What is self-regulation?
Self-regulation is our ability to meet our neurological needs in order to be the best version of ourselves: Attentive, in control, and emotionally-resilient.
We OT’s like to call this our “just right” state. This state is “just right” for being able to participate in various day to day life activities.
If we cannot meet our regulatory needs, we become dysregulated.
Dysregulation can feel like:
Sitting in class or in a meeting and you just can’t focus.
Going out to a restaurant and feeling overwhelmed by the noises, smells, and crowds, making it difficult to relax or participate in the conversation.
Snapping at a family member when frustrated rather than calmly expressing your perspective.
Feeling like you don’t know where or how to start with something on your to-do list.
Feeling exhausted, or like you’re melting, crashing, or need a “hibernation” period when you finally get to your safe space.
Long-term dysregulation can look like:
Autistic burnout. Autistic burnout is different from other types of burnouts and can include extreme exhaustion, loss of typical skills, loss of ability to mask autistic traits. Autistic burnout has not yet been well-researched, but it’s likely that some forms of autistic burnout are a long-term period of significant dysregulation. Stressors such as frequent masking or disguising of autistic traits also likely have a significant link to burnout. You can read more about it here.
Avoiding/no longer engaging in activities you used to enjoy or be able to do
(such as seeing friends/socializing, work, hobbies outside of your home, school, etc.) Often when there are no other strategies available for managing regulatory needs, avoidance is used as a blanket strategy (with the cost of losing valued activities and roles in your life).
When dysregulation becomes really BIG, it can look like:
Fight/flight/freeze/fawn response
Fight: highly reactive or aggressive in communication or physical reaction
Flight: fleeing a space, retreating to be by oneself
Freeze: physically present but not mentally present
Fawn: submission to others as a coping strategy
**Some have difficulty noticing their dysregulation signals until they get to this big crash point. This can be due to a difference in the way internal signals (interoception) are processed and, therefore, emotional signals are processed (Alexithymia). You can read more on this here.
Self-regulation is a foundational skill, meaning that other higher-level skills (such as executive functioning, or social communication) are dependent upon it.
(Star Institute 2017)
For example, if someone is feeling overly anxious before a presentation and not able to self-regulate their emotions, they may be foggy-headed and stumble over their words, have their mind go blank and not be able to recall the presentation, or they may completely shut down and not be able to participate at all.
But, if they’re in their “just right” state, they will likely be able to think clearly, speak in their typical way, and share what they’ve been working on well.
Self-regulation is at the bottom of the needs pyramid, a foundational element for our “higher-level” skills to work.
Does this mean that self-regulation will fix my executive (dys)function?
Being in your “just right” state is essnetial for your executive functioning to work at it’s optimal baseline (If you have significant processing differences, such as with ADHD or Autism, you will likely have a different baseline in which you would also benefit from EF strategies +Self-Reg strategies.
Does this mean self-regulation will fix my social difficulties?
It is really important to feel like we’re in our “just right” state to be able to engage with others socially, clearly communicate our perspective, and to self-advocate to the best of our abilities. Will being able to mangage and move into our “just right” allow us to feel like we can engage more socially in ways that we would like? Probably. Will our “just right” resolve every aspect of our social engagement challenges? Probably not. For an autistic individual, there are typically a few factors that can be a part of social challenges (different communication style or interest areas/intensity compared with neurotypicals, lack of understanding/acceptance by neurotypical culture). However, self-advocacy in your just right state can help you work on bridging this divide :)
Is self-regulation something that just autistic individuals need?
Absolutely not! However, we largely self-regulate through our sensory systems, and if you have sensory differences it can be far more challenging to self-regulate! Individuals with significant sensory differences and ADHDers also can find it more challenging to regulate.
Self-regulation for these individuals typically takes more intentionality and effort to maintain a “just right” state.
