Practical strategies for re-entering your window of tolerance...

The ‘window of tolerance’ is a psychological framework used to understand responses to stress. The framework is underpinned by neurobiology (the nervous system, the brain and biochemistry).

This newsletter outlines the best strategies to re-enter your window of tolerance…

Learning how to move back into your window of tolerance is a powerful tool for promoting good mental health and building competencies. It can also lead to feeling more comfortable in your body and more confident in your ability to manage emotions and maintain relationships!

The first step is recognising which way you go when you leave the window

You can do this through simple observation.

Whenever you feel overwhelmed, do you find yourself in an overactive and unsettled state, or a numb and unmotivated one?

For some people this will be situational, for others there will be a tendency to lean towards one way.

Some people may change over time due to life experiences (lockdowns etc.)

Either way the next step is the same.

now you’ve identified where you are, you can take the right action to get back into your window of tolerance

Let’s start with the strategy that works for both responses (hyper- and hypo-)

Small wins

When you find yourself in a state of overwhelm, generally speaking it’s because your body doesn’t feel it can deal with the situation at hand.

In order to retrain your nervous system’s default response, you need to show your body - through direct experience - that you can handle pressure.

You also need to create forward momentum in your life to develop self-efficacy.

To do this you must intentionally create situations whereby you can experience small wins

Small wins are progress points on your way to a goal

Set an achievable, realistic and meaningful goal > Establish milestones (progress points) that indicate you are progressing forward > Generate the actions that will take you to the milestones > Schedule the actions and get started!

For example:

Goal

“In … weeks I will run 5k in 25 minutes or less”

Milestones

End of week … I will be able to run 2k

End of week … I will be able to run 3.5k

End of week … I will be able to run 5k in 35/40 minutes

…

Actions

Run every [morning/afternoon/evening] for … minutes

Eat mainly whole foods during the day

Buy better running shoes

…

Schedule!

Small wins train your nervous system to be more resilient

This is because you have lived experience to show that you can overcome challenges and discipline yourself (‘regulate yourself’) to achieve goals (outcomes that help us overcome challenging situations).

Biochemically you are becoming more resilient because of the increased and sustained dose of serotonin, dopamine, endorphins and oxytocin (feel good chemicals).

The key is to keep setting achievable goals that create small wins for us to experience *forward momentum*

Below is a list of activities for hyper- and hypo-arousal.

This is not an exhausted list, there are many more!

My top tip would be to try as many as you can, until you find the ones that work best for you.

Keep moving forward