Can Indoor Air Quality Affect Sensory Processing?
When the world feels louder, brighter, and harder to filter.
I noticed it in ordinary moments.
The hum of appliances. Overhead lights. Background noise.
Nothing was extreme, but everything felt closer to my edge.
I kept wondering why my tolerance had changed.
Sensory strain didn’t mean my senses were broken.
Why sensory processing depends on nervous system capacity
The brain filters constantly.
When capacity is reduced, filtering gets harder.
It felt like too much information was getting through at once.
This reframed sensory sensitivity as a load issue, not a flaw.
Sensory overwhelm can reflect reduced bandwidth, not heightened weakness.
How indoor air strain can lower sensory tolerance
When my system stayed activated, there was less room to process input.
Everything registered faster.
My body was already busy before anything else happened.
This connected directly to what I learned about environments that keep the nervous system engaged, which I explored in how indoor environments can keep the body in a constant stress response.
A taxed system has less tolerance for incoming signals.
Why sensory issues often ease outside or in certain spaces
In quieter, fresher environments, my senses softened.
Not instantly — but noticeably.
The world felt less demanding without me changing anything.
This mirrored the contrast I noticed again and again, which I described in why you feel better outside but worse the moment you come home.
Sensory relief can be environment-dependent.
Why sensory changes are often misattributed
From the outside, it can look like irritability.
Or anxiety. Or overstimulation.
I questioned my resilience instead of my surroundings.
This echoed how indoor air issues are often misunderstood when symptoms don’t fit a clear category, which I explored in why indoor air problems are often dismissed as “psychosomatic”.
Mislabeling doesn’t make the experience less real.