When life is too loud: what are sound sensitivities?When life is too loud: what are sound sensitivities?
All In The Mind
How do you feel as you move through a busy space — like an airport, a city street or a crowded shopping centre? For some of us, these spaces are energising — being among the rush of people and the noise of the crowds. But for others, these situations can be a little much. And for some neurodivergent people — especially those with sensory issues — being in these public spaces can be utterly overwhelming, even harmful. That's a problem when you want or need to use them just like everybody else. Today, audio engineer and producer Amelia Geiss takes you inside their mind — for a first-hand perspective of what it's like to move through public spaces as someone with sound sensitivities. We'll hear about how these sensitivities manifest in the brain — strategies for managing them — and building public spaces that are accessible for everyone. If you're looking for something to listen to next, why not check out our episode, How the drive to be perfect is linked to eating disorders.
29:36•7 Dec 2024
When Life Is Too Loud: Living With Sound Sensitivity and Autism
Episode Overview
- Sound sensitivities in autistic people can stem from differences in auditory filtering, attention, and heightened stress, leading to conditions like hyperacusis and misophonia.
- Misdiagnosis is common when ongoing sensory overload is mistaken for purely emotional or personality issues, and an autism diagnosis can help make sense of long-standing struggles.
- Tools such as subtitles, lip-reading, noise-cancelling headphones and filtered earplugs can reduce sensory overload, though they are only part of a broader support toolkit.
- Sound enrichment with neutral or pleasant background noise, combined with stress and anger management strategies, can gradually reduce the brain’s intense reaction to trigger sounds.
- Universal design and sensory zoning in public spaces, informed by disabled people and access consultants, can make cities more genuinely "public" and comfortable for a wider range of users.
“We call these spaces public spaces when they're not necessarily designed with the whole public in mind.”
Get ready to be moved by real-life accounts of what everyday noise can feel like when your brain simply can’t turn the volume down. This episode of All In The Mind centres on audio engineer and producer Amelia Geis, who shares what it’s like to walk through Melbourne when "it's so loud that I can't even hear my own thoughts." If busy streets, shopping centres or train platforms already feel stressful, you’ll relate fast.
Amelia traces their story from childhood terror at the sound of bathwater draining, through years of misdiagnosis, to an autism diagnosis at 18 that finally made sense of their sound sensitivities. You’ll hear how tools like subtitles, lip-reading, noise-cancelling headphones and high-fidelity earplugs make daily life more bearable, while still being a bit of a balancing act. Audiologist and researcher Philippa James adds a clear, science-based breakdown of different auditory differences in autistic people, including hyperacusis and misophonia.
She explains how "an unhelpful feedback cycle of attention, perception, reaction, and focus" keeps the brain on high alert, and why stress management, education and sound enrichment (think rain sounds, pink noise or waves) can gently retrain the brain’s response to trigger sounds. The focus then widens from individual coping to the spaces everyone shares. Occupational therapist and access consultant Catherine Grant and neuro-inclusive designer Ileana Guinness talk universal design and sensory zoning in public places.
As Ileana puts it, "We call these spaces public spaces when they're not necessarily designed with the whole public in mind." This episode speaks to anyone who has ever felt "too sensitive" in noisy environments, as well as families, clinicians and designers keen to make cities kinder to neurodivergent brains. It might just make you hear your own city — and its so-called public spaces — in a completely new way.
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