Transcript
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A listener production. Hey everyone, it's me Kaz coming at
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you today with a solo episode. This is something we're
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going to be doing every second episode from now on.
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I'm going to bring you an idea that I think
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you will find really interesting and useful and relevant to
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your life. Today, I'm going to talk to you about
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the window of tolerance, which is essentially an idea that
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will help you to understand how you can more effectively
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manage your emotions and cope more effectively with life. And
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I just want to add that what we're talking about
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today is really general day to day life stress. If
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you realize that what you're experiencing is more extreme or
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you need more personal support, then obviously I would always
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recommend that you have a chat with your GP and
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get a referral to a psychologist if there are issues
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that you feel like you need more professional help to manage. So,
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the window of tolerance is a term that is used
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to describe the optimal zone of arousal. So essentially, it
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is the zone in which you can handle stress on
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a day to day basis without going into overwhelm or
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shutting down. So doctor Dan Siegel is a psychiatrist who
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originally coined this term window of tolerance. And when you
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are within your personal window of tolerance, it means that
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you will experience all the normal ups and downs, and
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you can be busy and you can be stressed. But
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when you are within that window, you are emotionally regulated,
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so you can handle what is coming your way. You
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have the capacity to think clearly, to consider possibilities, to
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come up with solutions to problems. Your body is fairly relaxed,
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your mind is alert, you can stay focused. So it
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is this optimal zone where you can handle what life
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throws at you. So what can happen is that on
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occasion you might go outside your window of tolerance. So
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you can either go into what we call hyper arousal,
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where you basically go into the fight or flight state.
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That is where you are highly physiologically and emotionally aroused.
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This is where you become overwhelmed. So when you are
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in that hyper aroused state, when you've gone out say
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the top of the window, you've reached your upper limit
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and exited out the top of the window, then you
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might notice things like you become more angry and irritable,
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you might feel more anxious, you might experience panic, you
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become more emotionally reactive, and as we know, when you're
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in that fight or flight state, the way your body
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and brain responds is that essentially it shuts down your
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access to your prefrontal cortex, so this is the part
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of your brain that is required for thinking rationally and
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making good decisions and considering possibilities. Like you go into
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that intent, it's kind of threat response where you no
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longer have access to those higher level cortical functions of
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your brain, So you can become very rigid in your thinking,
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you can have trouble coming up with ideas and solutions,
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or you might experience racing thoughts anxious thoughts. The other
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possibility is that you can go into hypo arousal, which
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is the shutdown response or the collapse response. So often
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it's not that you go either out the top or
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out of the bottom of the window. Sometimes after a
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prolonged period of stress and overwhelm, then you can exceed
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your capacity to cope and then you can go down
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into hypo arousal. So that is more characterized by feeling numb,
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low in energy, feeling hopeless, very lethargic. Low mood can
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look and feel like hopelessness can look and feel like depression.
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Physiological and emotional arousal is on the low end, and
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what you really need to do is to work on
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getting it back up into the optimal range. Whereas when
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you're in the hyper arousal zone, your job is to
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calm back down and come back down into the optimal range.
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So to give you an example of how this looks
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in real life, I'm thinking of a client who came
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to see me once, who was a young woman, working mother,
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had had one child, happy relationship, had a mortgage. Obviously,
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having a baby is a stressful experience, but she was
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coping with that fine. She had lots of support, lots
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of resources. Had the second baby, obviously that's an added stress.
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Then what happened was her partner got a job which
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took him away a lot of the time, leaving her
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on her own to cope with these two kids. She
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was also working part time. There were some stresses at
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work to do with restructure, so this was also weighing
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on her. There was some uncertainty about the future of
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her job what that would mean for them financially. Meanwhile,
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she's managing all of this while a lot of the
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time being on her own with two little kids, not
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necessarily having the space to go out and get breaks,
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to spend time with friends, to do the things that
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she would normally do to look after her own self care.
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And so what happened over time with this layering of
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these stress aws with no reprieve really or only small
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breaks when her partner was home, that what she found
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over time was she thought she was coping, and she
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hit this point where she was experiencing heightened anxiety, almost
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like panic attacks. She was finding that she came to
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see me because she was concerned about she was lashing
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out at the kids, which was really unlike her. She'd
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basically exceeded her capacity to cope and she'd gone out
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into hyper arousal and hadn't even really noticed it was happening,
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because often what we do as humans is we just cope,
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We just deal with life, and we just get on
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with it, so busy with the doing and the coping
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that were not necessarily stopping and checking in with the
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little signs, and there probably had been multiple signs for
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her along the way that she was reaching her limit,
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and so she didn't know she'd reached it. Until she
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hit boiling point, and then all of these behaviors started
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coming out, which was so unlike her, so uncharacteristic of her,
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and it was enough for her to stop, to see
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her GP and to go and seek some support. I
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think another really great example which many people will relate to,
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is what we all went through during the pandemic, and
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particularly if you lived in a part of the world
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where there were many lockdowns. And I was fortunate to
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be in Queensland where I didn't have a lot of lockdowns,
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But if you live in Melbourne, for example, you'd have
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had a whole different experience. But even if you take
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yourself all the way back to the beginning of the
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pandemic in twenty twenty, around March April, where we all
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went into an eight week lockdown, at that time, none
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of us really knew what was going on. We weren't
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sure how long this was going to go on for.
