Contents
We know why you can’t stand listening to people when they eat
Psychology
The ears of people who are bothered to listen to people when they eat have a broader stimulating spectrum and are therefore more vulnerable
In your closest circle, it is very likely that there is more than one person who cannot bear to listen to those who make more noise than normal when chewing, for example, eat. The level of disgust or dislike felt by these people is very intense when they hear sipping soup, sucking on a soda straw, chewing gum, or eating cookies. But when does this discomfort appear? “It usually begins in childhood and its discovery was coined by scientists Pawel and Margaret in 1991 as misophonia,” explains psychologist María Saavedra, from the Prado Psychologists center. «They are people who live with ears that make them hear the world in a different way. Their ears have a broader stimulating spectrum and are therefore more vulnerable ”, he says.
Is misophonia a disease?
This annoyance that affects a large part of society is not a disease, but the diagnosis is made by an audiologist and a psychiatrist where the level of sound intensity that causes a state of anxiety, fear or rejection is estimated. «In consultation I have been able to verify how patients show very positive results with hypnosis-based psychotherapeutic intervention. The level of well-being and neuroflexibility that they experience has to do with the interhemispheric symmetry generated by the therapy in these patients whose intervention does not go through the amygdala, which allows them to accept new neural pathways to perceive this type of stimulus, ”explains psychologist Saavedra.
«Other times I have observed how the misophonia it is related to a relational trauma, the sounds of which reactivate the memory of an aversive experience that produces automatic and somatic responses dependent on the amygdala complex ”, continues the expert. «That is, they can be considered as auditory flashbacks that if desensitized, allow these people to enjoy a greater interpersonal quality with their environment, being able to stop using earplugs that over time they become more hypersensitive», Recommends María Saavedra.
A highly developed sensory sense
If it is already curious to know that there are people who do not support this type of sounds, it is even more so to discover other things that define them. «An investigation by Brigham Young University (BYU) and Colorado State University (CSU) tells us about how the sensory component during food influences the amount of food we eat. That is, people who make noise with a crunch when eating and hear that sound, perceive greater internal control in their Feeding Habits and they eat less ”, explains the psychologist Saavedra, who also reveals that those people who cannot bear to listen to them have a highly developed sensory component when most people use sight, taste and smell. “As a curious fact: they suffer a lot and are aware of it, coming to consultation very frustrated by the interpersonal conflicts that this sensitivity causes them.”