What Does It Actually Mean to Be Dysregulated?

The term dysregulation is used a lot these days. We hear about nervous system dysregulation, emotional dysregulation, and being “dysregulated” in everyday conversations.

But what does it actually mean?

Dysregulation refers to a state in which our body's stress response system moves outside its usual range. We may become highly activated, anxious, panicked, angry, restless, or overwhelmed, or we may move toward shutdown, numbness, disconnection, or collapse.

Most of us have what is often called a window of tolerance: a range in which we can think, feel, connect, and respond effectively without becoming overly activated or shutting down. Dysregulation can occur when we move outside that window and temporarily lose some of our ability to tolerate what is happening and respond effectively.

But there is an important distinction:

Having big feelings or experiencing intense activation does not necessarily mean that you are dysregulated.

Dysregulation itself isn't inherently a problem. Our nervous systems are designed to move in and out of different states in response to what is happening around us. Resilience isn't about staying regulated all the time or never becoming activated. Rather, it involves being able to move through activation and return to a more regulated state, with greater flexibility and less time spent feeling stuck in chronic activation, shutdown, or overwhelm.

What Does Actually Dysregulation Look Like?

Dysregulation can look like being in such an intense state of reactivity that you temporarily lose access to parts of yourself that normally help you think, make decisions, and respond effectively. It can feel like a deer in headlights, overwhelmed by what is happening and unable to access your usual capacity to respond.

It might look like lashing out at someone you love in a hurtful way, only to feel intense guilt or shame afterward. Or you might become so overwhelmed by anxiety or panic that you can't find your words, think clearly, or stay connected to what you're feeling and needing in that moment.

It can also be much more subtle. Someone may live with an underlying state of fear that leads them to appease and please others, agree quickly, or act like everything is fine while internally, a part of them is screaming.

Sometimes what is happening internally is very different from what someone else can see on the outside. Someone may look calm while their body is tense and rigid. They may smile, agree, and accommodate while holding intense fear or anger inside.

These responses aren’t inherently wrong or bad. They are ways our nervous system may respond when something feels threatening or overwhelming.

What Can Contribute to Dysregulation?

Sometimes dysregulation begins with a current stressor or trigger, anything the nervous system reads as threatening, even if there is no actual danger. A tense conversation, a deadline, or an unexpected phone call can be enough to push someone outside their window of tolerance.

Our history matters too, and can influence how we respond to the stressors we encounter in the present. A past overwhelming experience or trauma can shape and influence our capacity to stay present with difficult emotions and stress. If we were raised under chronic stress, we may be more easily pushed outside our window of tolerance and become more reactive or overwhelmed. The ways we learned to survive can continue to influence how we respond to stress in the present.

There can be an emotional buildup of sorts from experiences we weren't able to successfully navigate at the time. Sometimes this can involve incomplete fight, flight, or freeze responses, ways our system tried to protect us when we didn't have enough support, resources, or sense of agency to fully move through what was happening.

Our physical state matters too. Not eating, poor sleep, illness, or physical exhaustion can temporarily reduce our capacity to tolerate stress.

Being Regulated Doesn't Mean Being Calm

One of the things that gets conflated when we talk about nervous system regulation is the idea that being regulated means being calm.

It doesn't.

You can be deeply connected to yourself while experiencing very intense emotions.

Being regulated doesn't mean keeping your emotions contained or within a “reasonable” range of expression. You might laugh loudly and move with excitement, express anger through a firm boundary, or sob on the floor because your dog died. What matters isn't how intense the emotion looks from the outside, but whether you can remain connected to yourself while experiencing it.

While learning to manage the intensity of our emotions can be important, I believe it can be even more important to learn how to be with them, to ride the waves of our emotions and become more familiar with how that emotional energy shows up in our bodies.

We might notice tension patterns, gestures, facial expressions, physical sensations, images, or thoughts. We can begin to put language to what we're experiencing and become curious about what the emotion might be communicating.

What am I feeling? What is happening inside me? What might I need right now?

Over time, we can develop a greater capacity to stay with ourselves, especially while experiencing difficult emotions.

We can learn to feel something deeply without necessarily being consumed by it or feeling the need to suppress it, act it out, or disconnect from ourselves.

In this sense, regulation is about becoming more able to stay connected to ourselves and our aliveness while experiencing what is here, and to better understand what our internal experience may be telling us.

How Somatic Therapy Can Help

Somatic therapy offers a way of developing this capacity. Rather than focusing only on the story of what happened, we can also become curious about what is happening inside you as you talk about it, your sensations, emotions, images, gestures, thoughts, and beliefs.

The work is gradual and collaborative. We don't have to force difficult experiences to the surface or calm every strong emotion. Instead, we can develop a greater capacity to stay present with ourselves and understand what our internal experience may be asking for.

I'm Alicia Ankenman, MA, LPC, SEP, BSP, a therapist based in Boulder, Colorado. I work with clients in Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette, Longmont, and surrounding communities. I integrate Somatic Experiencing®, Brainspotting, and Internal Family Systems (IFS)-informed work depending on what is most helpful for each person. Learn more about Alicia. If you're curious whether somatic therapy might be a good fit for you, I offer a free 15-minute consultation to talk about what you're experiencing and answer your questions.