Some days, something small makes you explode: traffic on Javier Prado, a badly written email, someone interrupting you. And on other days, something serious happens and you feel nothing, as if you were watching your life from the outside. They seem like opposite reactions, but they come from the same place.
What the window of tolerance is
Psychiatrist Daniel Siegel proposed a concept I use a lot in session: the window of tolerance. It’s the level of activation at which you function at your best. Inside it, you can feel what you feel without being overwhelmed, think clearly, and make decisions.
Above the window is hyperarousal. The sympathetic nervous system fires and your body gets ready to fight or flee. Below it is hypoarousal: the system shuts down, as if your brain sensed that the best response to danger is to freeze.
Signs you’ve left your window
If you leave it from above, you might notice:
A racing heart, shaking legs, short breaths.
Hypervigilance, as if something bad were about to happen.
Intrusive thoughts you can’t stop.
Irritability and an urge to fight or run.
If you leave it from below, you might notice:
Excessive tiredness, even after sleeping.
Numbness: it’s hard to identify what you feel or think.
Emotional shutdown and difficulty making decisions.
A sense of being disconnected from what’s happening around you.
Most people have one side they tend to leave from more often. Which one is yours?
Why your window might be narrower
Not everyone has the same window. Early experiences widen it: growing up with safety at home, learning coping strategies, and watching someone regulate their emotions so you could later do it yourself.
Trauma does the opposite. It narrows the window, because the nervous system prepares to deal with a danger that was real at some point. That’s why some people leave their window with very little. It’s not weakness or exaggeration, it’s a system that learned to be ready.
How to widen it
Pat Ogden and her colleagues propose that regulation works in two directions: top-down, through words, and bottom-up, through the body. Some classic exercises for that second route:
Slow breathing, with the exhale longer than the inhale. It helps most when you’re hyperaroused.
Planting your feet on the floor and feeling the weight of your body in the chair.
Orienting to your surroundings: look around and name five things you see. It helps when you feel disconnected.
Moving and stretching your spine, to wake up a body that’s shutting down.
Peter Levine, creator of Somatic Experiencing, goes a step further. He proposes that in session, with the therapist present, you deliberately work close to the edge of the window, in small, controlled doses. That’s what allows the window to widen over time. Keep in mind, this isn’t something to do alone at home: the therapist is the one who sets the pace.
A 30-second exercise: STOP
Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, without judging what comes up. It’s not an empty trend: a clinical trial published in JAMA in 2015, led by Melissa Polusny, found that a mindfulness-based stress reduction program reduced post-traumatic stress symptoms in veterans more than present-centered group therapy did. The effect was modest, but real.
This exercise takes 30 seconds and you don’t need to close your eyes:
S, stop: pause what you’re doing. Just put your phone down.
T, take a breath: inhale slowly and feel the air coming in. Exhale and feel it leave.
O, observe: notice the tension in your body, your emotions, and your thoughts, without judging them.
P, proceed: choose your next action with awareness, instead of reacting on impulse.
It’s that simple. There’s no need to overcomplicate it.
The next time you explode or shut down, instead of asking yourself what’s wrong with you, ask: which side of my window did I leave from, and what does my body need to get back?
If you feel you leave your window more often than you’d like, we can work together on widening it.
References
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever you go, there you are: Mindfulness meditation in everyday life. Hyperion.
Levine, P. A. (1997). Waking the tiger: Healing trauma. North Atlantic Books.
Ogden, P., Minton, K., & Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and the body: A sensorimotor approach to psychotherapy. W. W. Norton & Company.
Polusny, M. A., Erbes, C. R., Thuras, P., Moran, A., Lamberty, G. J., Collins, R. C., Rodman, J. L., & Lim, K. O. (2015). Mindfulness-based stress reduction for posttraumatic stress disorder among veterans: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA, 314(5), 456-465.
Siegel, D. J. (1999). The developing mind: Toward a neurobiology of interpersonal experience. Guilford Press.