Misophonia: When Certain Sounds Drive You Crazy

For people with misophonia, everyday sounds like chewing and sneezing can trigger emotional responses

Stephanie Watson,

AARP

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Published January 06, 2026

Illustration of a woman covering her ears in distress while another person eats a crunchy chip, representing misophonia and sound triggers

Liam Eisenberg

Key takeaways

Misophonia is when hearing specific sounds triggers intense negative emotions.
Trigger sounds can include chewing, breathing, sniffling, typing and foot tapping.
Common emotional reactions to sounds include irritation, anxiety, disgust, anger or rage.
There's no known cause of misophonia because it hasn't been well studied.
There’s no cure for misophonia, but treatments are available.

Anyone who’s ever sat next to a loud chewer, slurper, yawner or sneezer knows how irritating these noises can be. But for the estimated 5 to 20 percent of people with misophonia, sounds like yawning, chewing, breathing or tapping are much more than noise.

What is misophonia?

The word “misophonia” derives from the Greek words for “hatred” and “sound.” “It means hatred of sound, but it’s really a condition characterized by strong negative emotional reactions to specific sounds,” explains Jon Douglas, a clinical audiologist and assistant professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa. “[The response is] clearly excessive and unreasonable, and not in proportion to the circumstance.”

Though emotions are involved, misophonia isn’t included as an official disorder in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR). Instead, researchers consider it to be neurophysiological, which means it involves parts of the nervous system that regulate emotion and behavior.

The disorder typically starts during childhood or the teen years. But misophonia is common in older adults, too, and may even begin later in life.

For some people, misophonia is nothing more than a minor inconvenience. But for those with a severe case, it can be extremely distressing and debilitating, and has a profound effect on day-to-day function, work and relationships.

Common misophonia trigger sounds

A variety of sounds, many of which are emitted by other people, can set off this reaction. The most common misophonia triggers are:

Sounds like chewing, drinking, lip smacking, swallowing, slurping, crunching or burping
Mouth, throat, and nose sounds like sniffling, nose blowing, snoring, throat clearing, coughing, breathing or yawning
Repetitive sounds that may involve an object, such as pen clicking, keyboard typing or foot tapping
Sounds produced by objects, like a clock ticking or water dripping

None of these sounds are inherently threatening, but hearing them elicits an uncontrollable fight-or-flight reaction in the nervous system, just like a dangerous situation would.

The emotional reaction to trigger sounds can be extreme and can include:

Negative thoughts
Irritation
Anger
Anxiety
Fear
Disgust
Rage

In addition to the emotional response, sounds can trigger physical symptoms such as:

Sweating
Tightness in the chest
Tense muscles
Rapid heartbeat
Increase in blood pressure

Even the sight of someone chewing or tapping their foot on the floor can also set off these symptoms. This phenomenon is called misokinesia and falls under the same umbrella of disorders as misophonia.

The fight-or-flight response to misophonia

A particular sound doesn’t need to be loud or inherently annoying to set off a misophonia. The level or quality of the sound matters less than its meaning to the person.

“Most of the time it’s low-level sounds that nobody notices — a dripping faucet or somebody breathing next to you,” explains Heidi Lack, a licensed clinical psychologist who has lived with misophonia since childhood. Misophonia differs from hyperacusis, a disorder that makes sounds at normal volume seem uncomfortably loud.

“When I was in graduate school, I had thoughts of wanting to murder the person behind me [who was] fiddling with a wrapper during an exam,” Lack recalls. “I realized there was something really different about me.”

When confronted with a trigger sound, some people with misophonia run out of the room to escape it.

Melissa Gilbert, known for her role as Laura Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie, told People about her struggles with misophonia while filming on set as a child. Everyday noises, she said, enraged her.

“If any of the kids chewed gum or ate or tapped their fingernails on the table, I would want to run away so badly,” she told People in 2024. She also said that her condition worsened as she got older and reached menopause.

What causes misophonia?

Researchers haven’t been able to definitively answer that question, because the condition hasn’t been well studied. One theory focuses on the way the brain interprets input from the ears and other sensory organs. A research article published in Frontiers in Neuroscience explained how functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans have found increased activity in areas of the brain involved in processing sounds, emotions and behaviors when people with misophonia are exposed to their triggers.

In other research, published in The Journal of Neuroscience, fMRI scans revealed it may not be just about sound. Misophonia could be linked to how our brains respond to the actions behind those sounds. Researchers call it “hyper mirroring,” and when someone makes a noise, like chewing, the part of the brain that controls similar mouth and facial movements in someone who has misophonia becomes unusually active, almost as if it’s trying to “mirror” the action.

This study could help explain why trigger sounds elicit such strong emotions and behaviors, and could lead to new treatments that target the brain representation of movement and not just sounds.

Genetics could also be involved. Misophonia often affects many members of the same family. Lack recalls her mother had strict rules about chewing open-mouthed or making slurping noises. “I now realize … she had misophonia,” she says. Lack says her own children have the condition, too.

A study published in Frontiers in Neuroscience was looking to confirm contributing genetic factors of misophonia and used an unpublished genome-wide association study (GWAS) from 23andMe. The results found genetic links between misophonia and audiology, psychiatry and personality disorders, including:

Tinnitus
Major depression disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Generalized anxiety disorder
Guilt/neuroticism
Irritability/sensitivity

The results did not confirm a genetic correlation with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder or psychotic disorders.

How misophonia is diagnosed

You can start by seeing an audiologist if you suspect that you or a loved one has misophonia. If the audiologist rules out hyperacusis or another hearing disorder, a psychologist or other mental health provider visit is the next step.

They’ll use a variety of screening tools to learn which sounds bother you, how you react when you hear them and how the condition has impacted your life.

Misophonia treatment options

Many treatments have been studied for misophonia, but no single one has been proven effective for everyone. A personalized team approach involving an audiologist, a mental health provider, an occupational therapist and other specialists can help, but because there’s no cure, management is tailored to you.

Treating misophonia often involves a combination of psychological and sound therapy, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and dialectical and behavior therapy (DBT), Lack says.

CBT helps you reframe your triggers so that you react less negatively to them. In the first controlled CBT trial to assess its short- and long-term efficacy, misophonia symptoms improved in 56 percent of people who completed three months of CBT. Those improvements continued a year after treatment ended.

Psychological therapies are often coupled with sound therapy. One method is to block the sound with earplugs or headphones. Another is to mask it with a sound machine or background music.

Ear-level sound generators (ELSGs) also can be helpful for misophonia. You can wear these small, hearing-aid-like devices behind the ear to create constant low-level background noise (such as white noise or nature sounds).

How to cope with misophonia

“We don’t have a cure for misophonia, so a lot of our management is devised around coping strategies,” Douglas says. A mental health provider or occupational therapist can teach you some of these strategies.

Here are some techniques to try:

Learn ways to relax. You might use mindfulness, deep breathing, meditation, yoga or another method that works to calm your mind and body. Some people find comfort from lying under a weighted blanket or soaking in a warm bath.
Surround yourself with allies. Choose friends who see your strengths, not the disorder.
Talk with a therapist or support group. “You’ll find other people who have some version of misophonia, so you won’t feel so strange,” Lack says. Misophonia support groups are available through organizations like the Misophonia Association and soQuiet.

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Stephanie Watson is a freelance writer with more than two decades of experience covering consumer health. Her work has appeared in WebMD, Time, Harvard Health Publications, Healthline, HealthCentral and many other publications. She also served as executive editor of Harvard Women’s Health Watch.