Is It Attachment Insecurity, or Just a Narrow Window of Tolerance?

Sometimes when you feel overwhelmed, you feel agitated, restless, and like you’re in fight or flight – other times, overwhelm just leads you to feel shut down. In both cases, you’re operating outside of your window of tolerance, just in different ways.

The window of tolerance was first described by Dr. Dan Siegel in 1999, to explain why dysregulated nervous systems can swing from heightened to dampened emotional states quickly and unpredictably¹. It’s most often used in the context of understanding our reactions to trauma².

In this article, we’ll explain the window of tolerance, how to tell if you’re outside of your window of tolerance during attachment activation, and how to expand your window of tolerance to be able to emotionally regulate more effectively.

What Is the Window of Tolerance?

Your window of tolerance is your “safe and social” zone. This is where you’re able to learn and process information, as well as manage emotions². These emotions can still be intense, but when inside your window of tolerance you’re still able to tolerate them.

When arousal rises above your window of tolerance, you can experience intense fear, anger, and urgency. You might experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) like flashbacks and nightmares. Only a licensed professional can make a PTSD diagnosis.

This hyperarousal state is associated with fight-or-flight and activation of the sympathetic nervous system.

On the other side of the window of tolerance, we have hypoarousal. This can look like symptoms of depression: a feeling of flatness, emptiness, and helplessness. You can experience intense “brain fog” and an absence of motivation. This is associated with activation of the parasympathetic nervous system and has been linked to the “flop” or “freeze” trauma responses.

In both zones outside of the window of tolerance, you’re not able to regulate emotions as normal and your brain’s information processing centres are “switched off”².

These two states of hyper- and hypoarousal can mirror hyper- and hypoarousal of the attachment system – so how can we tell whether it’s a triggered insecure attachment system or we’re outside our window of tolerance?

Hyperarousal vs. Hypoarousal: Nervous vs Attachment System

The main difference between over- or underactivation in your nervous system versus your attachment system is the focus of the experience: do you feel nervous and on edge in general, or just in regard to your relationship? Does the presence or absence of your partner immediately change whether you feel activated or flattened?

Attachment-related stress can certainly affect the nervous system, and a stressed nervous system in turn might trigger attachment insecurity. Therefore, it’s possible you won’t just experience one or the other – but knowing whether your nervous or attachment system is the first to trigger the other can help you to understand how to return to your window of tolerance.

It’s important to note that your attachment style doesn’t dictate how your nervous system will respond to stress – you can have attachment anxiety and be hypoaroused, or have attachment avoidance and be hyperaroused. People who struggle to stay in their window of tolerance typically cycle from one to the other as they overcorrect.

Why Looking Calm Isn’t the Same as Being Regulated

We often associate high stress with the hyperactivated state, since we easily understand the association between big emotions and distress, but the hypoactivated state is just as indicative of distress. It can be easy to mistake someone who’s unreactive for someone very calm; remember, the window of tolerance is not the absence of emotions, but the space in which you can cope with them.

The same concept appears in attachment theory: in people with dismissive-avoidant attachment styles, we can see heightened states of stress and brain activity related to emotional suppression, even though they can appear to be emotionally unaffected³, ⁴. Looking calm or unaffected doesn’t always mean that someone is doing fine.

Early Childhood Attachment Impacts on Your Window of Tolerance

As an infant, you’re born without the ability to regulate your own emotions. Your primary caregiver effectively regulates your nervous system for you, by being there for you and modelling their own regulation⁵. This is why we develop such strong attachments: we’re reliant on our caregivers physically and emotionally.

If your caregiver isn’t able to regulate their own nervous system, you might not have an opportunity to learn to regulate your own. Early insecure attachments can therefore inhibit your ability to learn emotional regulation skills growing up, which can make your window of tolerance smaller, or narrower, into adulthood.

Does My Adult Attachment Style Affect My Window of Tolerance?

Your attachment style is associated with your ability to emotionally regulate – we break this down in our emotion regulation article. In summary, insecure attachment styles emotionally regulate less effectively than secure attachment styles, even for dismissive-avoidants who appear to be fine on the surface.

Your ability to emotionally regulate is key to your window of tolerance: the more effectively you can regulate, the better you can cope with intense emotions, the wider your window of tolerance. Therefore, having secure attachments in your life and building a secure general attachment style could theoretically widen your window of tolerance.

If you have an insecure attachment style, you might also find yourself more often triggered by attachment-related difficulties. Conflict in your relationship can push you outside of your window of tolerance more easily than it would for someone with attachment security.

