Cowritten by Nathalie Boutros and Tchiki Davis.
Being attentive to your surroundings and aware of your environment is a good thing—knowing what’s around you keeps you safe. Being alert as you walk home after dark may help you avoid danger. Being wary of undercooked or unhygienic food may keep you from getting sick. Being mindful of rattlesnakes along the trail may help you avoid snakebites. In all of these situations, being vigilant is adaptive and advantageous.
However, if you’re always in a state of heightened alertness, always on the lookout for threats, and always expecting a mugger around every corner, contamination in your food, or a snake underfoot, even when there is no true threat, you may find yourself unable to live a normal life. This state of constant high alert is known as hypervigilance, and it can do a number on your well-being (test your current level of well-being with this quiz).
What Is Hypervigilance?
Vigilance is the state of being carefully aware and watchful for possible dangers or difficulties. A security guard needs to be vigilant for signs of crime. A health inspector needs to be vigilant for signs of poor hygiene. A medical doctor needs to be vigilant for early symptoms of diseases. In all of these examples, vigilance is appropriate and is a requirement of the job. When the alertness becomes excessive, when it becomes constant and high, or when it causes distress, it transcends from vigilance into hypervigilance (Bernstein et al., 2015).
What Does Hypervigilance Look Like?
Hypervigilance is a state of being constantly on guard or alert for signs of potential danger. Hypervigilant behaviors can include (Bernstein et al., 2015; Kimble et al., 2010)
- Constantly scanning for threats in public places
- Constant alertness for unusual sounds
- A need to note entrances and exits in enclosed places
- Constant checking of locks inside the home
- A need to investigate circumstances that seem out of the ordinary
- Feeling overwhelmed or uncomfortable when you can’t be aware of everything
- Feeling that something bad will happen if you’re not always alert
Why Does It Happen?
Hypervigilance is often present in people who have lived through trauma or violence (Smith et al., 2019). In dangerous settings, vigilance to signs of potential threat or harm may save a person’s life. However, when this vigilance persists outside of these dangerous settings, in environments with a low risk of harm, the vigilance itself may become problematic. Symptoms of hypervigilance may persist for years after experiencing a traumatic event (Lindstrom et al., 2011). Hypervigilance often manifests in people who have chronic anxiety disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
How to Manage It
Hypervigilance may be present on its own, not connected to any other symptoms or condition, or as part of a larger syndrome or condition, as in OCD or PTSD. The most effective way to manage or overcome hypervigilance symptoms may differ according to the specific circumstances in which it is present. For example, if a person’s hypervigilance is a part of their OCD, managing the hypervigilance may be best accomplished by treating the OCD (Foa & McNally, 1986).
If not connected to a larger condition, some therapeutic approaches to control hypervigilance include meditation, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and/or exposure therapy.
A similar post also appears on The Berkeley Well-Being Institute website.