When a person chews or sniffs, it makes sounds that for some adults are unbearable. The latter suffer from misophonia, a disorder characterized by the appearance of strong negative emotions, such as anger or anxiety, in response to certain everyday sounds.
Misophonia, a widespread disorder
According to a study, published in the journal PLOS, one in five adults suffers from misophonia. To achieve this result, the researchers conducted a survey of 768 people living in the United Kingdom. The average age of the participants was 46.4 years. Among them, only 13.6% knew the term “misophonia” before the survey, with 2.3% identifying themselves as suffering from this disorder.
Participants had to answer several questions about everyday sounds, rating their emotional response and its intensity on a 10-point scale. At the same time, they also had to indicate how these noises affected their lives, the way they saw themselves and their personal and professional relationships. Finally, threshold scores for symptoms have been developed by scientists.
An intolerance to everyday sounds
With all this data, the researchers found that 18% of the participants had significant symptoms of misophonia. Indeed, when they heard common noises and they could not move away from them, some had the feeling of being trapped, felt helpless, faced with these reactions, many felt guilty.
“Importantly, our study found that one in five people in the UK experience significant misophonia reactions, but only a small proportion were aware of the term, explains Silia Vitoratou, one of the authors. This means that most people with misophonia do not have a term to describe what they are experiencing. Our team works hard to (…) provide clinicians with the tools they need to effectively understand and assess misophonia.”
“Misophony is much more than being annoyed by certain sounds”
The researchers explain that their results, from a survey conducted in the United Kingdom, are not generalizable to all countries and all cultures. “Our survey measured the complexity of the disease, says Jane Gregory, another author of the study. Misophonia is more than just being annoyed by certain sounds, it’s feeling trapped or helpless when you can’t get away from those sounds and missing things because of it. It’s about feeling that there is something wrong with you in the way you react to sounds, but also about not being able to do anything about it. It can be such a relief to discover that you are not alone, that other people react the same way to sounds.” According to the website handicap.fr15% of French people suffer from misophonia.