The Window of Tolerance: Riding the River Through Stressful Times

I’ll start with an understatement. These are strange times!

As a therapist married to a federal employee living in Northern Virginia, I live at a unique intersection of the current state of world. Nearly 80% of my clients are affiliated with the federal government, including the Foreign Service or military.

Day in and day out, in ways both personal and professional, I’m seeing the impact of the current upheaval on peoples’ lives. 

In my 20+ years as a mental health professional, I’ve spent a lot of time reminding my clients that our brains don’t always love uncertainty, but they do have highly developed ways of handling it. Some ways are more effective than others. Confusion, change, and lack of consistency in the world around us put our brains in a constant state of adaptation. Sometimes change can feel invigorating and inspiring. On the other hand, when uncertainty is coupled with a loss of a sense of control, it can leave us feeling depressed, anxious, and even traumatized.

In times like these, we can suddenly find ourselves outside our Window of Tolerance.

The Window of Tolerance is the physiological and mental state in which you are the most focused, calm, functional, and adaptable even in the face of difficulty. Just as each person’s history, background, and situation is unique, so is each person’s individual Window of Tolerance. Your stressor may be entirely different from your child’s, your co-workers, or your partner’s. 

I find the following analogy helps my clients understand this concept.

Imagine you’re rowing in a boat down a lazy river. The water laps peacefully at the sides of the boat. You hear birdsong and the wind rustling through the trees overhead. It’s a clear, early summer day. Not too hot. A breeze blows cooling your skin under the Sun as it peeks through the branches overhead. You have a few things to do today, but not too much. You’re tracking the time, but just enough to feel at ease.

This is what it feels like to be within your Window of Tolerance. You experience a sense of calm and attention to the world around you. You’re awake, aware of your surroundings. It’s not a static state. You are actively engaged. A cluster of rocks creates small rapids in your path. You focus and use your oar to steer around. Clouds come overhead and it starts to drizzle. You problem solve, put on your rain hat and cover your belongings. From this state, you’re easily able to adapt.

But imagine you were tired and hungry when you set out on that boat ride. You didn’t sleep well the night before and you forgot to pack a lunch. What if, instead of a gentle rain, thunder and lightning roared around you? Maybe your phone died, you lost track of time, you’ll be late picking your children up from their sports practice. Perhaps you’ve had a previous bad experience with a boat trip. Before you realize it, your body feels like you’re back in the past. You’re suddenly no longer in the lazy river, but crashing on the rocky shore.

In situations like this, it becomes much more difficult to stay inside the Window of Tolerance. Our sympathetic nervous system, the part of the autonomic nervous system, which helps us prepare for danger, kicks in. We may find ourselves in a state of fight, flight, or freeze. We may experience hypoarousal - a sense of paralysis, difficulty making decisions, zoning out, lack of focus. Or, we may experience hyperarousal - racing heart, tunnel vision, a sense of impending doom, even panic. 

Our autonomic nervous system is designed to help us navigate these difficult situations. Humans are not wired to stay within our Window of Tolerance at all times. Both hypo- and hyperarousal can protect us from a threat. Most of the time, our parasympathetic nervous system steps in, returning us to a state of balance once the stressful situation has resolved.

However, sustained periods of time outside our Window of Tolerance can challenge our interpersonal relationships or leave us feeling irritable or distracted. We may notice it’s harder to overcome setbacks at work or perceive criticism in feedback from our spouse. Over longer periods of time, we may get stuck outside our Window of Tolerance and develop symptoms of depression, anxiety, OCD, panic disorder, and even PTSD.

If this sounds familiar to you, you may be wondering what you can do if you’ve crashed on the shore of hypo- or hyperarousal and are having trouble returning to your Window of Tolerance?

Often, our first instinct is to try and push these physical and psychological feelings away. We don’t like them, they’re uncomfortable, so why not get rid of them? To be sure, there are many effective ways to address some of these feelings and reduce their impact. Relatively simple actions like taking a walk, talking to a friend, getting a good night’s rest, eating regular meals, and taking a break from your device, can help you reset and return to your Window of Tolerance. For more serious or persistent symptoms, talking to a therapist or scheduling a visit with your medical provider may be needed. 

Nonetheless, I like to remind clients that the first and perhaps most important step when you realize you may be outside your Window of Tolerance is to try and cultivate a self-compassionate and curious mindset.

You’re a human in a human world, and that means you will inevitably face difficulties both expected and unexpected. Remember, your brain is designed to send warning signals in the form of fight/flight/freeze responses. You’re not doing something wrong when that happens. Moreover, our experiences in the present day are a combination of nature and nurture. No single moment exists in a vacuum - everywhere you go you carry your unique make-up and history. We don’t always know in advance what will trigger us. Accessing self-compassion enables us to turn towards ourselves with love and understanding when things are hard. Plus, research on self-compassion reveals that a self-compassionate attitude can have a positive impact in many areas of our lives.

In order to cultivate curiosity, I encourage my clients to practice being a scientist of their own experience - to take note, to watch, to explore - without judgement. Taking a curious and open-minded approach to our experience can be as simple as asking, “What’s going on here?” when we realize we’re aware of changes in our physical or emotional state. It can help to ask questions like - Did something trigger me here? Is this about something else happening that I may not have tuned into? What’s happening in my body? What are these thoughts that seem stuck in my head? Are my values or beliefs being challenged in some way? Even the answers to those questions can be taken with an observational approach. Your first instinct has value, but so does the next one. What happens when you look more closely?

Now that you know more about the Window of Tolerance, what might you do to learn more about yourself, your responses to stress, and potential ways to improve your mental health and overall wellbeing?

You can learn more about the Window of Tolerance with this helpful video. 

Some of my favorite mental health resources, including provider referrals, are collected here.

I’m a particular fan of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course - a research backed program for teaching effective stress management tools (including self-compassion and curiosity!). If you’re in the DMV area, find upcoming MBSR courses here.

If you’ve taken an MBSR course before and are ready to get back into your mindfulness practices, you can check out some of my MBSR meditation recordings here.

If you’re interested in working through stress, anxiety, depression, or other concerns with a therapist, feel free to get in touch!