Understanding Your Window of Tolerance: Why You’re Not “Too Much” or “Too Numb”

In the counselling world and pop-psychology corners of the internet, there is a lot of talk about “nervous system regulation” these days. That’s great, but if you’ve explored these ideas for a while and come to a place in your scrolling or reading where you’ve wondered “I get dysregulated all the time. What’s wrong with me?” you’re not alone and there’s nothing wrong with you for not always being calm, cool, and collected.

There’s a concept in psychology called the “window of tolerance”. It’s the idea that everyone has a certain range of “stressors” (annoying, tricky, or otherwise stressful life things) they can handle with optimal calmness and clarity. Eventually there comes a point where the stressors pile up beyond that window, and less-than-ideal responses start to appear.

Depending on their stress language and the situation at hand, some people might find themselves in a state of hyperarousal (anger, frustration, anxiety, or fear) or hypoarousal (shutdown, numbness, escaping, or extreme exhaustion). We’re going to look at what determines the size of someone’s window of tolerance, how you can come back to it more easily and quickly when you find yourself emotionally off-balance, and how therapy and the right tools can start expanding your window of tolerance so you can have a bigger capacity for the things that usually set you off.

Tiny Windows

I’m going to let you in on a secret: no one “has it all together”. Not one single human you’ve ever met, no matter how polished and competent and composed they appear, handles everything life throws at them with grace, poise, and deep breaths.

So what makes the difference? Why can some people navigate a complicated, full life so smoothly while I cried after I spilled my iced coffee this morning?

Well, actually a lot of things make a difference. Traumatic events (no matter how long ago), a particularly difficult season of life, lacking our usual support system, dealing with grief and loss, prolonged uncertainty around work, relationships, or finances, or poor physical health can all be factors that reduce our window of tolerance. All of these can become forms of trauma with time or intensity, but that’s a conversation for another blog post.

Unfortunately going in and out of our zone of optimal chill from time to time is inevitable. When our nervous system – the command center of our bodies that makes sense of what’s happening and triggers our responses – learns to operate in extremes because of any of the factors I just mentioned, our “feeling-okay space” shrinks. We get out of that safe, operational space more easily and have a harder time finding it again. One of the goals of working on your responses to stress and healing some of the things that shrunk your window of tolerance in the first place is to find it faster and be able to live from that place of level-headedness for longer, in the face of more life stuff than you could handle before.

So no, you’re not doing anything wrong if navigating your window of tolerance feels like a never-ending game of Pong set to hard mode. It’s more likely a sign that you need some new support, tools, and strategies to start expanding that safe zone. Think about how much easier the game would be with a longer Pong paddle!

Symptoms of Hyperarousal and Hypoarousal

Finding your calm, rational, responsive self again when you’ve been flung into a dysregulated, out of control state of stress gets a lot easier with the right strategies.

If you’re experiencing the symptoms listed here, you might be dealing with hyperarousal (too much stress activation):

• Increased heart rate and breathing

• Muscle tension

• Racing thoughts

• Irritability

• Difficulty concentrating

• Hypervigilance (being excessively watchful or wary of potential threats)

• Anxiety and panic attacks

• Anger outbursts

And if your experience fits this list better, you might be in a state of hypoarousal (a “dampening” of your body’s stress responses):

• Feeling emotionally numb or flat

• Dissociation (feeling disconnected from oneself or the surrounding environment)

• Reduced heartrate and breathing

• Fatigue or lethargy

• Difficulty concentrating or focusing

• Memory problems

• Apathy or lack of motivation

• Withdrawal from social interactions

Go Toward The (Window) Light

Imagine your lists of stress symptoms like being in a dark room and your window of tolerance like a small window somewhere in that room. We need to figure out how to take steps toward the light from that window, a little at a time, and maybe even expand the window itself to let a little more light in, so you can find your way around (and out).

In this case, the “window light” is all the things you do to bring your body and mind away from those extreme places full of hyper- or hypoarousal and back to feeling calm, safe, and in control. Maybe you notice that you can feel something “off” in your body when you leave your window of tolerance, and you try some somatic self-soothing techniques. Maybe you recognize that your stress language patterns are showing up more often than usual, and you make a point to lean into the things that comfort or calm you. And maybe you can’t figure out why you don’t ever feel exactly settled or present and decide it’s time to talk to a therapist to see if there’s more going on than you thought.

However you choose to start finding your window of tolerance again, after feeling unsettled, know that the more often you notice what you’re experiencing and make the conscious choice to start working with your nervous system instead of letting it shut down or push back even harder, you’re doing the important work of expanding that window of safety, a little at a time. Every deep breath, new thought, or “I need help” you offer to yourself sends the message that you’re on your own side, and you’ll find that safe place again soon.

Conclusion

It can be frustrating and confusing to find yourself reacting in huge ways to little things (like my tearfully toppled iced coffee moment) and exhausting to live in a body that feels like a snow globe being shaken. After reading this post, I hope you can give yourself a little more grace when you snap at your spouse, shut down after work, or need to hibernate for an hour or two after a trip to Costco.

I hope you’ve started to see how the patterns you’re seeing in yourself may not have started with you at all, but might be emotional leftovers from things that shaped you a long time ago, and have been hiding but still hanging on. And I hope you have a few more tools now, to find your own safety again, start working with your big feelings when they crash over you unexpectedly, and find the right therapist to speak into your life and help replace your window of tolerance with one that lets a little more light in.