Widening Your Window Of Tolerance
Do you ever have a stressor occur, such as your children having big feelings, and you react in a way that surprises you (e.g., yelling at your child), while other times you are able to feel patient with your child?
In the therapy world, we talk about a concept called the window of tolerance. When we are in the window of tolerance, we optimally operate in our day-to-day lives. Even when stressful events happen, we can access effective ways of coping and manage the situation well.
In the big feelings example, if you are in your window of tolerance, you might notice frustration with your child, but are able to stay calm and help your child through their emotions.
However, if you are not in your window of tolerance, you might react from a fight-or-flight state, which could look like yelling at your child (fight) or walking away (flight). Or, you might react from a freeze or fawn state, which could look like feeling panicked and not knowing how to respond (freeze), or feeling numb and shutting down, emotionally (fawn).
With these examples, you might recognize how your own parents responded to your big feelings as a child. Or you might recognize how you respond to your child’s big feelings.
So, how do we stay in our window of tolerance? There are a lot of things, but some examples include:
Prioritize sleep, if possible (7-9 hours per night)
Take medications as prescribed (and/or vitamins)
Practice daily self-care, even if only for 5 minutes (breathing meditation, walks outside, etc.)
Regularly schedule times to be ‘off’ as a parent (going to lunch with a friend, reading a book at a coffee shop, etc.)
Have an outlet to communicate your thoughts and feelings (therapy is awesome!)
Drink water
REST
Adequately nourishing your body (with food) throughout the day (hanger is real!)
It doesn’t feel good to be in fight-or-flight or freeze-or-fawn. We often regret the ways we handled stressors when not in our window of tolerance. The better we take care of ourselves, the better we are able to stay in our window of tolerance - which not only benefits our kids, but also ourselves, both as parents and as people.
What is something you can do today to help you stay in your window of tolerance?
