How We Regulate: Moving In and Out of Our Window of Tolerance
Photo by Julia Elliot on Unsplash
She was struggling to breathe. Her anxiety was extreme, and she felt like she was having a heart attack. This was a panic attack. She happened to be in the hospital, but the nurses and aides were unable to help her.
Then, the hospital chaplain walked in.
The chaplain approached the patient gently and knelt down next to her, silently asking permission to put her hands on the patient's heart. After a few moments, the chaplain, without a word, invited the patient to put her hands on the chaplain’s heart in return. They sat on the floor in silence—feeling one another’s heartbeats and looking into one another’s eyes. Within a few minutes, the patient was breathing normally and was back to her usual self. She was able to engage with her surroundings and the other hospital staff.
This story, which I heard second hand, is a beautiful example of how one person can help another get back into his or her Window of Tolerance.
What is the Window of Tolerance?
The Window of Tolerance, a phrase coined by Dan Seigal, is a place where a person can be calm, cool, collected, and able to connect with others. It’s the ability to stay with oneself and connect to whatever emotion is happening, to be present with oneself, and to have the capacity to make decisions, connect with people, and think clearly. It’s a place of regulation where a person has a sense of both calm and alertness.
You may want to read “What is My Window of Tolerance and How Can it Help Me Regulate?” before reading on.
Compared to hyperarousal, the Window of Tolerance is calm. However, compared to hypoarousal, the Window of Tolerance is active and engaged.
What Makes Some People’s Windows Larger or Smaller?
Each person’s Window of Tolerance is a different size. Our windows may even change sizes at different times of the day, and are especially influenced by stress and trauma. Trauma, for example, can shrink our Window of Tolerance.
On the other hand, a person’s window can be expanded by learning new skills and gaining new support systems. Most people find that outside help is needed over time to learn to make longer-term changes to the size of their window—increasing their ability to stay within or tolerate a broader range of emotions and experiences.
What Does Regulating Look Like?
Moving into your Window of Tolerance through intentional action is what is called grounding or regulating. People can self-regulate—moving themselves back into their window or into regulation. Like the opening story about the woman in the hospital, people can also co-regulate when someone else's regulated state moves them into their Window of Tolerance. Someone else’s “calm” helps the dysregulated person either calm down or gear up.
Calming down or down-regulating is about moving from hyperactivation back down into one’s Window of Tolerance.
Gearing up or up-regulating is about moving from hypoactivation back up into one’s Window of Tolerance.
It’s important to note that things that work for calming down often work for gearing up as well. What might work one way in one person’s body may work differently in another person’s body, or it may work differently at different times. So people need to test out techniques and find ones that work well for them in their current situation.
How Do We Move Back Into Our Window?
Take a moment and think back to a few times when you felt anxious and agitated (hyperactivated). What did you do to work that energy out or calm down? These are resources for you. Write those down.
Now take a moment to think back to a time or two when you felt numbed out or a bit frozen. What helped you gain some energy and get moving again? These are also resources for you. Write those down as well.
Many people need someone else to help them move back into their Window of Tolerance—co-regulating them. As individuals, it’s also possible to learn to notice what’s happening in the body, whether we are hyper- or hypo-activated. By doing so, people can also learn how to get themselves back into their window.
Photo by Lochie Blanch on Unsplash
Try Out These Specific Ideas:
For gearing up (up-regulating)
Hum or sing
Engage socially
Eat something crunchy or with high flavor (chips or mint)
Smell something (essential oil, citrus)
Rub hands/dry handwashing
Brush tongue with a toothbrush
Lightly rub skin
Squeeze a squishy ball
Stretch
Yawn
Water play in the mouth (notice how it feels to hold a bit of water and play with it on the tongue)
For calming down (down-regulating)
Pay attention to breathing and intentionally deepen and slow the exhale
Use imagination to spend time in a peaceful place
Use the 5-4-3-2-1 exercise to ground your senses
Tune into one of the senses (e.g. feeling textures)
Notice the space around you (walls, ceiling, floor…)
Remember how you entered your current location (physically)
Count backward or in a foreign language
Movement like exercise—walking and stretching—works for both up and down-regulating. A good run may help down-regulate; whereas, a gentle walk may be all that’s needed to up-regulate.
It takes some trial and error for each person to learn what works for them, but it is possible, over time, to learn how to widen one’s Window of Tolerance in a more long-term way. Finding methods that feel natural and unforced is important.
The ability to move in and out of our Window of Tolerance is one aspect of psychological flexibility. This is a powerful skill to develop—the ability to move oneself into, rather than getting stuck outside of, one’s Window of Tolerance.
Sometimes, it takes counseling to learn the roots of our dysregulation, get regulated, and widen our Windows of Tolerance.
Most importantly…
Noticing where you are in relation to your Window of Tolerance (above or below) and then picking a few practices that help you move toward your window is what’s important. It doesn’t work to just do things that work for others—it’s important to find what works for you.
Remember, the point is being able to widen your window and being able to move from the edges back into your window with agility. Getting stuck outside one’s window long-term may have serious consequences on one’s health because of the detrimental effect of the stress hormones released over time in the body.
People don’t always have someone around like the hospital chaplain to help when they are dysregulated. So, trying out some practices and learning what works well to up- or down-regulate is important. Practicing the techniques, in advance, helps people to be ready when their dysregulation needs more help than just hoping it will go away.