What is the Window of Tolerance??? How to apply this therapeutic exercise in your life!

Transcript

so if anyone knows me they know I love a good therapeutic metaphor so today we're gonna learn about the window of tolerance and how you can whiten it in four easy steps so the window of Tolerance is that state in which we function well it's where we are remaining calm where we are composed in the face of stress it's that optimal state in which our emotions can be experienced and which that experience can be tolerable even down to the physiological level when we're outside that window of Tolerance our nervous system goes into survival mode it's stuff like flight or freeze you know you either get overwhelmed or you go into what is known as hyper arousal so you can be overwhelmed by all these things it feels like too much is going on or the opposite can happen you can go into hypo arousal in which you totally shut down and so that is really what the window of Tolerance is about it's about being able to manage those stressors with a sense of ease and reason so the first step with this is to just kind of be more aware of what the window of tolerance is and like I said before that window of tolerance is that optimal zone of arousal so it's not hyper arousal or hypo arousal it's where you are able to cope and thrive in everyday life and so everything outside of that by comparison can go either one of those two ways or you can be overwhelmed or you could shut down completely and so the goal of this therapy technique is to widen that so you don't have to be stuck in those two Asians so percept to you'll probably want to get a notepad out as usual with all these therapeutic exercises that I do with you guys um the second step involves thinking of examples in your life where you feel that you remained within your window of Tolerance during a stressful or you know distressing time in your life you know simple examples could be like someone cut you off in traffic that's my shortcoming that's when I have the hardest time is staying within that window of Tolerance so that could be something you could write down as your trigger um the next part of that is identifying the signs what you know what happened in your mind and what happened in your body to cause this what were the signs that surrounded that trigger for you to act in this way for you to stay within that window of tolerance um and then the last thing is to recognize the outcome what happened in that moment where you didn't react where you weren't reactive and you stayed within that appropriate bound so for step three we're gonna go back to the signs you know what are signs of your window of Tolerance narrowing you know when do you feel that you are put in that you know hyper aroused state you know you might notice that you become snappy towards loved ones that you have a shorter temper than usual that you feel agitated or irritable um so write these down and then after that do the opposite um write down when you fill in a hypo aroused state you know when are the moments where you feel disconnected from people around you where things happen stressful things happen and you just have little or you feel like you have little or nothing to contribute and moments where you might feel emotionally flat or even numb step 4 the final step we're going to talk about staying within the window of tolerance so not only widening it to reduce chances of becoming reactive or nonreactive but how do we stay within it um thinking back to the times when you remained in your window of Tolerance and thinking about your own personal signs of narrowing your window of Tolerance what are some practical things you can do to move back into it to stay within those balance of your window of tolerance um think about some things you could do I mean it could be simple as if someone cuts you off in traffic you could take deep breaths or just take a timeout it's okay to take a step back to avoid becoming reactive to a situation um write all these down you can think of more examples of times that you have become reactive and write down the solution maybe it's something that usually you create a mantra in your head and just remind yourself that every time someone cuts you off in traffic just take a deep breath instead of reacting instead of cussing them out or maybe you know speeding up and expressing your anger just breathe and let it go and realize that it was not an important part of your day and that it doesn't matter um the next thing you can think about our practical ways to move back to your window of tolerance from an hi PO Rao state so those moments where you feel very low or you feel numb or you just don't feel like you know you don't feel like you're contributing or you're so disconnected so some ways you could get out of this and get back into your window of tolerance from there is engage with people even though it's kind of the opposite feeling of what you want to do call a friend call a friend um go for a walk sometimes just getting outside and connecting with nature is enough and other things you could do is maybe engage in writing if you don't want to go outside and walk pull out your journal and connect with yourself and these are some ways that you can get back into that window of tolerance um so I just want to go over a quick review of the different states you can be in so hyper arousal right here you can see that this is when you feel extremely anxious angry or even out of control um you have threatening feelings that you you know cause you to feel overwhelmed I'm you might want to fight or run away I just causes you to act offensively impulsively you have a lot of negative thoughts and you can see as we move to the window of Tolerance you know it's that optimal state where you feel like things are just right you're calm get alert you can think clearly and rationally the signs are that you're aware of boundaries you're empathetic you feel safe you feel present and open um this is really the optimal state to be in and and down to you know hypo arousal this is when you feel the zoned out emotionally physically you know time goes missing you just feel like you're frozen you know the signs could be you know you don't really have a lot of sensations you just feel numb you have no energy so that's connected you feel empty and you really don't feel like doing much and you find that you know you're brain is foggy you're having a hard time thinking so I hope this helped you in your quest to widen your window of tolerance if you have any questions about this or you want more links to exercises like this you can email victoriously vulnerable or you can DM us on Instagram or Facebook [Music]