Core Concept #3 | The Window of Tolerance
The 3rd core concept brings all the pieces together to understand what dysregulation looks like. Stress has a significant impact on GI conditions. When you start to see your personal patterns of how you react to stress it can help you to learn how to support yourself in better ways.
Summary:
The previous videos reviewed how chronic GI disorders can be affected by factors beyond just the medical. Psychological factors, social factors, and dysregulation of your nervous system can all play a role. This final concept brings those elements together into one visual - the image of a window of tolerance.
Your window of tolerance determines how vulnerable or resilient you are to stress. The wider your window the more resilient you are to the stress of your GI issues & life in general. The more narrow your window the more vulnerable you are to stress.
There are three zones in the window of tolerance
The green zone in the middle is the window of tolerance where you’re regulated & resilient to stress. You are able to respond to stress rather than react to it.
The upper red zone is called hyperarousal. You get here when the SNS, gas pedal, fight or flight reaction takes over. The closer you get to the red zone of hyperarousal to more you lose the ability to calm yourself down & you start to feel anxious or agitated. It can lead to overwhelm, anxiety, fear, or anger. If you get caught in hyperarousal for too long it can cause panic attacks, rage and a number of mental health conditions.
The lower blue zone is called hypoarousal. You get here when the PNS, brake pedal, or freeze reaction takes over. The closer you get to the blue zone of hypoarousal to more you lose the ability to be engaged with life & start to shut down. The emotional hijacking in this zone can lead to depression, emotional numbing, fatigue, lack of motivation & brain fog. It keeps your mind stuck in the shutdown, tuned out & apathetic mode. If you get caught in hypoarousal for too long it can cause a number of mental health conditions associated with depression.
When stress gets to be too much it leads to either of these extremes of dysregulation. Dysregulation fuels the fire of any chronic digestive disease, disorder or syndrome.
Building awareness about your patterns of dysregulation can be helpful for your healing journey. The Window of Tolerance is a great framework to see the patterns of what happens in you when stress gets the better of you. Building this awareness helps give you some warning signs before you slip into dysregulation and potentially another flare of symptoms.
Where to Go From Here
#1 | If you’re not clear on what type of GI disorder you have (structural vs functional / disorder of the gut-brain interaction), this is an important step you don’t want to skip. You can start with this video - The 2 Types of Digestive Disorders
If you have chronic GI symptoms, haven’t seen a gastroenterologist & have the means to see one this is a critical step. There are many medical interventions that need to be considered with a medical provider. You could end up missing some important low-hanging fruit to getting relief from your GI sxs.
#2 | I would encourage you to take these concepts & make them more personal for you by exploring the window of tolerance & related concepts through the resources below.
Selected Resources:
The Window of Tolerance Awareness Worksheet
This worksheet was created by a blogger & it will help you identify what types of dysregulation you may experience. If you’d like to read the excellent blog post where this worksheet came from to learn more about the window of tolerance, here it is - Understanding the Window of Tolerance and How it Affects You
Polyvagal Theory
Polyvagal theory is a useful theory to take your understanding of the nervous system another level deeper than what was covered in this video. The book Anchored is a well-written & user-friendly guide to poly-vagal theory without all the overwhelming jargon. (Collected quotes from the author to give you a feel for the book)
Books
The people who study & treat psychological trauma are the pioneers, creators & experts on how the nervous system gets dysregulated & how to build paths back to regulation. This book is a classic if you want to go deeper on this.
Another classic book, in it’s 3rd edition, about the nervous system & the way stress affects it. “Most of us do not lie awake at night worrying about whether we have leprosy or malaria. Instead, the diseases we fear are illnesses brought on by the slow accumulation of damage, such as heart disease and cancer. When we worry or experience stress, our body turns on the same physiological responses that an animal's does, but we do not resolve conflict in the same way—through fighting or fleeing. Over time, this activation of a stress response makes us sick.”
Dr Dan Siegle
The creator of the window of tolerance concept is a psychiatrist named Dan Siegel. You can explore his books & other resources here.