Most of us feel like we are very disgusted when we hear about someone Climb their nails on the board. But for some people this fear response can also be triggered by strange, unfamiliar sounds.
This concern is called misophonia, and new research from the UK suggests that more people suffer from it than previously thought.
Vocalizations include things like chewing, slurping, snoring, and breathing and responses can range from mild anger and frustration to depression that interferes with daily life.
“Our research revealed the complexity of the problem,” he explains University of Oxford psychologist Jane Gregory, who co-authored the study.
“Misophonia is not just being irritated by a certain noise, it’s feeling trapped or helpless when you can’t get away from the noise and miss things because of it.”
King’s College London psychologist Silia Vitoratou, along with Gregory and her colleagues, used a system to categorize volunteers by sex (including non-binary), age, and ethnicity in a way that reflects UK census data to obtain a representative sample. . people over 18 years old.
772 volunteers completed a questionnaire about potential causes and responses, which explored 5 aspects of misophonia: fearful thoughts, internal and external evaluations, outbursts, and consequences. The researchers also interviewed 26 people who had been diagnosed with misophonia and 29 people who had not.
“The prevalence of misophonia in the UK is 18.4 per cent,” the team found, explaining that the findings only represent the UK and may differ in other parts of the world.
Many of the sounds that can cause misophonia are also not liked by many people. Loud chewing elicited the most disgust among the respondents, while many other words elicited widespread anger.
But there were significant differences between those with misophonia and the general population.
First, negative feelings about the sounds people hate are often accompanied by anger and fear in the groups of people who are most affected. They said they felt trapped or helpless and unable to escape the noise.
“I feel like there’s something wrong with you in the way you listen to words, and you can’t do anything,” he said. he says Gregory. This can lead to guilt, shame, anxiety and withdrawal.
Finally, people with misophonia can be bothered by noises like normal breathing and swallowing, when this has not caused many people to react.
“It is important that our study shows that 1 in 5 people in the UK experience severe misophonic, but only a small fraction know the word,” he explains Vitoratou.
“This means that many people with misophonia do not have a name to describe what they are experiencing.”
Less than 14 percent of those surveyed knew about misophonia before the survey.
“It’s so refreshing to know you’re not alone, that other people do the same,” documents Gregory. “To know there is a word for what you’re going through.”
The researchers’ new study could be a tool to help medical professionals identify those with the disease.
“Our results show that misophonia is very common, and fFurther research is needed to determine when the problem becomes ‘disruptive’ in terms of problems, outcomes, and need for treatment,” researchers finish.
This study was published in PLOS ONE.
