Deep Self-Care for Highly Sensitive People: How Nature and Gut Health Heal Your Nervous System

By Kavita Sodha .

What Every Highly Sensitive Person Needs to Know About Wellness

If you’re a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), you already know how deeply you feel the world. You may process emotions more fully, notice subtle changes in your environment, and feel easily overwhelmed by overstimulation.

And while sensitivity brings immense gifts, it also requires intentional self-care - especially in a world that often feels too loud, fast, and disconnected from what matters.

Here’s the good news: there’s growing scientific evidence that HSPs can dramatically improve their mental health by reconnecting with nature and supporting the gut-brain connection. And you don’t need a retreat or remote cabin to start—just a shift in how you live, eat, and care for your senses.

Study: HSPs Benefit More Than Others From Nature Exposure

A 2025 study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology found that HSPs who felt connected to nature experienced significantly less stress, anxiety, and depression, even though they were initially more sensitive to these emotional struggles.

Surprisingly, simply having a view of nature (trees, plants, gardens) helped foster that connection and improve mental health. For HSPs, it’s not just time in nature, it’s daily visual exposure and emotional connection that matters.

💡 Tip: If possible, arrange your workspace or home to include a view of natural elements - even houseplants count.

The Gut-Brain Connection: Why What You Eat (and Breathe) Matters

While the nervous system of HSPs is more reactive, it’s also more responsive to healing, especially through gut health.

Recent research shows that your gut microbiome, the ecosystem of bacteria in your digestive tract, produces 90% of your body’s serotonin and over half of your dopamine, the very chemicals responsible for emotional regulation, mood, and focus.

But modern life reduces microbiome diversity through:

• Processed foods and refined sugar

• Repetitive environments (same air, routines, screens)

• Overuse of antibiotics, plastics, and environmental toxins

• Lack of exposure to biodiversity and nature

Key Insight:

For HSPs, reduced gut health = reduced resilience to stress.

💡 Tip: Support your microbiome with fiber-rich vegetables, fermented foods, natural sunlight, time outdoors, and diverse social and sensory experiences.

Deep Self-Care for HSPs: More Than Bubble Baths

Nature-Based Self-Care Tools Backed by Science and Indigenous Wisdom

In The Dreaming Path, authors Paul Callaghan and Uncle Paul Gordon speak of healing as a return to connection: with nature, others, and ourselves. This aligns beautifully with the science of neuro-biology, nature therapy, and ancestral health practices.

If you want to heal as a Highly Sensitive Person, you don’t need to be fixed - you need to be reconnected.

8 Self-Care Practices for Highly Sensitive People

1. Daily Nature Exposure

Walk, sit, or gaze at trees, gardens, or water. Even a 5-minute view of greenery can calm the nervous system.

2. Eat for Gut Health

Add colourful root vegetables, fermented foods, and healthy fats. Avoid processed and inflammatory foods when possible.

3. Prioritise Microbiome Diversity

Break routines. Try new foods, smells, textures, people, and environments. Novelty heals.

4. Make Your Home a Nature Sanctuary

Use plants, natural light, wood, and gentle textures to recreate the feeling of being in nature.

5. Practice Parasympathetic Breathing

Use square breathing (inhale–hold–exhale–hold) for 4–5 cycles when overwhelmed.

6. Touch and Connection

Share meals, hugs, eye contact. Even brief social warmth improves emotional and physical resilience.

7. Unplug and Reset

Limit digital overstimulation. Reclaim silence. Use time offline to rest, reflect, and reset your energy.

8. Follow the Dreaming Path

Ask yourself: What would make my day more beautiful? Start there.

You’re Not Fragile. You’re Deeply Tuned In.

Being highly sensitive isn’t a limitation, it’s a gift that guides you back to what’s essential.

You were born to feel deeply, to live in harmony, and to notice what others miss. When you care for your body, nourish your gut, and root into nature, you unlock a way of living that feels like home.

Final Thought: Your Sensitivity Is a Compass Pointing You Back to What Matters

Being highly sensitive isn’t a flaw, it’s a gift that can guide you toward a more connected, meaningful life. When you honour your need for nature, beauty, nourishment, and authentic connection, you begin to come home to yourself.

You were never meant to feel numb, exhausted, or overwhelmed. You were meant to feel deeply, live fully, and thrive in harmony with the world around you.

Start small. Open a window. Watch the trees sway. Share a smile. Let nature remind you: you belong here, just as you are.

References & Inspired By:

• Wigley, I. C. M., et al. (2025). Environmental sensitivity and nature connection in mental health. Journal of Environmental Psychology

• Microbiome and mental health studies (PubMed, Frontiers in Public Health)

• The Dreaming Path by Paul Callaghan and Uncle Paul Gordon