Hi, I'm Dr. Tracy Marks, a psychiatrist,
and I make mental health education videos.
In a previous video,
I talked about the difference between stress
and anxiety and how stress causes an increase
in your cortisol level, which can worsen your anxiety
and have other physical effects.
Stress affects people in different ways,
how it affects you depends on your emotional
and frustration tolerance.
Dr. Daniel Siegel, a psychiatrist expanded on this concept
with his construct of the window of tolerance.
He described a window of tolerance as an ideal zone
where when you're faced with stressful situations,
you're able to cope with them in a calm
and engaged manner without feeling overwhelmed by them.
You're able to process your emotions with a rational mind
and here are some signs
that you are within your window of tolerance.
You can maintain your personal boundaries,
and not feel exploited by your circumstances.
Your reaction to the stressor is appropriate
for the situation, you feel safe,
you predominantly stay in the present moment to deal
with the situation instead of ruminating about the past,
or worrying about the future.
In other words, whatever the situation you can face it,
deal with it and manage your emotions around it.
For some situations you can have a wide window
where it takes a lot to break you,
and sometimes you can have a narrow window
where you can be easily pushed outside of the window.
There are two sides that fall outside of the window.
On one end is where you feel overwhelmed,
and enter into a hyper arousal state,
your nervous system puts you into a fight or flight mode.
You can feel anxious, agitated or stressed.
Signs that you're in a hyper arousal state
are feeling overwhelmed and unsafe.
You may feel angry or agitated,
you act on impulses or become defensive.
You may have physical signs like heart racing,
or hands trembling, and you may be emotionally labile
like snapping at people or losing your cool.
The other side of the window is a hypo-arousal state,
and in this state your nervous system is still activated,
but it puts you into a free state
where you shut down or withdraw.
Signs that you're here are, you feel empty or numb,
you don't feel like moving like you're frozen.
You feel disconnected either from your situation,
other people or yourself.
You may feel like you can't think,
you don't have much energy or motivation to do anything.
We all have a window of tolerance
and how wide it is can vary depending on your circumstances.
For example, things like being hungry,
or tired can narrow your window
and make you feel more easily frustrated.
Here are some experiences
that can affect the width of your window.
Negative childhood experiences,
your family of origin can affect the width of your window.
For example, being raised by parents with narrow windows
can teach you to have a narrow window.
Any traumatic experience can affect your window,
and other psychiatric disorders
like borderline personality disorder,
a post traumatic stress disorder.
PTSD can make you more easily triggered
to fall out of your window.
Trauma experiences can make you more likely to default
to the hypo-arousal state of numbness and dissociation.
A dissociative state is when you become disconnected
from your environment or yourself,
and it's usually a temporary state
that you can go in and out of.
You can learn more about dissociation in this video.
So what makes the window of tolerance significant?
Well, it's one way that you can increase your self-awareness
so you can better manage your emotions.
You can become familiar with what it's like
to be in your window by thinking about times
that you've managed your emotions well
in the setting of a stressful situation,
then you can learn to recognize situations that trigger you
and make it difficult to manage your emotions.
If you recognize when you fall out of your window,
you can do things to get back into your window.
If you've moved into a hyper arousal state,
here are some things that you can do
to move back into your window.
Mindfulness exercises, journaling affirmations,
deep breathing exercises
and these are just to name a few things.
If you've moved into a hypo-arousal state,
here are some things that you can do
to move back to your window.
Grounding exercises that stimulate your senses of sight,
sound, touch and taste.
Engaging in physical activity like yoga,
or walking or engaging in something creative.
Creativity is mentally stimulating.
If you're not naturally creative
and have no idea what you would do, try coloring mandalas.
Mandalas are complex symmetrical designs with radial lines,
and colorful shapes or patterns.
Coloring mandalas has been a part of art therapy,
and spiritual practices for many years.
The theory behind how coloring works
to relieve stress is this,
if you think of stress or anxiety as mental turmoil,
the complex designs provide a structure
that your mind can used to untangle itself.
The coloring pulls you into a mindful state
that's relaxing and calming.
A 2012 study showed that freestyle coloring
where you color whatever you want was not as effective
at reducing anxiety as coloring mandalas.
So, there's something about the mandala pattern
that's therapeutic.
If you want to try this, I have some mandala patterns
that you can download from my website to get you started,
the link is in the description.
Recognizing your window of tolerance and identifying things
that kick you out of the window can help you intervene,
and do things that keep yourself in the window.
The wider your window,
the better you'll be able to manage your stress.
Watch this video for more on how stress is different
from anxiety, but yet can affect anxiety.
Thanks for watching, see you next time.