The Stress Spectrum and Learning to Read the Nervous System

The Stress Spectrum is described as positive, tolerable, and toxic. It refers to the stress response system's effects on the body, not the actual stressful experiences or events. Understanding the science behind reactions and learning skills like reading the nervous system, also called "tracking" in biological-based models like the Community Resiliency Model and the Trauma Resiliency Model, can help a person learn to become aware of the physical reactions of the stress response. This sensory awareness, also called interoception, can be a portal to self-healing as a person learns to distinguish between sensations of distress and well-being.

Positive Stress

The Stress Spectrum defines positive stress as the body's response to a mild or moderate stressor. A positive stress response includes physiological changes like increased heart rate, blood pressure, and mild elevations in hormone levels. Internal balance returns quickly.

Tolerable Stress

A tolerable stress response is an adaptive response to time-limited stressors. It sets off the body's alert systems, resulting in a greater sense of distress that is more difficult to overcome. Time-limited stress responses result in short-acting physiological reactions. This kind of stress response does not decrease without the help of a support system and other interventions. However, the balance does return after a short period.

Toxic Stress and Allostasis

Toxic stress response refers to ongoing and relentless body responses to intense stressors. When allostasis goes on too long, it causes changes in the way the brain functions. The cumulative toll can impair a person's physical and mental health.

Allostasis is defined as the brain's regulation of the body by anticipating its needs before they arise. These internal reactions to an external stressor include activating the stress-response system. These are normal and adaptive responses to stress, resulting in physiologic stability in the face of an external challenge. These systems revert to normal baseline states after acute external stress or challenge.

However, dysregulation of these systems may occur when the stressor becomes chronic and unbuffered by internal and external resources like social support. This results in pathophysiologic alterations to these responses, such as hyperactivation of the allostatic systems. Over time this dysregulation contributes to an increased risk of disease affecting our immune system. This pathophysiologic response is called "allostatic load."

Adverse Childhood Experiences

Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) without social support that can mitigate the impact of such incidents can result in prolonged activation of the stress response systems. ACEs disrupt the development of brain architecture and other organ systems and increase the risk for stress-related disease and cognitive impairment into adulthood. (Fellitti 1998)

Paradigm Shift: Conventional, Trauma-Informed, Resiliency-Informed

As we better understand the Stress Spectrum and ACEs, shifting from conventional thinking to trauma and resiliency-informed thinking can reduce human suffering. Conventional thinking assumes problematic behaviors result from a person being "bad," and they must be punished. The trauma-informed thinking brings awareness to the need to be sensitive to what happened to a person and that challenging behaviors may result from their traumatic experiences. Resiliency-informed thinking is the action of sharing skills of well-being to reduce the physiological and emotional toll of traumatic experiences. Instead of asking what is wrong, we ask what happened to you and then ask questions like, "What or who has helped you get through?" and "What are your strengths?"

Public and mental health strategies must include interventions focusing on the biology of the human nervous system (bottom-up) rather than cognitive approaches (top-down processing). Integrating interoceptive awareness to the positive experiences in life can help a person experiencing stress return to present-moment awareness by experiencing the pleasant or neutral sensations connected to their strengths, for example.

Interoception and Reading Your Nervous System

The tracking skill increases the individual's sensory awareness—or interoception—to develop a greater capacity for emotion regulation and embodied states of well-being. There is a growing body of research about interoception (e.g., Paulus & Stein, 2006). Interoception is defined as observing body sensations concerning how we think, feel, and move. The insula is a part of the brain that helps the body and mind communicate with one another. It reads physical states of the body (sensations) like pain, an itch, and temperature. Based on that information, it communicates to the cortex to take action to keep the body in a state of internal balance.

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Farb et al. (2015) describe interoception as the sense of signals originating within the body. Interoception is critical for our sense of embodiment, motivation, and well-being. Interoception is related to well-being as it is connected to self-regulation, helping humans maintain homeostasis. Farb (2015) further states that emotionally balanced body signals are also thought to contribute to broader mood states that support emotional balance.

Tracking Your Resources Exercise

1. For a few moments (about 12 seconds), think about something or someone that uplifts you, gives you strength, or brings you peace.

2. As you think about a personal resource, describe the details to yourself—the colors, sounds, smells, and images of your resource. Next, bring awareness to the pleasant or neutral sensations connected to your resource.

3. If unpleasant sensations arise, you can draw attention to a place in the body that feels more pleasant. You can also draw your attention outside your body by looking around your space and noticing what catches your eye.

4. Continue to notice the pleasant or neutral sensations.