What is hypervigilance?

Hypervigilance is when your brain is always on high alert, like it’s watching for something dangerous to happen every second.

Imagine you're playing in a park with your favorite toy. Most of the time, you can just have fun and not worry about anything. But if you’re hypervigilant, it’s like you're constantly looking over your shoulder, expecting a big dog to jump out from behind a tree or someone to shout “Surprise!” at any moment. You might even stop playing for a bit because you're too busy watching everything around you.

Think of your brain as having a radar that scans the world around you. Normally, it just checks things out in the background while you play or read a book. But when you’re hypervigilant, that radar is working overtime, like it's scanning every leaf that falls from a tree and every sound that comes from far away.

This can be tiring because your brain never gets to rest, just like how you might feel tired after running around the park for a long time.