Liz Holland

Inventor · Industrial Designer · Founder & CEO, Sensory Product Design™

My Life Was My First Design Project.

Long before I understood sensory processing—or had words for why the world could sometimes feel like too much—I was designing ways to make my environment work better for my body.

I wasn’t trying to become an expert in nervous systems. I was trying to function.

Over decades, I learned to notice what my body was telling me: what overwhelmed me, what settled me, what hurt, what helped, and what I could change. I removed things. Modified things. Softened things. Worked around things. And when the thing I needed didn’t exist, I made it.

Eventually, I realized something much bigger:

My life had given me decades of data before I ever had a diagnosis.

That lived experience became the foundation for Sensory Product Design™—and for my work helping others become curious about their own nervous systems.

Growing Up Wired Differently

I grew up knowing that things other people seemed to do easily could be extraordinarily difficult for me—and I didn’t know why.

For years, no one knew I couldn’t read.

I hid it because I was afraid. I grew up in a home where getting something wrong could have real consequences, so I became extraordinarily good at watching, listening, remembering, analyzing and finding ways around what I couldn’t do. I learned how to appear capable even when I was struggling enormously underneath.

Eventually, I learned that the ways I adapted weren’t “cheating.” Finding another route to understanding is still understanding.

That became one of the ideas that would shape my life: when the standard way doesn’t work, get curious about what does.

Before I Had a Diagnosis, I Had Decades of Data.

For decades, I lived with constant headaches and a nervous system that could feel relentlessly overloaded. Light. Sound. Temperature. Texture. Pressure. Clothing. Smell. Position. Hunger. Fatigue. Stress. Each could change how well I could function.

I didn’t understand why these things affected me so intensely. And because the response I often heard was some version of What’s your problem? Just get over it, I learned to question myself instead of trusting what my body was telling me.

But I was also doing something else: I was experimenting.

If something felt unbearable, I tried to understand why. Could I remove it? Change it? Soften it? Move it? Cover it? Cool down? Warm up? And when the thing I needed didn’t exist, could I make something that worked better?

At the time, I didn’t think of any of this as design. In fact, I often made and tested my solutions privately because I was embarrassed by how much I needed them.

Over time, I also began to recognize what I think of as domino triggers. One unresolved sensory problem could make me more vulnerable to the next, and then the next, until my system became so overloaded that even something as simple as reaching for a glass of water beside me could feel impossible.

When I was finally diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder in my 50’s, the diagnosis didn’t create the experience. It gave me language for an experience I had been studying my entire life.

Instead of asking, What’s wrong with me? I could finally ask, What’s happening in my nervous system right now—and what might help?

Suddenly, the dots connected.

Before I had a diagnosis, I had decades of data.

Design From Within

Long before Sensory Product Design™ existed, design was already woven through my life.

My father was an inventor. He held patents, helped pioneer automated warehousing systems, and seemed almost incapable of encountering something without wondering how it might work better.

I grew up around that way of thinking: see the problem, understand what isn’t working, then make something better.

At fifteen, I was already demonstrating one of my father’s inventions—a racquet-stringing machine—at tennis-industry trade shows. That same year, the tennis club where I worked built a new tennis chalet. I thought it needed a pro shop. The club pro didn’t want to run one, so I said, I’ll do it. I borrowed $1,000 from my parents for inventory, paid it back within a month, and spent that summer stringing racquets and selling products from my first business.

Years later, industrial design gave professional tools and language to something I had been doing instinctively for most of my life: observing a problem closely and asking, How could this work better?

I went on to design award-winning sporting goods. But the most personal design challenge was still waiting for me.

It was my own body.

Choosing Where to Begin

When I was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder, one of my first realizations was startling: I had been inventing things to solve sensory problems my entire life.

Things I had made throughout my life because I needed them suddenly looked different. They weren’t just workarounds for my own particular body. Some of those ideas could help so many others, too.

That led almost immediately to another question:

Of all the things I’ve invented, where do I start?

I chose warmth.

Being too cold is an experience almost everyone understands. When you’re cold and can’t get warm, your body tightens. You brace. It’s hard to settle or relax because your system is still responding to the discomfort.

