Science says: people who are irritated by eating sounds have a higher IQ
You are sitting at the dinner table with your family. They are talking about their weekend, but all you hear is one deafening thing: the smacking, the chewing, and the slurping. Your mother's story completely fades into the background. And as if that’s not enough, your brother-in-law just keeps talking while he chews. When you ask if it can be a bit quieter, you get a: “Don’t be so dramatic.” But what if you’re not the problem? What if that irritation has an official name and actually means that your brain just works a bit sharper than the rest at the table?
Misophonia… what?
Of course, no one is happy with someone who is smacking their meal. But imagine that it’s not just annoying, but that every bite, every sound puts your body directly into stress mode. That is misophonia: literally ‘hatred of sound’, and officially recognized as a condition since 2020. For people with misophonia, it’s not a matter of “just ignoring it”; a simple sound can be enough to trigger an immediate fight-or-flight response. One moment you’re calmly enjoying your appetizer, the next you feel irritation turning into pure rage or disgust. And that because someone is chewing on their sandwich, or just breathing a bit loudly. As a result, people tend to avoid (social) situations: a night out for dinner or to the cinema? Preferably not. Because it’s not just about eating sounds, a ticking clock, a clicking pen, someone clearing their throat, or even how someone pronounces a letter can suddenly take over everything. You are constantly ‘on’, with stress, fatigue, and concentration problems as side effects. One of the hardest things for people with this condition is that it seems very exaggerated to the outside world : “Don’t be so dramatic.” While for you it feels anything but small.
But a higher IQ then?
But your brain doesn’t do this for no reason: brain scans show that the areas responsible for attention and emotion in misophonia immediately go into high alert as soon as you encounter such an unpleasant sound. Full focus and fully alert. And that just happens to be something you see more often in people who think deeply. While the rest of the company barely notices the smacking, your brain gets stuck. Some researchers also draw a link there: that same mental sharpness that helps with complex thoughts and seeing connections also means that you filter out noise less effectively. Simplified: your head is just always a bit more ‘on’ than that of others. Every advantage has its disadvantage?
So no, you’re not being ‘so dramatic’. You just have a brain that picks up details and is continuously ’on’. So the next time someone at the table calls you dramatic? Either you show them this article, or you smile sweetly. At the end of the day, you hear things that they completely miss.
SOURCE: Misophonia Association NL & Mind Perspective
