The word 'misophonia' describes a condition that statistically, 20 per cent of you have: an extreme reaction to certain sounds. "For me, it was a relief to have a word for what I'd been experiencing," says Dr Jane Gregory, author of the new book Sounds Like Misophonia: How to Stop Small Noises from Causing Extreme Reactions, "because I thought for a long time that I was really uptight or maybe a bit controlling over other people, and that that was a problem with my character, as opposed to it actually being a problem with the way that my brain processes sounds." Jane offers advice for handling misophonia, including some very simple verbal techniques.