Skills for High Sensation Seeking (HSS) People: Balancing Risk and Sensation

Help Me, Rhonda! with Dr. Rhonda Karg

In today's episode of "Help Me, Rhonda!," clinical psychologist Dr. Rhonda Karg teaches you about what it means to be high sensation seeking (HSS), which is a strong tendency to seek out new, intense, or complex experiences -- and an even higher willingness to take risks in order to get them. In other words, high sensation seekers are drawn to things that will give them a new feeling, sensation, or type of experience. These individuals report feeling alive when they are taking risks or otherwise having the new sensations and new experiences they crave. Boredom feels like torture for HSS people, making it hard for them to complete boring tasks, so one skill Dr. Karg teaches is using your "teflon mind" to notice your thoughts and feelings about being bored but not allowing yourself to get attached to them. She calls it "boredom tolerance." Because HSS people can engage in what could be considered to be reckless behavior, it can be helpful for HSS people to reason things out with others before making some decisions because balancing the risk and the benefits of one's choices can be challenging for HSS people who are highly thrill-seeking.
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