8 Tips for Finding Peace in Chaos as a Highly Sensitive Introvert

Struggling to find peace in chaos, these 8 tips will help you find peace during hard times.

Managing your emotions well, building emotional resilience, reducing stress, and cultivating a peaceful environment in your home, heart, and mind is a daily thing. You have to make sure you take time every day, especially as a highly sensitive and introverted woman, to work on this.

When you don’t, you begin to feel a loss of peace, and things feel chaotic and out of control. You may not understand what’s going on. Usually, it is because you don’t have things in place that allow you to practice daily what you need to support yourself, your emotions, and your stress levels as you move forward.

Today, I want to discuss some practical daily things you can do to help you with that.

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When I first started working on my emotions, building emotional resilience, and trying to be really intentional about reducing my stress because life is insane, I noticed a couple of things. I noticed that I would have times when I felt great no matter what was going on.

I didn’t overreact, I didn’t blow up, I didn’t fall into a pit of deep despair or anything like that. But then I also had times when every little thing set me over the edge. My kid eating the last nectarine from the refrigerator would send me spiraling out of control for some weird reason.

As I started thinking about and reflecting on it and talking with my therapist about it, I realized that in those times that I felt like I was on it and I was able to manage things well, I was doing things consistently to manage my emotions, to lower my stress.

Those were the times when I was getting enough sleep, I was moving my body every day, I was reading or painting, or I was taking time out for myself every day. The times when it felt like I was losing my mind, were those times when some or all of those habits had fallen by the wayside.

This is why I tell you that having daily things in place is the best thing that you can do when you are trying to build emotional resilience and when you’re trying to lower your stress.

It can’t just be, “Oh, I’m having a stressful moment, now I’m going to pull out those tools.” No, it has to be something that you are working on day in and day out, so it becomes second nature to you.

As highly sensitive introverts, we tend to be more sensitive emotionally to everything. Some of us are just sensitive to all the things all of the time. This is me. I am super sensitive to emotions – mine, yours, the people around me, and the environment in a room, sound-sensitive, and light-sensitive.

I just can’t handle a lot of stimulus coming at me all at once, and this is just the way I’m made. It’s the way my brain works, how my body processes things and there’s nothing wrong with it.

You want to be aware of the fact that, as a highly sensitive and introverted person, you are going to probably have more emotional responses and higher stress levels in certain situations than someone who’s not.

This is also why you need solitude. As an introvert, you need to have downtime to rest. You need to have time when you are left alone in a dark room with nothing: no sound, no noise, and no people. You’ve got to have that time to rest and recharge because when you don’t, you don’t handle things well.

This is part of the reason, we are so deeply affected by stress and are easily prone to dip into overwhelm. We’ve got to take better care of ourselves. You’ve got to be aware of what your triggers are. Make time to love yourself and give yourself the support that you need.

So, instead of being, “Oh, I’m too sensitive,” right, we hear that a lot, right? “Now you’re so sensitive,” right? Don’t look at that as a negative thing, as something to ignore or something to turn off, because I’m going to tell you, you cannot. Embrace that, because that’s how God made you.

So what are some daily practices that you can do that are going to help you have that inner calm and peaceful mind that you all are looking for? I’m going to give you a few ideas. This is not an exhaustive list. This is something to get you started thinking for your own thing.

Practice #1: Have a Morning Routine

The first thing I want to share with you is having a morning ritual, a morning routine, something that’s going to be really grounding to help you start your day. There’s a whole lot of research out there about grounding. It helps you stay calm and reduce stress and set a calm tone for your day.

You’ll have time for some peace and calmness before any other stressors can get at you. Sometimes we don’t even have a chance to get into a peaceful, serene, calm mindset before all of the stress of the day hits us, and so we’re not really setting ourselves up in a great way to cope with what’s coming.

Some ideas that you can do: you can do deep breathing. I have a whole episode about breath prayers where I talk about different deep breathing exercises that you could do. Prayer and meditation are great ways to ground yourself too.

Going outside and sticking your barefeet on the ground right is a great way to just ground yourself and get ready for the day. I like to get up in the morning, and try to get some sun on my face right away. It helps my brain register that it’s time to get up and get going. But I also might go stand outside.

If I can’t stand outside, I stand in front of a window, close my eyes, and spend a couple of minutes doing some deep breathing exercises. I might have like a quick chat with God and that really helps me have that foundation of calm and peace before I have to go tackle everything that I need to do for the day.

Practice #2: Journaling

Practice number two, it’s going to be a really big surprise – journaling. Incorporate daily journaling into your routines to help you process your emotions and your thoughts. When you do this, you are giving yourself an outlet for your emotions. When you have a healthy outlet for your emotions, it’s going to reduce the kind of emotional and mental clutter that’s in your heart and your mind and that will lower your stress.

