If you are staying with your parents, where do you mark the window of tolerance with them?
If you love eating food, can you eat the same dish every day?
If you trust your best friend blindly, how far would your tolerance window go to help them?
If you are a fitness freak, how many days can you go without exercising?
In a relationship, do you have rules of dos and don’ts with your partner? If not, are you OK with them cheating on you?
We all have a tolerance window in every aspect of our lives where things stay optimal and balanced.
We all practice the idea of a window of tolerance in our daily schedule.
I came across this term while reading an article on psychological behavior, but this idea hit me as our general problem and how we are all connected to the term ‘window of tolerance’ throughout.
And that brings us to…
What is a window of tolerance?
The Dan Siegel window of tolerance is a theory that revolves around the idea that every human has a defined territory where they are comfortable with the experiences they receive.
This is the optimal arousal zone where the person stays relaxed and stress-free taking good care of themselves.
In simple terms, let’s say you are thirsty and you get a glass of water.
That’s where the range of your window of tolerance starts.
You might be able to drink up to three, four, or even five glasses of water.
That’s where it ends.
So the range of your window of tolerance becomes 1-5.
Some can be fine with half a glass or can even go six.
The idea is when one exists within the window of tolerance, they function their best. And if the situation compels them to move out of this window they become hyper or hypo aroused.
So let’s understand how to expand window of tolerance!
What impacts the window of tolerance
Let’s say your window of tolerance in drinking water is 1-5, if you haven’t had water in like five hours, your tolerance range can shift to 3-5 or 2-7.
The number might differ from person to person. But the root cause was staying thirsty for the past five hours.
This is what happens in our daily lives.
Your optimal arousal zone is what you expect to be in throughout your day.
But with troubles, challenges, and unplanned hurdles, the balance gets disturbed. Stress, trauma, uncertainty, and anxiety pop in and looks like they are helping us to come out of it.
All this might be the reason you find yourself calm at one moment and disturbed the next.
Times when you feel nothing is really working out.
It all comes down to you being out of your window of tolerance and not knowing how to widen it.
And that’s why it’s important to learn how to expand window of tolerance.
3 easy ways how to expand your window of Tolerance
Widening the range to define zone of tolerance can help you be optimal with the situations around you.
Call it people, situations, work, schedule, feelings, or simply your thoughts.
You would not like getting these things disturbed in your life.
So here’s how you should define your window of tolerance with everything.
Map your window of tolerance
You need to know if it’s 2-5, 3-7, or any number of glasses of water that would be enough.
Understand where your window of tolerance stands currently.
Then analyze how open and friendly you are in your inner life.
How do you spend your spare moments?
If you feel lost when there’s spare time, there is a high chance you might have a narrow window of tolerance and you would want to widen it. Maybe set a dedicated self care morning routine for it.
Use self-regulation techniques
If you are hyper-aroused, calm yourself down with simple homemade grounding techniques like being aware of your drifting thoughts, directing attention towards an object, scanning your body, and focusing on your breath.
Follow a trauma-informed approach.
Here you believe that you know your best so that you take an active role in defining your range.
You get to decide how much time would you dedicate to your friends, family, social media, or even to yourself.
Provide yourself a progressive exposure
Instead of fighting your fear all at once, expose yourself to your vulnerability in a controlled way.
Like if you are restless about not receiving a notification, say a message from your loved one, or quick likes to your recent posts, don’t just get away from your phone all at once.
Pick 5 minutes of no checking the notifications, or one hour of staying away from your phone.
The amount of time should be inversely proportional to the range of window tolerance you already are at.
If it is staying away from your phone for 30-45 minutes, you can fix your time as two hours.
Expanding your window of tolerance takes time and practice. It is like you are organizing your life while knowing your boundaries to keep.
It’s like learning a new skill.
You need to try different methods to see which ones help you the most. The most important being strengthening all the pillars of self care.