The Window of Tolerance (WoT), a concept originally developed by Dr. Dan Siegel, is a tool that I heavily utilize in my therapeutic practice. It has become a staple for many of my clients in helping them differentiate from the parts of them that feel they are “going crazy,” or that they are being “hijacked” by their emotions, which in turn makes them fearful of feeling. It also helps to explain those periods of time where we feel as though we are in a shutdown state.
The Three Zones of the Window of Tolerance: Green, Red, and Yellow
Our bodies are wired for survival, not necessarily happiness, and if we are having trouble landing in our green zone (middle section on the diagram below), life does feel like survival because our green zone is our THRIVE, and the red (labelled Hyper) and yellow (labelled Hypo) are the SURVIVE states.
Hyperarousal: Understanding the "Fight, Flight, or Freeze" Response
Hyperarousal is also recognized as the “Fight, Flight or Freeze” response. It is a state of heightened activation where we may feel angry, irritable, defensive, hypervigilant, tense, anxious, have racing thoughts, feel overwhelmed, a need to escape or avoid, or stuck in a frozen state.
Decisions may feel impossible because everything might feel as though it is moving too fast, or we have a fear of making the wrong decision, being bad, or having regret. This is a state that is triggered when our body perceives a “threat”, which may not always make sense to the “logical” part of our brain. In a state such as this, we may react in ways that feel out of our control in the moment, and feel shame after we have settled because, “we should have known better.” Or, on the contrary, we didn’t react or respond at all and feel shame for, “not standing up for ourselves or doing something about it”.
Hypoarousal: The Collapse State in the Window of Tolerance
Hypoarousal is the collapse part of this system. Like above, it is triggered by a perceived or real threat through an encounter, a memory, feeling, smell, sound or person, ect. Once activated it shows up as numbness, depression, emptiness, apathy, hopelessness, dissociation, disconnection and a flat affect paired with no energy and no ability to think clearly.
We feel numb and tend to pull away from other humans when in this state. Here, those moments or items or actions that used to bring us joy seem to fall flat. Here we may not be able to make decisions, because we just simply don’t care, or it does not feel like it matters, or we can’t even muster up enough of a thought to start the decision process. As the diagram below states, this is a period of immobilization.
Factors Influencing Our Window of Tolerance
There are many reasons we may pop into these states or feel like we are constantly bouncing between the red and yellow, with a few layovers in our green:
Our system is functioning the way it needs to be, and we are responding appropriately to a threat in our immediate world. However, this will feel fluid, and we will spend most of our time in our green, only bouncing into the red, or yellow if necessary and when needed. Logically, these transitions will also feel as though they make sense.
We may suffer from PTSD meaning our green zone capacity has been lowered, and some small or large event in our environment triggered us, which in turn put us into a survival response – or the often experienced yoyo between the survival states. For example: if we have lost trust in others and do not feel safe in our world.
Our green zone may never be a place that we land unless we are in our house, or in a specific room or chair and even then, we will most likely feel a state of being hypervigilant.
We were never taught how to properly hold space for ourselves and our emotions and in turn they have now been lumped into the “threat” category and are either overwhelming our system into a shutdown, or we are distracting ourselves from them by using tools such as rumination from the red zone.
We may have CPTSD which means that our green zone never had the chance to fully develop to its highest capacity and one of the survival states has most likely become our normal or known place to be
Expanding Your Window of Tolerance: The Path to Emotional Balance
These examples are by no means a complete and exhaustive list of how the WoT can show up in our worlds but show SOME of the ways our physiological system can hijack our mind and our actions. Luckily, through therapy, psychoeducation, unconditional love, support, nurture and recognition this system can absolutely be put back into a place of flow, and the days of being stuck in one zone or the other can become limited.
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Disclaimer
Information provided through Balance Psychological Services' blog posts is meant for educational purposes only. This is NOT medical or mental health advice. If you are seeking mental health advice, please contact us directly at (587) 985-3132.