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We didn't know how this was going to affect the
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financial markets, business, the economy, our jobs. So a lot
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of us were in quite a heightened state of arousal.
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And what happened was the longer that went on for people,
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the longer that we were in that elevated state. And
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if that meant that for you, you worked from home
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for longer, you and your partner both had to work
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from home, potentially in a really small space, if you
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had kids under your feet who couldn't access childcare, or
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you had to take on the role of being the
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homeschooling parent as well as managing your own work, and
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without any of the access to your regular outlets supports,
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the yoga class, the exercise class, socializing with friends, doing
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all of the things that you would normally do to
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keep yourself mentally and physically well. Then what a lot
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of people experienced was eventually perhaps they went into that
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anxiety experience. I know many people experienced anxiety for the
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first time in their lives. They had said to me
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that they had never experienced anxiety before, but suddenly they did.
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They found themselves experiencing things that they were very unfamiliar with.
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But also you might recall and you may have experienced yourself.
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A lot of people experienced this utter exhaustion. It was
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this iso fatigue that people talked about, saying, I don't
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know why I'm so exhausted when I'm not doing anything.
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I literally haven't left my house, Why am I so exhausted?
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And that is a classic example of hypo arousal, when
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you've been stuck in that high per state for such
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a long time that your body and brain can't cope
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with that anymore, and so it protects itself by shutting down.
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And so you go into that collapse, almost like curling
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up into the fetal position, honestly, where you have no energy,
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no motivation, no interest. You struggle to do the most
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basic things, And that's a perfect example of going below
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your window of tolerance. The really important thing to know
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about the window of tolerance is that everybody's window is unique.
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Everybody has a different width of their window, and so
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that is determined by things like just your genetics, your
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basic temperament, but also about your personal history, like if
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you have had a history of trauma, or if you've
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been exposed to chronic stress, if you've been in a
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situation or an environment where you've been really stressed for
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a really long time, or if you've experienced a significant trauma,
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then that can have the effect of narrowing your window.
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So what one person can comfortably cope with then might
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be too much for you. So there are certain personal
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factors and environmental factors that will impact the width of
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your window. The really important thing is to understand for
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yourself to have enough self awareness and the capacity for
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self regulation to be able to know within yourself when
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you are in danger of going outside of your window,
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so that you can do things to either help you
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to stay in your window or to help you to
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get back inside it if you go out. So on
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a day to day basis, we are going up and down.
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Our mood, our energy, our emotions, everything's going up and down.
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We're riding this wave all day. We get busy and stress.
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We've got a deadline, we've got a run to catch
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the bus, we've got a meeting, have to do a presentation.
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We get a little bit stressed, and then we go home,
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we relax, we have lunch with friends, and things calm down.
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So we're going up and down in terms of our
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own personal level of stress every day. So for somebody
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with a wider window of tolerance, they can handle a
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lot of stress, a lot of disruption, you know, things
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not turning out well, maybe relationship conflicts, stress at work,
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and they can comfortably stay within that window of tolerance
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their stress. But they're able to effectively manage it. For
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another person who has a narrow window of tolerance, it
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might just be that one or two things go wrong
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and they've gone outside of the window of tolerance. Their
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capacity to cope is It's like their nervous system is
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just that little bit more sensitive and their capacity to
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cope is just a little bit lower. So a small thing,
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a small upset, might send one person outside the window
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of tolerance, and another person might just take that in
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their stride. I think there are a couple of different
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applications to this. One is what can I be doing
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as a routine activities in my life to ensure that
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I stay inside my window of tolerance and to even
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over time widen that window. And we do have the
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capacity to widen our personal window. Even if you have
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had a history of chronic stress or trauma for whatever reason,
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you find yourself with quite a narrow window of tolerance,
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it is possible to widen that. So just daily self
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care activities, the things that we take for granted, like
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making sure that you're getting enough sleep, making sure that
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you're eating well and staying hydrated, staying off addictive substances.
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If you're winding down strategy is using alcohol or recreational
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drugs and just recognizing that all of that is potentially
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narrowing your window of tolerance. Meditation, things that you can
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do to help to come your nervous system, yoga, mindful movement, exercise,
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and again these are all there are some things that
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I guess are universally useful, but for you, whether you're
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a person who needs to go out and do a
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good cuttio vascular workout and get your heart rate going,
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or if you're somebody who really could use more of
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that soothing, meditative, mindful, slow movement like a yin yoga class.
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Yein yoga perfect for regulating your nervous system. Highly recommend.
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But these are the things that you could be doing
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as part of your normal routine to help to regulate
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your nervous system to help you to be able to
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function effectively and stay within that window of tolerance. Then
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the other important thing to know is that if you
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have gone out, or if you are in danger of
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going out into hyper arousal, then what do you need
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to do to calm back down. The first thing, obviously,
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is that you need to recognize that that has happened
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or is in danger of happening. So you might notice
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that you're starting to get more anxious and agitated. Your
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muscles are feeling tense, your neck is tense, your jaws clenched,
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you are feeling more emotionally reactive. You're maybe crying, bursting
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into tears over the smallest thing like These are all
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indications that you are exceeding your capacity to cope. If
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there is something that is normally not a problem for
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you and now it's suddenly really irritating for you, then
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this is a sign that you've gone into hyper arousal.
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So in that case, your job is to work on
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calming back down. So things that soothe your nervous system
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that help you to regulate your emotions, breathing, calling a
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supportive friend, just getting outside into nature, taking a break,