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When the body perceives a threat, it initiates a physiological and hormonal reaction commonly known as the Fight or Flight response. This survival mechanism, ingrained in us through evolution, helps us fight back, flee, or freeze when we face danger or harm.
However, after staying in fight-or-flight mode for too long or experiencing a traumatic event, your nervous system can remain stuck in overdrive, leaving you feeling off-balance and overwhelmed for an extended period.
What is the Window of Tolerance?
First developed by Dr. Dan Siegel, the window of tolerance model is a way to understand this. It’s the emotional zone in which you feel safe and capable of handling life’s challenges. When you’re within this window, self-regulation feels natural.
However, trauma can rewire the brain to perceive more situations as threatening, effectively shrinking this window and making everyday stressors feel overwhelming.
As a result, you may find yourself swinging between two states of dysregulation: hyperarousal and hypoarousal, often without warning.
Hyperarousal
Above the upper limit of your window of tolerance is hyperarousal, or the fight or flight response.
Characterized by feelings of anxiety, extreme overwhelm, impulsivity or chaotic emotional responses, this state can be triggered by minor stressors or reminders of the trauma and can be experienced physiologically as hyperventilation, shaking, or an urge to fight or run away.
Early signs that you are entering dysregulation on this end may feel like you are becoming agitated, anxious, angry or revved up.
How I Experienced This State
For me, this state could be most prevalently characterized by feelings of panic. I could best explain my experiences as being overtaken by an intense need to escape, even if there was nothing I needed to get away from. It was a feeling in my stomach that I needed to run mixed with a feeling of being trapped, creating fear and overwhelm.
For me it would usually come hand in hand with flashbacks or distressing mental images, and was most commonly triggered by feeling trapped in any way or for any reason. I noticed that the times this state came on the strongest almost always triggered a shut down, resulting in long periods of hypoarousal.
What Helped Me During Hyperarousal
What helped me most was learning my warning signs, combined with grounding practices, in order to avoid triggering a hyperaroused state as much as possible. Something as simple as taking deep breaths and saying “the past is in the past, and right now I am in the safe, present moment” helps me tremendously.
I often get wrapped up in the overwhelm of the moment and the feelings will feed off themselves if I let them, so stepping out of my head and back into reality with grounding practices helps me to shut it down early.
Hypoarousal
Below the bottom limit of your window of tolerance is hypoarousal, or the freeze response.
Characterized by feelings of numbness or emptiness, lack of motivation or energy, or disengagement and withdrawal, this state can be triggered by feeling unsafe or overwhelmed.
Early signs that you are entering dysregulation on this end may feel like your body shutting down. You may begin to lose track of time and feel “spacey”.
How I Experienced This State
For me, this state was particularly difficult to escape and I often found myself here for prolonged amounts of time-early on I was switching between states more frequently but as time progressed I would find myself stuck in a hypoaroused state for days or weeks at a time.
I felt numb and disconnected from myself, my body, and the world, so lost somewhere deep in my mind that I would end each day with very little recollection of it. I spent probably 95% of my free time in bed mindlessly consuming social media in an attempt to drown out my own thoughts.
While my brain put all of its energy and attention toward processing what had happened, my body was on autopilot just going through the motions and incapable of giving anything more.
While I have learned to avoid hyperarousal almost completely, months after what happened I do still see this state pop up from time to time as I continue to process and work towards acceptance.
What Helped Me During Hypoarousal
It was much more difficult for me to recognize warning signs that I was entering this state as they usually came on more subtle, accompanied by a loss of motivation to improve or engage in the moment.
Coming out of this feels like I am experiencing life again, and most often somatic experiences help me to ease out of it, even if it’ wasn’t’s not for long or doesn’t work every single time-things like cold showers, lighting a candle and trying to pick out the different scents or eating sour candy slowly, being deliberate in tasting and experiencing it fully.
Think actions to help connect your mind back to your body.
Why I Think Everyone Should Know This
When my therapist explained all of this to me, I remember just feeling relieved. Rapidly swinging between such extreme states sometimes made me feel like I was going insane and it was distressing to feel so out of control all of the time.
I believe that education on this topic is so vital because putting a name to this physiological response helped me to understand what I was feeling and why I was feeling it, and understanding my triggers and warning signs helped me to recognize when I needed to take preemptive actions to stay in control of my emotions instead of letting them snowball.
Acquiring the skills to face and handle these big emotions is like building a tool kit. With time and practice, stabilizing yourself will become easier, and your window of tolerance can expand one again.
Thank you for being here. If this post resonated with you, I’d love for you to share your thoughts or connect with me-your voice matters too.
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