The Neuroscience Behind Hypervigilance
Hypervigilance has been a painful part of my life since I was able to form an independent thought. If you have never experienced this phenomenon, then you do not understand how hypervigilance negatively affects the lives of those, like me, who know it intimately.
In this piece, we shall discover together the definition of hypervigilance, the neuroscience behind it, and how being always on the alert for danger keeps us from forming long-term intimate relationships.
What is Hypervigilance?
Hypervigilance involves a heightened state of awareness and the readiness to be ready to run away or hide at any moment. For primates, including man, this is an adaptive evolutionary trait designed to keep us out of or to run from danger.
However, hypervigilance becomes a life-altering problem when it interferes with the ability for a person to form lasting intimate relationships or even to function normally in society.
Hypervigilance itself is not a mental health condition, but it most definitely is part of many trauma-related disorders. Experiencing hypervigilance is like living life ready for nuclear war to start at any moment.
Hypervigilance is associated with the following mental health disorders. This list is not all-inclusive.