Here is something that I want you to do specifically for my HSPs and introverts. When I talk about journaling, there are all kinds of things you can do, but I want you specifically to focus on your triggers, emotions, and thoughts.

What kind of emotions did you notice today? What did that feel like in myyour body? What kind of thoughts did you have as you went throughout your day? How did you respond to those things? Being aware of what you are experiencing, of the way it feels in your body, is going to help you identify those things faster in the future.

It’s so important that you can actually label and identify what you’re feeling. There are so many people in this world who would be in a much better place if they could just say, “I feel hurt, I feel betrayed, I feel sad, I feel rejected.” If you just label that thing, it’s really helpful.

Then you can begin to notice that anytime that you feel rejected it feels a specific way in your body. So you know what your triggers are. You know how to recognize that in your body, which will then clue you to when you need to take some time to calm yourself down. You can go back to those grounding exercises if you need to.

Practice #3: Move Your Body

Number three, move your body. I’m not talking about a full-out, 45-minute HIIT routine. If that’s your jam, that’s your jam. Gentle movement is always great. I like to go for a walk outside and be in nature, fresh air, all the things, seeing the animals. Stretching is great too. It’s going to help you release the tension that you’re storing in your body and connect.

Moving also helps you be more mindful and fully present in your body. So 15 to 20 minutes a day is a great goal. And listen, do what you can, and don’t beat yourself up. If you say you’re going to do something and you only manage to do it three days out of five, it’s okay. If you can’t do it all at once, it’s fine to break it up throughout your day.

Practice #4: Digital Detox

A regular digital detox has many benefits. I know that we are alive and well in the land of all things tech, but there’s a lot of sensory information coming from devices and screens and all the things. There’s a lot of emotional and mental stimuli coming from social media. I mean, I’m not on it a bunch, but even I have been on it before found myself suddenly angry after scrolling through all of the foolishness that’s popping up on social media.

Give yourself time, and I’m going to suggest every single day, where you turn off the screens, and you disconnect from all of that noise to give yourself time and space to decompress. Set some good boundaries with your technology there. For me, I need to be off all screens for at least an hour and a half before I’m going to go to sleep so that my mind can calm down, and I can fall asleep.

Practice #5: Get Outside

I want you to get outside and get some green time. Connect with nature, even if it’s just a few minutes a day. Even if all you do is go stand in your backyard. Get outside. Nature is so calming. It helps you to reset your nervous system. There’s all the fresh air, and it’s a wonderful place to go to calm down.

Make it a priority to get outside and touch the grass, breathe fresh air, and get the sun on your face. You can tie this into all kinds of things. I will listen to podcasts and audiobooks. I might listen to my Bible or pray. Sometimes it’s my exercise for the day just to go out in nature and walk. So figure out where you can make that happen during your day. Get all the green time you can.

Practice #6: Silence and Solitude

Be intentional about having silence and solitude every day. Now I know you’re probably looking at me like, “Say what?” I know, listen, as a single mom of four, I get it. Quiet is a rarity around here, but I do try to find some. Even if it’s just five or 10 minutes a day, I can go somewhere and have some peace and quiet, even if I have to go sit in my car all by myself. Do this for yourself. It’s going to give your mind time to rest.

As HSPs and introverts, resting and recharging are key to reducing your overwhelm and stress. If you can find a special place in your home that can be where you go for peace and quiet, do that. If you have to leave, that’s fine too. Try to make that a regular part of your day, several times a day if you can, because it’s really going to help you find that peace and find that calm so that you can kind of go back and re-engage with the other things you have to do in your life.

Practice #7: Lectio Divina

So I want to wrap up here with some spiritual practices that you can do. Remember, when I talk to you about spiritual growth or spiritual practices, I’m not saying to you that if you want to feel better, the answer to all your problems is this faith thing. We’re not spiritual bypassing around here, but there are things that we can do that help us to feel more connected with God, to engage with his word, and to hear from him, that are really beneficial when it comes to working on our emotional wellness and resilience.

First is Lectio Divina. It is my favorite thing right now. It’s really easy, it’s really simple, and you can make it work for whatever your schedule is. I love it because it helps you to slow down and focus on something really simple. You’re focusing on one word or phrase or idea from God’s word, which is going to allow you to have a deeper connection to God through prayer and scripture, which is always going to help you find peace, find strength, and chill out a little bit.

Practice #8: Prayer and Reflection

Prayer and reflection are also great as well. End your day by taking a look back over your day and find things that you’re grateful for. You can do what’s called evening examen where you are looking back and trying to reflect on your day to see where you experienced God’s presence. It’s a great way to release the day’s stress and find a sense of closure and peace before you go to bed.

I encourage you to start with one or two of the things I’ve listed here as a way to, like, build those daily practices into your routine and, right, add more or try new things. If I said something here that doesn’t work for you, pitch it and try something else. Part of having self-compassion is doing things for yourself. It’s part of honoring the unique needs that you have as an HSP and an introvert.