitely different things that you're going to use to help you like stay
focused versus this is something else you're going to do when you're overstimulated because
you're a little bit too far past the point.
So there are different areas of that that you're going to have to like figure out.
So like fidgets, a fidget is not going to help you if you're having a panic attack.
I'm like, it's just a different level.
But yeah, so like the deep breathe, I teach a lot of deep breathing and animal walks and
basically like yoga for kids, deep pressure works well for certain kids when they're overstimulated.
Flexion just in general is just soothing.
That's like going into like a fetal position and yeah, and pressing like against the wall,
like things like that where you're getting that input.
We teach that to a lot of like my stroke patients that are coming back like any pressing just
to get some joint activation.
So you have so many receptors around all of your joints that give feedback that I'm in
my body, I belong here, little things like that.
And also re-emphasizes that the relationship to exercise, if it is kind of been askewed
by our stupid diet culture, that movement in the body and finding the movement practice
that works for you is doing so much more than working on your physical form.
It's a really good way of regulating and it leads to more breath focus.
Yeah, movement practices are very, very essential and finding what works.
If something is not working for you, really pay attention to that because yeah, you can,
there's so many things to trial and error and that's this conversation could go on for
hours because it's so vast.
But yeah, if you're working with, if you have children and you know that they have sensory
needs, occupational therapy is an awesome option to explore sensory input.
And yeah, if you're an adult struggling with this stuff, it's a really good journey just
to play and learn what your neurodivergences are.
Even if you get a diagnosis for one of these neurodivergences, that doesn't still always
give you your answer for your sensory problems.
It's still going to be a game of kind of figuring it out because everyone's is so different.
Yeah, it's so much of trial and error and what works for one person is most likely not
going to work for the next.
And so my job is kind of like detective work and just trying something new all the time.
Whatever is going to like hit, then just you could stick with that because it's, they're
usually not going to become oversaturated by it.
Like once you figure out you like this fidget, usually you're going to stick with it.
I've seen, but yeah, it's really just playing around with it and seeing like what you need.
And even if like sometimes isolation is all you need, if you get overstimulated by just
people being around people in general, being by yourself is also a sensory tool.
Just take a break.
Yeah, take a moment and then come back or whatever.
It's so linked to mindfulness.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Some people live and just like cover their eye.
Like you keep your eyes open, but you put your palms over your eye sockets.
So you just see, just get rid of the visual overstimulation or same thing with hearing
like your noise canceling headphones.
Like just, you just need a break.
Yeah.
And telling people like I'm going to close that.
Yeah, you're out and you're saying I'm going to close my eyes for just a second because
I can tell I'm taking in a lot.
Like these are just the little advertisements.
We got to get better.
This conversation is so important and the world so deeply at least needs to have the
seed of this planted in their minds because viewing the world under this perspective of
neurodivergencies and sensory needs is an essential part of moving through life with
more intention, taking less things personal.
I think this is definitely a very applicable part of the spiritual journey.
Haley, I know you're also on this like a very spiritual path, but this stuff is important
because it gets in the way of your nervous system being dysregulated.
And when your nervous system is dysregulated, it's hard to listen into your intuition to
do any of the, to even know where you start in these sensory things begin.
It becomes all very blurred and it can make you very reactive.
It can also make you hurt people around you when in reality the connection is so deeply
important for us on this path and we need each other.
So learning this stuff is very, very vital.
Yeah, I absolutely agree.
I think when we were in school, like it just wasn't known about yet.
It just like wasn't the information just wasn't out there as much.
And now these days I feel like you can hear at least a little bit more of it.
So I think we're slowly getting there.
Yeah.
Well, I really, really appreciate your insight.
This stuff is so fun to talk out.
Thank you for coming on and sharing, sharing some of your thoughts.
Of course, anytime I love it.
I listened to all the episodes.
I'm here for it.
I love it, Haley.
Yeah.
So thank you all for listening.
We will see you next week.
Bye.