The Window of Tolerance: Strategies for managing dysregulation
Hi all! I’m Emma, a counsellor and mother of one from Australia, living the expat life in Greece for just over a year. I love the community Afloat has created and I’m very excited to have been invited to write a couple of blog posts about the expat parenting experience from a mental health perspective.
When I think about the greatest challenges I’ve experienced since following my husband to his childhood home, I’m conscious of so many different emotional responses. The stress about navigating bureaucratic matters in a language I’m still learning; the worry about how my relationship with my husband is affected by a sudden reliance on him for practical and financial matters; the frustrations about my slow language progress; the sadness in the days where I feel so homesick for the people and places and culture that didn’t require quite so much effort.
I have thought many times over the past year about resilience – the ability to deal with challenges and bounce back. When I think about this concept, I am particularly drawn to the work of Dr Dan Siegel, a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA (the University of California, Los Angeles). Dr Siegel has done some amazing work and written many brilliant books about the developing mind with real-life applications and I have referred to his work in my counselling practice, my previous work with adolescents who had experienced trauma and in my own life as a flawed (but working on it!) human and parent.
Dr Siegel coined the term Window of Tolerance to describe the state of ‘ultimate arousal’ in which anyone can experience and cope with intense emotions. At either side of your Window of Tolerance are states of hypo-arousal and hyper-arousal, in which we experience dysregulation. If you are a visual learner, you might like the image of being in a canoe on a river. The river is your Window of Tolerance, while one bank represents hypo-arousal (which may look like lethargy, disassociation, depression etc) and the other represents hyper-arousal (which may look like overwhelm, anxiety, anger etc). Some people have a wide river, meaning they can tolerate stress and pressure at greater intensity without hitting either bank, while other people have a narrow river and may bounce between hypo- and hyper-arousal on a regular basis.
So, stepping back from the theory of it all, why am I bringing this up? As parents, we’ve all been there. The days where we snap at the smallest thing our child or partner does. The days we struggle to get out of bed. When navigating life in a new country, outside of our home culture and perhaps our home language, the stressors can be heightened. Things which may not have affected us so greatly in our home country might now cause us to hit one of our river banks.
So, how do we return to our Window of Tolerance?
I am a big advocate for grounding and mindfulness strategies when emotions start overwhelming us. There is a wealth of research which shows how physically and mentally grounding ourselves can calm the nervous system and ease dysregulation. Below I have compiled a couple of easy strategies which I have used time and again for clients and myself. I highly recommend practicing these regularly when you are in a calm state, so you are more comfortable turning to them when you need them the most.
Breathing
As silly as it sounds, breathing is one of our greatest strategies for managing dysregulation. Slow, full breaths directly notify the nervous system that we are safe. There are many many breathing exercises out there but one I particularly like is Box Breathing. Again, if you’re a visual person you might like to look at a window/book etc or just imagine a square in your mind as you complete this cycle: breathing in for four seconds (visualise moving up one side of the square), holding your breath in for four seconds (visualise moving along the top of the square), breathing out for four seconds (visualise moving down the other side) and resting with the breath released for four seconds (visualise moving along the bottom of the square). Repeat at least four times.
Five senses grounding
Utilising all our senses is a very effective way to ground ourselves and I really like this one for the fact you can use it anywhere. I have used it on a particularly crowded train when I could feel myself getting really overwhelmed. Firstly, identify five things you can see. You can get creative and find five things of a certain colour or shape if you like the extra challenge. Secondly, identify four things you can hear. Next, identify three things you can feel through your sense of touch. Remember it doesn’t just have to be with your hands, you may be surprised to notice you can feel your hair tied up on your head, or the waistband of your pants on your hips. Then identify two things you can smell and finally one thing you can taste. Don’t be hard on yourself if you can’t get exactly that number for each sense straight away. Building awareness can take time. (I personally am terrible at identifying smells, but I still love this exercise).
Say the alphabet backwards
A very simple (well, simple in theory but challenging in reality!) but effective way to ground yourself. If you get distracted and lose your place, practice self-compassion and either start again or continue from the last letter you remember.
Exercise
Moving our bodies is wonderful for our minds, especially if the exercise incorporates some conscious breathing (eg. Yoga, Pilates, mindful weight training).
If you’re interested in reading more about the Window of Tolerance and grounding strategies, take a look at some of the resources below:
YouTube video explaining the Window of Tolerance from Lewis Psychology
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNVlppGz0zM&ab_channel=LewisPsychology
Information sheet regarding grounding exercises from PANDA (Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia)
https://panda.org.au/articles/grounding-strategies/
Information sheet regarding the Window of Tolerance and its application for children from Jersey Psychology and Wellbeing Service
https://www.gov.je/Health/Coronavirus/EducationChildcare/Pages/PsychologyWellbeingSer