This exercise is meant to help you consider your own personal sensory space.
Whether the person with misophonia is a child, a teenager, or an adult, having a safe space in their home to calm down is an integral part of coping with misophonia. Since misophonia involves being dysregulated with a state of panic and fear, safety is an important means of managing this disorder. This safe space can be as small as a closet, or as large as an entire room. This is of course dependent on the space available to the person with misophonia. If there are no spaces in the home available, such as with a roommate in a shared living situation, one potential accommodation is a bed tent. Bed tents are set up over your bed, with your mattress inside, creating a safe and private space without taking up extra room in the home.
With the sensory diet in mind, this safe space can be filled with activities, scents, and materials that the person finds calming. For example, within this room we could find painting supplies, a white noise machine, a diffuser for essential oils, teddy bears to hug, and dimmable lights. This experience will be different for each person and will of course vary based on the layout of a home.
Exercise: Planning Your Sensory Space
- Where is your sensory space?
- What items do you already have that you can add to your sensory space?
- What changes could you make to your sensory space to make it calmer
- When will you come to your sensory space?
Download the printable PDF version of this worksheet.
Table of contents:
- Misophonia coping skills homepage
- What is misophonia?
- What is misokinesia, or visual triggers?
- Calming the nervous system
- Exercise: 4-7-8 breathing
- CBT for misophonia
- Exercise: negotiating boundaries
- Exercise: reframing misophonia
- What is a sensory diet?
- Exercise: planning your sensory space
- Misophonia Matters