Most research on sensory overload focuses on extreme or unusual environments. A major 2025 study took a different approach, tracking overstimulation as it actually happens, in ordinary daily life.
The Study
Published in Scientific Reports, this research used an experience sampling method, prompting participants to report their sensory experience at multiple points throughout their normal day, rather than relying on retrospective recall. This approach captures overstimulation as it genuinely occurs, in real environments, rather than in a simplified laboratory setting.
What It Found
The study found that individuals with higher sensory processing sensitivity reported significantly more frequent and more intense experiences of overstimulation across ordinary daily activities — not just in extreme environments, but in commonplace settings like open offices, public transport, and social gatherings.
Crucially, the overstimulation wasn’t confined to objectively “loud” or “busy” moments. It accumulated across the day, meaning by mid-afternoon, many highly sensitive individuals were carrying a significant sensory load from a sequence of moderate exposures, not a single dramatic trigger.
Why This Changes the Conversation
This finding has an important implication for event and workplace design: the problem isn’t just the occasional overwhelming moment, the loud keynote, the crowded exhibition floor. It’s the cumulative effect of sustained, moderate-level stimulation across an entire day, with no opportunity to reset.
This explains a pattern many event organisers have observed anecdotally: attendees who seem completely fine in the morning and visibly depleted by mid-afternoon, despite no single dramatic incident. The research confirms this is a real, measurable phenomenon, sensory load accumulating gradually rather than spiking suddenly.
The Design Implication
If overstimulation accumulates gradually across a day, then recovery opportunities need to be built in gradually too, not as a single, late-in-the-day intervention, but as regularly available throughout. A quiet room accessible only in the final hour of an event misses most of the accumulated load. Genuine, standing access to calm space throughout the day addresses the problem as it actually occurs.
At Calm Nest Collective, our approach to Calm Nest Spaces® reflects this research directly, designing for continuous, low-barrier access to restoration, not a single late-stage relief valve.
Design for how overstimulation actually happens. [Talk to Calm Nest Collective →]
