Widen the Window: Training Your Brain and Body to Thrive During Stress and Recover from Trauma

In this book reimagining the relationship between stress, trauma, and our day-to-day life, Dr. Elizabeth A. Stanley explains how we can build greater resilience in the face of pressure and how we can train our brains to handle stress more effectively. Rather than thinking of stress and trauma as distinct entities, Stanley encourages us to re-conceptualize these phenomena as existing on a continuum. If stress is a response to something we perceive as threatening or challenging and trauma is a response to a situation where we feel powerless or lack agency, things that are merely stressful for some may be traumatizing for others. Examining the cultural factors in America that make resilience more difficult to achieve, like our tendency to view stress as something to be suffered through rather than as a warning sign that we are pushing too hard, Stanley ultimately offers readers the tools to 'widen the window,' raising the threshold of what we find stressful so that even in high-stress contexts, we can access the ability to make good choices and exert some agency, averting a trauma response. A powerful book for these difficult times, and an excellent tool to boost creativity, curiosity, and compassion as we spend less time in the fight-or-flight response of stress.

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