But the products I had tried didn’t solve the problem the way I needed them to. I wanted my hands and feet warm without giving up the ability to use them. I wanted to be able to uncover any part of my body the moment I became too warm. I wanted something that wrapped around me from behind so I could adjust my own comfort without having to stand up or completely unwrap myself.

So I began developing what would become CozyThrowzzz™ and CozyCozzz™.

I made prototypes. Used them. Changed them. Solved one problem and discovered another. And through that process, I realized the experience wasn’t only about warmth.

Wrapping myself in the design created a sense of settling—warmth and gentle containment, but with the freedom to move, uncover, use my hands and adjust the experience for myself.

That combination became fundamental to the design:

Warmth. Regulation. Freedom.

CozyThrowzzz™ and CozyCozzz™ became the first patented products from Sensory Product Design™.

But they were never the only idea. They were where I chose to begin.

When Comfort Has a Real Job to Do

Years before CozyThrowzzz™ became a product, I learned how different comfort feels when someone you love is going through something frightening.

My daughter was diagnosed with cancer in college. During treatment, I saw how much the seemingly small things mattered—being warm enough, feeling safe, having some control over your own body when so much of what is happening to you is outside your control.

She is now 12 years in remission, but that experience has never left me.

It changed the way I think about comfort.

Sometimes comfort isn’t an extra. It has a real job to do.

A long infusion. Dialysis. Recovery from surgery. Chronic pain. Limited mobility. A child who feels overwhelmed. An older adult who can’t seem to get warm. A caregiver trying to make someone they love more comfortable.

These are very different experiences, but they can share some very human needs: the ability to get warm, settle, adjust, move, uncover, use your hands, and maintain as much control over your own comfort as possible.

That’s why I think about comfort through three interconnected ideas:

Warmth · Regulation · Freedom

Warmth isn’t simply about being hot—or even warm. It’s about being able to find the temperature that feels right. Imagine being all wrapped up, comfy cozy, and suddenly a hot flash hits. With CozyComfortCare™, you can go from fully wrapped to completely uncovered, head to toe, in seconds. That’s what the right temperature means.

Regulation is about noticing what your system needs and having tools that help you respond. There’s something incredibly settling about being wrapped up. CozyComfortCare™ lets you choose exactly what level of gentle containment feels right for you—and change it moment to moment.

Freedom is about maintaining choice, movement, access and control. Because the Cozy wraps from behind, you can go from fully wrapped to completely open without getting up or rearranging everything—and the hand and foot pockets stay right where they belong. That ability to manage your own comfort matters anywhere, but especially when you’re ill, in treatment, recovering, or relying on others for care. Autonomy is part of dignity.

And especially in care settings, Warmth, Regulation and Freedom can support something even larger:

Dignity.

Comfort is Care.

Awards

⭐️ 2005 – International Red Dot Design Award

Prince O3 Silver & O3 Red Tennis Racquet

⭐️ 2005 – Popular Science “Best of What’s New” Award

Prince O3 Blue Tennis Racquet

⭐️ 2006 – Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA) Bronze by the IDSA

Prince O3 Hybrid Hornet Tennis Racquet

⭐️ 2006 – Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design

GOOD DESIGN Award

Prince O3 Hybrid Hornet Tennis Racquet

⭐️ 2006 – Tennis Magazine’s Editor’s Choice for 2006

Prince O3 Hybrid Hornet Tennis Racquet

My hope is simple.

I want people to become curious about their own nervous systems.

To notice what their bodies are telling them. To understand that discomfort is information. To experiment with what helps. To discover the small changes that can make it easier to function, recover, connect, work, rest and live.

For much of my life, I thought the question was:

“Why can’t I be like everyone else?”

The far more useful question became:

“How does MY nervous system work?”

That shift—from judgment to curiosity—changed the way I live and the way I design.

I don’t live in a body that is comfortable all the time. Far from it. I still notice, adjust, anticipate triggers and make choices throughout every day so I can function. The goal was never perfection. The goal is functionality—and having more tools to find our way back toward center when our systems get knocked off course.

That’s what I want Sensory Product Design™ to put into the world: better tools, better questions, better design, and more compassion for the enormous variety of ways human beings experience their bodies.

That’s the work of Sensory Product Design™.