How Does Attachment Trauma Affect Your Window of Tolerance?

Traumatic experiences related to attachment can be deeply impactful. Unlike other traumas, such as natural disasters or accidents, relational trauma is often repeated, ongoing, and in violation of your trust, boundaries, and autonomy. It can sometimes lead to Complex PTSD.

Any kind of trauma can narrow your window of tolerance so that emotions you could previously cope with aren’t tolerable anymore. You might have strong reactions to things that used to be just a little stressful. In attachment trauma, this effect could be particularly noticeable.

Severe separation from an attachment figure, whether through death or absence such as incarceration, can also be traumatic, especially in childhood. This can have the same effect on narrowing your window of tolerance because it’s such a stressful experience.

However, people respond differently to different experiences and no two instances of trauma are experienced the same way: you can’t predict exactly how certain trauma will impact your window of tolerance. What we can do is observe patterns and learn what typically expands or narrows our windows of tolerance.

How to Return to and Expand Your Window of Tolerance

When you’re outside of your window of tolerance, what you need to do to get back to it depends on whether you’re hyper- or hypoaroused. If you’re hyperaroused and agitated, grounding and soothing can help bring you back down to your window of tolerance.

However, if you’re hypoaroused and low, these techniques to decrease your arousal can actually make you feel lower. When you’re below your window of tolerance, you need to raise your state of arousal – gentle movement and engaging in hobbies, even in a small way, can help bring you back up to your window of tolerance.

How to Expand Your Window of Tolerance

To expand your window of tolerance, everything that we usually recommend for emotional regulation skills can help: mindfulness, self-care, and leaning on social support in particular. Emotional regulation is actually made up of a set of several different skills – you can get information about where your emotional regulation strengths and weaknesses are with our free emotion regulation test.

Anything that helps you to feel in control and safe can support a wider window of tolerance. Sometimes, this could mean changing your environment or setting boundaries. We all benefit from different things in different circumstances; a licensed mental health practitioner can help you to understand more about what expands your window of tolerance.

Conclusions

Your window of tolerance is your safe, coping, information processing zone. You can be outside of your window of tolerance when you’re either above or below it. When you’re above your window of tolerance, you’re hyperaroused and in fight or flight. Calming activities can bring you back down. When you’re under your window of tolerance, you’re hypoaroused and in flop or freeze. Calming activities can bring you further down – try activating activities like movement to bring you back up.

Attachment insecurity is associated with greater difficulties in emotion regulation, which can mean your window of tolerance is narrower. If you have an insecure attachment system, you might also experience more frequent triggers that push you out of your window of tolerance.

Even if your window of tolerance is narrow, it is possible to widen your window of tolerance and experience more balance. Improving your emotion regulation skills and creating a supportive environment can widen your window of tolerance.

FAQs

Can your window of tolerance change?

Yes, you can widen your window of tolerance through supporting your emotion regulation skills and feelings of safety.

Is a small window of tolerance permanent?

A small or narrow window of tolerance isn’t permanent. Although stress and trauma can narrow your window of tolerance, you can widen your window of tolerance again through cultivating a supportive environment and building emotion regulation skills.

Can two people with narrow windows be in a relationship?

If two people with a narrow window of tolerance are in a relationship, you might find that you easily trigger each other to be outside of your windows of tolerance. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t be in a relationship – learning about your individual needs, how you impact each other, and your relationship dynamics can help you to work together to stay regulated and widen your windows of tolerance.

References

1. Siegel D. The Developing Mind. New York. The Guilford. 1999.
2. Corrigan FM, Fisher JJ, Nutt DJ. Autonomic dysregulation and the window of tolerance model of the effects of complex emotional trauma. Journal of psychopharmacology. 2011 Jan;25(1):17-25.
3. Eilert DW, Buchheim A. Attachment-related differences in emotion regulation in adults: A systematic review on attachment representations. Brain sciences. 2023 May 31;13(6):884.
4. Roisman GI. The psychophysiology of adult attachment relationships: Autonomic reactivity in marital and premarital interactions. Developmental psychology. 2007 Jan;43(1):39.
5. White LO, Schulz CC, Schoett MJ, Kungl MT, Keil J, Borelli JL, Vrtička P. Conceptual analysis: A social neuroscience approach to interpersonal interaction in the context of disruption and disorganization of attachment (NAMDA). Frontiers in psychiatry. 2020 Dec 23;11:517372.