Why do I always feel so stressed?

One thing I love to teach clients in therapy is the concept of the Window of Tolerance. Originally developed by Dr. Dan Siegel, MD, the window of tolerance explains that each of us has an optimal calm zone, and when we experience a stressful situation or threat, we get out of our calm zone and become either hyperaroused (anxious) or hypoaroused (numb and frozen). 

When you’re in your window of tolerance, you can take things in and handle life’s punches. You’re alert but calm. It’s not that you’re feeling happy and things are perfect, but rather that you can cope with frustrations and keep functioning. When you experience a stressful situation and your brain perceives a threat, your brain sends you into a natural stress response mode in order to survive this stress and threat. If you have heard of the fight, flight, and freeze modes, these are normal, adaptive stress responses that help us get through a crisis or threat. And these stress responses will send you out of your window of tolerance.

What might this feel like? In therapy, I work with clients to help them understand their unique responses to stress and recognize signs they are out of their window. But generally, when you become hyperaroused, this may feel like explosive stress, yelling, irritability, the urge to hit or stomp (fight mode), or it may feel like panic and anxiety, the urge to escape, heart pounding, and shakiness or jitteriness (flight mode). You can also become hypoaroused under stress, which may feel like losing track of time, shutting down, feeling numb or sluggish or little energy, increased depression, the urge to stay in bed and not do anything, or “dissociation”- feeling outside of one’s body or not being connected to the present (freeze mode).

This is ultimately a good thing our brains do– we want our smart brains to help us survive a true danger, like if we encountered a bear on the sidewalk or if a threatening storm was coming. In these moments, it makes sense for us to be outside of the window of tolerance. After the threat passes and under safe circumstances, eventually you come back into your window (this can feel easier with the help of some coping strategies learned in therapy).

However, if you have experienced chronic trauma, like the repeated stressful experiences that occur in abusive homes as a child or during an abusive or scary relationship, your window of tolerance can actually shrink and you tend to operate in a hyper- or hypoaroused state. Additionally, when you experience a trauma trigger and are reminded about something related to the trauma, your brain reacts to that triggering reminder as if the threat is happening right now. Your body tries to help you survive and you are sent into fight, flight, or freeze mode and out of your window of tolerance. Survivors of trauma often find themselves feeling overwhelmed and hyperaroused or hypoaroused a lot more often due to these trauma triggers and a smaller window. 

Your window may also be smaller during more vulnerable periods of increased stress, such as bringing home a newborn baby, experiencing a health crisis, extreme work demands and professional pressure, or managing caregiving responsibilities for everyone else in your life. Things that you may think “should” be easier actually feel like a huge deal, feel like too much to handle, and everything feels like a crisis. 

The good news is, it’s actually possible to expand the window of tolerance again. You don’t have to feel so easily dysregulated and overwhelmed forever. With the help of a therapist, you can learn about your own window of tolerance, understand your signs of dysregulation and stress, and learn what to do to manage those stress responses and cope with stress and trauma symptoms. 

If you find yourself feeling stressed out or triggered all the time, I would love to teach you more about the window of tolerance and help you increase your window so you can feel more equipped to handle stress. Reach out to schedule a consultation call and let’s talk about how we can work together towards your goals.