The Window

One of the key tools we use in therapy, as we teach clients to grow in awareness of their own internal world, is what is known as The Window of Tolerance, or the Window.

The Window of Tolerance

The model is pretty simple. The orange line tracks how activated, or energized, your central nervous system is through any given day. Some times of the day you’re more activated and have more energy. Other times of the day you’re less activated and have less energy. And sometimes you’re fairly balanced.

As long as you’re “in the window,” or between the two blue lines, you’re able to tolerate whatever comes your way. Meaning, even if you have a strong emotional experience, you can feel it, deal with it, and remain connected.

Let’s say you encounter something and you have a natural reaction of sadness. When you’re in your window, you can feel that you’re sad. You can continue to do what you need to do in the situation (you can deal with it). You can stay in relationship with the people around and remain connected to them, perhaps by sharing your feelings of sadness with them. You can feel, deal, and connect.

This doesn’t mean that whatever emotional experience you’re having feels great or is easy to manage or that remaining in relationship with others in this moment is natural for you. It simply means that you’re able to act out of your best self.

When you’re in the window, even if you’re encountering something challenging or difficult, you can remain clear in what you want, confident that you’ll be okay in the end, courageous to engage in the hard and difficult task, and creative enough to come up with new options and see new possibilities.

Sometimes, however, it’s hard to stay in the window. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we leave our window of tolerance and can no longer tolerate the situation. Often, this is because our window gets narrow.

Our window can get narrow for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s an issue of our physiology - what’s happening in our bodies. Being sleep deprived, hungry, or dehydrated can all narrow our window (being “hangry” is a real thing!). Sometimes it’s what has been introduced to our bodies - caffeine, alcohol, tobacco, and sugar can all potentially disrupt our central nervous system.

However, another thing that can cause our windows to get narrow is when we encounter a difficult situation that is perceptually similar to any past difficult experience. When our brains see or sense something that reminds us of a previous experience of danger or risk or relational disconnection.

Whenever this happens, our brains respond with a threat response. Several reactions occur, all in a split second. It’s imperceptible. All we know is that something isn’t right. Our central nervous system goes into over-drive, seeking ways to keep us safe. When this happens the first result is to be hyper-activated.

When we are hyper-activated our central nervous system is moving quickly to assess and size up any threats. What we might be aware of are racing thoughts, nervous energy, feelings of restlessness, inability to concentrate, pressure or tightness in the chest or other physical discomfort, or even explosive or uncontrollable emotions such as rage or feelings of being overwhelmed.

We may be in this state for a prolonged period of time - minutes, days, or weeks. For many this feels like a constant experience. And yet, it isn’t possible to stay here forever. At some point, we will crash. For some, the experience is only brief and hardly noticeable before they crash down under the window to become hypo-activated.

When we’re hypo-activated, it often feels like everything has gotten really foggy or heavy or slow. We may feel tired, depressed, or numb. We might have difficulty caring to focus on anything, be “checked out,” or disconnected from what’s happening around us. This is when “doom scrolling” and unplanned binge watching happens. If people stay here for long periods of time, memory loss occurs. Often this is where addictive behaviors are acted out.

Everyone has brief encounters with both of these experiences. Just because you’re out of your window doesn’t mean you have an anxiety disorder or are depressed. But it does mean that your body and emotions may need some attention and care. Learning how to care well for yourself when you’re out of your window is a critical component to good mental health.

Check out some of the other resources posted here for more tips on what to do when you find yourself out of your window.

So, where do you tend to go when your window gets narrow? Are you more prone to hyper-activation or hypo-activation? How do you know? What have you found to be helpful to ease you back into your window?