Misophonia in Hypermobility and Neurodivergence: Understanding Your Overloaded Nervous System

If you live with hypermobility or hEDS, you already know what it’s like to exist in a body that is constantly adjusting.

Your joints don’t quite hold themselves. Your muscles are always compensating. Your nervous system is always working harder than it should.

So when people ask, “Why does a small sound affect you so much?” the honest answer is: because nothing in this body is ever small.

For many hypermobile and neurodivergent people, sound doesn’t stay in the background. It lands in the body. It drains energy. It triggers rage, panic, or shutdown.

This experience has a name: misophonia, and in hypermobile and neurodivergent bodies, it makes profound sense.

Misophonia Isn’t “Being Sensitive”, It’s a Nervous System Response

Misophonia is a condition where specific sounds trigger intense emotional and physical reactions. Not mild annoyance, but immediate, visceral responses like:

• Sudden anger that feels explosive

• A spike in anxiety or panic

• Muscle tension or pain flares

• The urge to escape right now

• Deep exhaustion afterward

Chewing. Clicking. Breathing. Repetitive background noise. Sounds that other people filter out, but your body cannot.

This isn’t a lack of patience or emotional control. It’s the nervous system reacting before conscious thought has time to intervene.

Why Misophonia Is So Common in hEDS and Hypermobility

In hypermobility and hEDS, the nervous system lives under very specific conditions:

• Reduced proprioception (the brain gets less clear information from joints)

• Constant muscular compensation

• Autonomic nervous system dysregulation

• Higher baseline fatigue and pain

Because joint feedback is unreliable, the brain leans more heavily on other sensory input to understand the body’s position and safety.

That means sound, light, touch, and internal sensations all carry more weight.

Now add neurodivergence, which is very common in the hypermobile population. For neurodivergent brains that may channel significant resources into managing sensory data or maintaining focus (sometimes described as monotropic processing), this often means:

• Heightened sensory processing

• Reduced sensory filtering

• Stronger emotional responses to sensory input

So when a triggering sound appears, it isn’t just noise. It’s a critical overload alert in a system already operating in the red.

What It Actually Feels Like (And Why the Rage Makes Sense)

This is the part that often goes unsaid. Misophonia doesn’t usually feel like:“I don’t like that sound.” It feels like:“My body cannot tolerate this one more second.”

You might already be in pain. Already exhausted. Already holding yourself together. Then the sound starts. Your chest tightens. Your jaw clenches. Your muscles brace. Your thoughts narrow. And suddenly there’s rage, fast, intense, and confusing.

That rage is not a character flaw. It’s a fight-or-flight response.

Brain research suggests misophonia involves overactivation of the amygdala (the brain’s threat center) and stronger-than-usual connections between sound processing and emotional regulation areas.

In other words: Your nervous system hears danger, not inconvenience.

And afterward? Often comes the crash.

• Guilt for reacting

• Deep fatigue

• Increased pain

• Emotional shutdown

This cycle is incredibly common, and incredibly misunderstood.

The Social Cost No One Talks About

Misophonia doesn’t just show up in extreme situations. It shows up in the places we’re expected to function normally. Because it's often dismissed as trivial, its profound functional impact is ignored.

Misophonia doesn’t just affect sensory comfort, it affects participation. It can limit where you can work, how long you can socialize, which environments feel safe, how often you can say “yes.”

And because sound sensitivity is invisible, others may interpret it as being antisocial, difficult, or inflexible. When in reality, you’re managing a nervous system that is already under strain.

For a body already negotiating pain, fatigue, and proprioceptive uncertainty, this social contraction isn't a choice, it's a necessary energy conservation strategy. The loss is cumulative.

Why This Matters: These daily impacts are not side effects, they are the condition. Misophonia shapes how energy is spent, how symptoms flare, and how accessible the world feels.

Understanding this helps shift the conversation from:“Why can’t you tolerate this?” to:“What does your nervous system need to function here?”

How Misophonia Interacts With Other hEDS Symptoms

Misophonia rarely exists on its own. In hypermobile bodies, it can:

• Worsen pain perception

• Increase muscle guarding

• Intensify fatigue and brain fog

• Shorten sensory tolerance windows

• Reduce capacity for social interaction

• Push the nervous system closer to burnout

When sound overloads the system, everything else gets louder too: pain, emotions, exhaustion.

This is why misophonia is not a “small issue.”It affects how much energy you have to live your life.

Why Misophonia Is So Often Missed or Dismissed

Misophonia doesn’t show up on scans. There’s no simple diagnostic test. Additionally, many people learn to hide it to survive. Especially in disabled and neurodivergent communities, we’re often taught to:

• Push through discomfort

• Minimize our reactions

• Be “reasonable”

But pushing through sensory overload doesn’t train the nervous system. It depletes it.

Misophonia is underrecognized not because it’s rare, but because it lives at the intersection of neurology, sensory processing, and lived experience.

How to Live Alongside Misophonia

There is no cure for misophonia, and pretending there is only creates more shame.

The goal is not to “fix” your response, but to reduce the cumulative strain on a system already working overtime.

1. Nervous System Support Comes First

For hypermobile bodies, “regulation” is not a switch you flip. Some days, your system simply won’t settle, and that’s not failure.

Movement can help regulate the nervous system, when it feels safe, it communicates support to the body, gradually expanding tolerance and reducing strain. Finding that sense of safety may take time, but once it’s established, movement becomes a powerful tool for your nervous system.

At ParaMotion, we don’t see movement as exercise. We see it as a dialogue with a sensitive nervous system.

Our work is built on the understanding that for people with hEDS and neurodivergence, the foundation of all movement must be safety and co-regulation.

We focus on the fundamentals:

• Breath-aware practices that gently regulate the nervous system’s alarms.

• Slow, exploratory movement that builds a more reliable sense of body awareness (proprioception), so the brain isn’t solely reliant on overwhelming external signals like sound.

• Finding stability without rigidity, creating a sense of embodied boundary that can soften the feeling of being invaded by the environment.

We meet you where your energy is, offering a space where the goal is not to push through, but to be with your experience with skillful support.

Progress is gradual and non-linear.

Some days will feel better, some days worse, both are expected.

The goal is less cumulative strain, not perfect regulation.

2. Reducing Sensory Load

You are allowed to make your environment more tolerable. This might include:

• Ear protection (ear plugs or noise cancelling headphones) that doesn’t add pressure

• Calming soundscapes if your system tolerates them

• Planning recovery time after unavoidable noise

• Creating quieter spaces whenever possible

Reducing sensory input doesn’t make you fragile. It makes long-term participation possible.

3. Support basic body needs

Sleep, hydration, and nutrition all impact nervous system regulation. Regulation is much harder if the body is depleted of important minerals and nutrients, such as magnesium, iron, or zinc, which support muscle function, nerve signaling, and overall calm.

Even small improvements in these basics can make movement therapy, breath work, and other regulation strategies more effective.

4. Naming the Experience Reduces Shame

Knowing that this is misophonia matters. It:

• Explains reactions that feel confusing or extreme

• Reduces self-blame

• Makes it easier to ask for accommodations

• Helps loved ones understand it’s not personal

You are not “too much.” Your nervous system is communicating its limits.

A Final Note

Living with hypermobility and hEDS means living in constant negotiation with your nervous system.

Misophonia is not a failure to cope. It’s a sign of how much your system is already carrying.

Understanding this doesn’t make the sounds disappear, but it can soften the shame, guide more compassionate support, and remind you that your experience is real.

Your body is doing its best in a world that is often far too loud.