Picture this: you’re having a disagreement with someone and they’re pushing all of your buttons. You get upset and start crying, and now you’re frustrated that you’re crying and you’re lashing out without really thinking about what you’re saying. Fast forward to an hour or so later, when you’re on your own and feeling much calmer. Suddenly 120 different ways you could have responded to that argument come to mind. And maybe you even feel some guilt for saying things you know you shouldn’t have said and you don’t know why you said but, in the moment, you just couldn’t help yourself. Sound familiar?
This is actually a super common experience. Often, in situations where we feel triggered and become emotional, our emotions call the shots instead of our rational, grown-up, mature brain. But why is that? Believe it or not, there is a neurobiological reason for this, which I will do my best to explain below. Then we will look at some ways we can start taking charge in these situations again, because we can definitely hack our neurobiology!
What is the Window of Tolerance?
Our window of tolerance is essentially our optimal level of arousal. When we are in our window, we can make it through the day feeling relatively calm and grounded, no matter what is thrown at us. Yes, we may experience stress or anger or sadness, but we know we can tolerate these emotions when we are in our window. We can refer to our window of tolerance as the green zone, and this is where we want to spend most of our time.
Now, everyone’s window of tolerance is different and will shrink and expand throughout our lives. For example, when we’ve experienced trauma or a lot of stress, our windows tend to be smaller. This means that it probably doesn’t take much to trigger us and send us out of our window. On the flip side, if we learn to cope with stress in a healthier way and have plenty of lovely experiences in our lives, our window can grow so that far less things trigger us.
When we are triggered and sent out of our window of tolerance, we can be in one of two levels. The first is called hyperarousal and is characterized by fight or flight. We can refer to this as the yellow zone. When we are in this zone, we might be feeling restless, agitated, irritable, angry, anxious, etc. Or we might sail right past this zone into the next one, called hypoarousal or freeze/shutdown. This is the red zone and is our body’s most ancient stress response. It’s often characterized by lethargy, fatigue, depression or dissociation (i.e., feeling separate from ourselves or out of body).
Breaking Down the Brain
This next section is going to break down the brain for you. I’m aware that this is a bit of a detour but I promise that it’s relevant and that I will get back to how this relates to the window of tolerance! Still with me? Good. So at the risk of oversimplifying things, our brain is made up of 3 main parts. And it’s important to understand these 3 main parts to understand what is happening when big emotions kick in.
First, we have the brain stem, which is the first part of the brain to develop. We also call this part the Reptilian Brain. This is the part of the brain that is in charge of the functions that help to keep us alive, and it’s very instinctive and reactive as its main job is keeping us safe.
Next, we have the limbic system, which is the middle part of our brain. This section of the brain can be called the Emotional Brain. It houses the majority of our emotional functions and helps the Reptilian Brain in reacting to real and perceived danger and keeping us safe. The Emotional Brain is also home to the amygdala, which is our brain’s threat detector.
Finally, at the top of the brain we have the prefrontal lobes, or what we refer to as the Rational Brain. This is the part of the brain that develops last in life. The Rational Brain is in charge of logical thinking and reasoning (shocker, I know).
Putting It All Together
Okay, so back to our regularly scheduled programming. When our brain’s threat detector (i.e., the amygdala) detects a threat, it sends us into survival mode. Now, this threat can be real or perceived, the amygdala doesn’t really care. It might be an actual bear in the room or your co-worker not saying hello to you when they normally do. And we might not consciously be aware of what the threat is.
Regardless of the actual nature of the threat, our system is already hard at work at this point sending us into either fight, flight, freeze or shutdown. In other words, it is sending us out of our window of tolerance and into the yellow or red zone. And when we are out of our window of tolerance, the Rational Brain actually goes offline and leaves the Emotional and Reptilian brains to call the shots. You can imagine what kind of havoc that might wreak. But this also explains why things can feel out of our control when we are overcome with big emotions.
Message of Hope
The good news is, we do not have to remain at the mercy of our amygdala and Emotional/Reptilian brains. I mentioned earlier in this post that our window of tolerance can shrink due to our experiences, but it can also grow! The first step is simply to become aware that this might be happening to us and start paying attention to our potential triggers. The second step is to intentionally use tools and strategies to bring us back into our window/green zone when we’re out of it. This will ultimately broaden our window so less things trigger us in future.
Luckily, there are many strategies we can use to bring the rational part of the brain back online and get us back in our window/green zone. Many of these are detailed in the various posts on this blog, so be sure to check those out! Some other great places to start include:
- Practice mindfulness regularly
- Go to therapy
- Check-in with yourself throughout the day (for example, you might ask yourself if you are in the green, yellow or red zone in any given moment)
- Hit pause by taking time outs from potentially triggering situations
CONCLUSION
Emotions are a complex thing and it can feel scary and discouraging when it feels like they run the show. While we can’t necessarily control the emotions we are having, we can learn to control how we respond to them. This can feel empowering and change the nature of our relationship with our emotions for the better.
