People experience misophonia as an extreme emotional response to a trigger stimulus such as an eating or breathing sound. The emotions are generally immediate and involuntary.
But there is a physical misophonia reflex that occurs along with the extreme emotions. The physical reflex actually occurs first, and the physical reflex jerks out the extreme emotions.
Based on over 1500 individuals that Tom Dozier has worked with, he finds that more than 95% have a physical reflex that is a fundamental part of their misophonia. He tests every patient for their physical reflex because understanding exactly how a persons body responds to the trigger is critical for their treatment.
This app has many trigger sounds included and it also allows you to record a sound trigger. Then you can reduce the intensity of the trigger so that your you have only a tiny, physical response to the trigger. It does this in 2 ways.
1) You can reduce the volume so that it is barely audible. When a trigger is very, very soft, you do not hear 100% of the subtle sounds. Because of this, the misophonic reflex will either be weak or not even occur. You can then bring up the volume very slowly until you first start to trigger. You should also keep the length (duration) of the trigger short.
2) You can reduce the length of the trigger sound so it doesnt sound like the real trigger.
When the trigger sound is only 0.2 seconds long, it is usually is not recognizable as a trigger, so you do not have a misophonic response. You can hear the "click" sound, but not trigger to it. Then you can increase the length of the trigger to 0.25 seconds and try again. At some point you will have a VERY TINY misophonia reflex response.
Under these conditions (low volume, short length, or both), most people can identify some part of their body that moved or had a physicas sensation. For example, they may feel a slight muscle tensing in their shoulders.
The app also provides information provided by Tom Dozier about treating and managing your misophonia based on your physical reflex.
Examples of physical reflexes that Tom has seen in patients include contraction of muscles in the face, upper neck, lower neck, shoulders up, shoulders forward, chest, upper arms, lower arms, hands (open or close), face, jaw, abs, buttock, thighs, calves, toes, and many combinations of these. Others have reported a short breath, head jerking to the right, unidentified movement in the chest cavity, stomach constriction, intestine constriction, esophagus constriction, unpleasant sexual arousal, and urge to urinate. Some report feeling pain in a specific location of the body.
The app includes a sound file editor that allows you to trim the recording so that the trigger sound you want to use is at the start of the recording. This allows you to make a long recording, and edit it to have a single usable trigger. (But you may want to have someone else do this for you.)