Daily Habits to Reduce Everyday and Acute Stress
By Sophia Fay, BS and Sharon Brock, MS, MEd
Stress is a part of life, and some are able to cope with life’s stressors more skillfully than others. If you find yourself constantly anxious, angry, or shut down, you’re not alone. The good news is that there are things you can do to become more resilient so you can roll with the punches of everyday stressors and improve your ability to cope with life’s significant challenges with greater strength and ease.
What is the Window of Tolerance?
When our nervous system is balanced, we are operating within what’s called the Window of Tolerance, a concept developed by Dan Siegel, PhD at UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center. Within this “window,” we feel grounded, open, and emotionally regulated, even in the face of a challenge. If we’re above our window, our nervous system is hyperaroused, and we can feel overwhelmed, angry, or anxious. If we’re below our window, our nervous system is hypoaroused, and we can experience depression, disassociation, or feeling frozen. When we are above or below our window, we are operating from the fight-flight-freeze part of the brain and are less able to think rationally and clearly.
The size of our window of tolerance is determined by how well we’re able to cope with life’s stressors, and it’s different for everyone. For example, a 5-year-old can become enraged when a toy is taken from them. An adult, however, may feel disappointed, but they typically won’t cry and stomp their feet and are able to move on quickly. Therefore, the adult has a larger window of tolerance than the child because they can bounce back with less reactivity.
Unfortunately, when we have ongoing stress, we can get “stuck” above or below our window resulting in chronic anxiety, anger, or shutdown. Luckily, there is something we can do about this. The size of our window is not fixed, and Dr. Siegel’s research shows that we can expand our window over time, increasing our capacity to handle everyday stressors.
How to Expand the Window of Tolerance
The goal isn’t to eliminate stress–it’s to become more resilient in the face of it. To create a toolbox that supports resilience, the Stanford Lifestyle Medicine team members shared practices they utilize to expand their windows and promote well-being on a regular basis:
• Movement breaks throughout the day – Stretch, squat, dance, or use resistance bands between meetings to reset both body and mind. (Marily Oppezzo, PhD, MS and BJ Fogg, PhD)
• Visual reminders of calm – Place inspiring quotes, framed photos of loved ones, calming objects, or a meditation cushion where I can easily see them during the day. (Steven Crane, MS and Jessica Hope, RN, MSN, WHNP)
• Tactile tools – Holding and squeezing therapy putty can relieve stress during online meetings. (Jamie Zeitzer, PhD)
• Journaling – Writing out anxious thoughts before bed helps me release them and make sleep easier. (Rachele Pojednic, PhD, EdM)
• Stepping away from screens and shifting your gaze – While working at a computer, looking out a window for 30 seconds several times per day helps the nervous system register safety and calm. (Maris Loeffler, LMFT, MA)
• Reframing thoughts – Notice catastrophic thinking and replace it with grounded alternatives like, “I’m not alone in feeling this way. Others have gone through similar circumstances with strength, so I can too.” (Shaliza Shorey, PsyD)
• Mind-Body practices – Engaging in mind-body practices, such as meditation, yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi, or Qi Gong. (Sharon Brock, MS, MEd)
• Pet therapy – Carving out daily walks with my dog. (Anne Friedlander, PhD)
• Breathwork – Pausing throughout the day to take three deep breaths. (Barbara Waxman, MS, MPA)
• Getting outside – Taking a couple of walks daily, soaking in the sunshine, and enjoying the trees and flowers. (Lisa Shah, PA-C, DipACLM)
Expanding our window of tolerance is like building an emotional muscle—it takes practice and consistency. Whether listening to uplifting music every morning, smelling your favorite essential oil at your desk each day, or taking a nightly bubble bath, it’s essential to identify what works for you and incorporate these practices into your everyday schedule.
What to Do When Life Hits Hard
Sometimes, we experience acute stress from an unexpected event, such as a health diagnosis, a financial crisis, or the loss of a loved one. These highly stressful incidents require additional support to bring our nervous systems back into balance. Tending to our spiritual health is one way to manage higher levels of stress.
What is Spiritual Health?
Spiritual health can be described as the capacity to find meaning, purpose, connection, and dignity in one’s life. This includes experiences of gratitude, joy, belonging, inspiration, and the sacred. If you’re not often having these uplifting experiences, your spiritual health may be deficient.
“As biological beings, we need to strengthen our physical health, but we are also psychological, social, and spiritual beings, so we need to tend to those aspects of our health, as well,” says Chaplain Bruce Feldstein, MD, BCC, head of Stanford Lifestyle Medicine’s Gratitude & Purpose pillar. “Spiritual health is essential for navigating stressful events in our lives.”
Stress and spiritual health have an inverse relationship—when stress is high, joy, connection, inspiration, and gratitude are low. Therefore, when we are out of our window of tolerance, we can do a spiritual practice to bring ourselves back into balance.
For example, when we feel angry, anxious, or depressed, Dr. Feldstein recommends we stop, take a deep breath, and ask ourselves, “What am I grateful for in this moment?” With this simple practice, we shift our attention from the stressor to something good in our lives. We widen our lens to acknowledge that even though there is something challenging, that is not the whole story. There are other meaningful aspects of life that are also present.
Relationships that Strengthen Spiritual Health
“During times of acute stress, I like to consider key relationships for staying buoyant,” says Dr. Feldstein. “These relationships with self, others, and the transcendent can form a comforting safety net during difficult times.”
1) Relationship with your Self:
When life hits hard, engaging in solo practices such as meditation, prayer, or writing affirmations can ignite the power within us. We are moved to our learning edge; we can embolden our courage and confidence and choose to see the challenge as an opportunity to grow.
“Let us appreciate that we are finite beings. On the one hand, we can only do what our body and being allow us to do. On the other hand, it is also true that we can do more than we can possibly imagine or dream,” says Dr. Feldstein.
To strengthen your relationship with yourself, you can tell yourself empowering statements such as, “I can muster my grit,” “I can do more than I can possibly imagine,” and “I totally and completely accept myself even if I feel vulnerable.”
2) Relationship with Others:
As social beings, we live in relation with others: family, friends, people in the community and at work. When challenges become too overwhelming to handle on our own, let us consider relationships with others that are nourishing and promote resilience.
These relationships can include a soul friend, a therapist, and people who have gone through the same challenge you are currently facing.
“When navigating a difficult time, joining a support group or attending community or spiritual gatherings can provide caring support,” says Dr. Feldstein.
3) The Relationship with the Transcendent:
“As human beings, we are in relationship with that which is greater than our individual self and others,” says Dr. Feldstein. “We are in relationship with all of life, history, world, existence, and that which goes by many names, such as God, Jesus, Allah, Atman, the Source, the One, and Mystery. Our nervous systems are wired to experience moments of awe, inspiration, joy, belonging, grace, peace, gratitude, the scared, holiness, oneness, being in the flow, and synchronicity. Possibilities for transcendent moments abound.”
There are many ways to connect with the transcendent, such as taking mindful walks in nature, appreciating art and music, engaging in movement and dance, and through religious rituals. These activities allow us to ignite our spirit, connect to the Ultimate, and bolster our resilience. We connect with the part of ourselves that is pure—the part of ourselves that cannot get sick and is not affected by financial crisis or profound loss. In this state, we can gain wisdom, perspective, and new ways of seeing the challenge we’re facing.
“Acceptance of whatever is happening—whether we like it or don’t like it, understand it or don’t understand it—can bring a degree of serenity and expand our window of tolerance,” says Dr. Feldstein. “Strong spiritual health includes the possibility of hope that things can get better, even when we can’t yet see the path forward.”
