Gain clarity about how trauma shapes your nervous system and daily emotional responses.

Learn to recognize signs of hyperarousal and hypoarousal in your body.

Build language to describe regulation, overwhelm, and resilience with greater self-compassion.

Your Window of Regulation

This handout offers a clear, visual explanation of how trauma can narrow your window of tolerance and influence emotional regulation. It introduces three core nervous system states;hypoarousal, regulation, and hyperarousal, using accessible language and imagery to help you recognize how stress and trauma affect your body and emotions.  The handout is structured for quick understanding, making it easy to identify when you feel shut down, overwhelmed, or balanced. Readers gain insight into why certain reactions occur and how self-work and support can gradually expand their window of tolerance.  By understanding these patterns, individuals are better equipped to respond to stress with awareness, patience, and more intentional care.

About Breelove.ca

This resource, like all offerings in our digital library, was co-created by the Breelove collective: a team of culturally rooted, trauma-informed practitioners, drawing from real moments in real healing spaces. At Breelove.ca, we offer more than care, we create it in community. Our practice centers Black, Indigenous, racialized, queer, and other marginalized communities in the Maritimes, while holding space for all bodies throughout Turtle Island and Canada. Our approach combines clinical counselling with community wisdom: trauma-informed support, anti-oppressive frameworks, and real tools for emotional resilience. We offer 1:1 therapy, live support groups, self-paced healing courses, digital downloads like this one, and a free online community where you’re never expected to heal alone. Because we believe that we each deserve to be well, and to be witnessed as we get there.

Download the handout now to better understand your nervous system and support regulation during stress or trauma responses.

This trauma-informed, visual handout simplifies complex nervous system concepts, making regulation easier to understand, normalize, and integrate into everyday self-care and therapeutic work.

Get your free download now