What Every Therapy Client Should Know 03 - Window of Tolerance

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar Channel and this is the third video in a series where I share information that I think EVERY therapy client should know.  The first 3 videos in this series I call my “TED Talk” -- every single one of my clients will hear this little speech from me eventually.  It helps to frame my philosophy about therapy, emotions, and the nervous system and gives us a common vocabulary for our work together.  

In the last couple of videos, I talked about the nervous system, our brains, and how we tend to respond to threats -- both physical and psychological.  Now let's talk about the

Window of Tolerance

This is a way of thinking about what our nervous system is doing throughout the day.  Normally, we are walking around doing our thing, and our nervous system is pretty calm.  It's in this green resilience zone -- Dan Siegel calls this the window of tolerance.  We might have little things that happen to us -- we get cut off in traffic, we hear about a sick friend, or we have an irritating interaction with a co-worker -- and all of these things affect the activity level in our nervous system -- sometimes increasing, sometimes decreasing -- but we stay pretty safely in this green resilience zone.  That means we haven't flipped our lid, so we are able to use ALL of the parts of our brain to make decisions and plan out our life. 

• Hyper-arousal - BUT if something really scary or stressful happens, we can end up here in Hyper-arousal -- and then we have flipped our lids -- we are only geared towards safety at this point.  I call this Amped Up or Distressed Nervous System.  Some people end up getting stuck up here -- when, even after the threat is gone, their Parasympathetic Nervous System doesn't kick in and they can't calm down.  These folks can be constantly jumpy, irritable, anxious, and on edge. 

• Hypo-arousal - Now sometimes a person has experienced excessive stress or trauma or they have a predisposition to a freeze response, and they end up down here in Hypo-arousal -- or what I call Nervous System Shut Down.  And some people can also get stuck down here being overwhelmed, depressed, numb, tired, passive, and sluggish and find it difficult to get back into the Window of Tolerance.  They can also use substances like alcohol or drugs that will force their body into numbness or hypo-arousal.

OOO through Window of Tolerance

This is the way we are programmed to respond to threats as seen through the Window of Tolerance.  First we try to connect -- then we amp up into fight or fight, and finally we shut down into freeze.  You can see that connection requires us to still be in the Window of Tolerance.  Some people’s nervous system, when super distressed, will toggle back and forth between amped up and shut down. And remember, based on your history or temperament, you may have a tendency to skip some of these responses, which would make this whole process look different for you.

Narrow Window of Tolerance

Each person has a different sized window of tolerance.  And the size of your window can vary from day to day.  Some people naturally have a really narrow window of tolerance -- meaning that it takes a lot less to send them into Hyper or Hypo-arousal.  Like we were talking about earlier -- maybe someone cutting them off in traffic or having an irritating conversation with a co-worker would be enough to flip their lid.  These folks may also have difficulty coming back down into their resilient zone, which is really narrow to begin with.  Popping outside of the window of tolerance too frequently is tough on the body and it makes it difficult to make good decisions on a regular basis.  So why is it that some people have a narrow window?  Well, if you don't take care of your reptile brain, it will collapse your window of tolerance and sabotage any efforts that you make, so you need to get enough sleep or exercise and take care of nutrition, chronic pain, or hormonal fluctuations.  And some of it we are just born with -- some people are just naturally more sensitive or have brain chemistry imbalances.  And some of it is a result of attachment style, negative experiences, or trauma -- our body protects us by being hypervigilant to threat if we've experienced a lot of it over the course of our lives.  

Widen the Window

I think the whole point of therapy is to widen your window of tolerance.  After all, you can't stop life from throwing things at you, but you can help your body react to those experiences in a more resilient way.  You will still feel sad, angry, or anxious -- it's just that you will be able to tolerate things better and function through these emotions with your thinking brain still available to help make good decisions and acquire better life skills.  You want to be able to think and feel at the same time. You can tell the people who are blessed with a nice, wide window of tolerance -- they resolve conflict in a healthy way, they don't avoid lots of people or situations, they aren't afraid of their emotions, they put their trust in themselves and others, and they can listen and support you without criticism, blame, or fixing.  Obviously, some of this is luck as I mentioned before, but more important to this discussion -- how do you work towards widening your window of tolerance?

Join me in my next video where I discuss how to push open that window of tolerance.  And let me know what you think.  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!