What Is Arousal, Anyway?

Arousal is your body’s level of alertness—how ready you are to respond to what’s happening around you. It shifts constantly based on sleep, food, stress, the environment, and the demands of the moment. The goal isn’t to stay calm all day; it’s to match your energy to the activity. Think of how an adult behaves differently at a concert versus in a quiet library—that’s arousal regulation.

For kids, the first step in understanding arousal is noticing the body cues that signal a shift into stress. As adults, we know this feeling: running late, spilling your coffee, heart racing, shoulders tensing, frustration rising. Those cues tell us our arousal is climbing.

Programs like Zones of Regulation or How Does Your Engine Run? use cognitive strategies to teach these concepts. But we often start even simpler—with body awareness. Help children notice what their bodies are telling them:

• Heart rate

• Breathing speed

• Muscle tension (tight vs. loose)

• Voice volume and facial expressions

It’s important to practice this in both calm and challenging moments.

How Arousal Shifts Throughout the Day

Real life doesn’t typically deliver a perfect night’s sleep, a smooth commute, and a fridge full of your favorite snacks. Forgetting lunch, a jammed printer, or a spilled coffee can each spike arousal. A well-regulated system can recover from those spikes.

But for people with sensory differences, returning to baseline can be much harder. If your body already feels “off,” it takes more work to calm down and get back on track. When a child is experiencing sensory differences, there are often more triggers that they are running into day-to-day that are impacting their arousal state. Once you’re in a heightened, high-alert state, settling again isn’t always easy.

Arousal vs. Regulation: What’s the Difference?

These two terms are related, but not the same:

• Arousal: Your current level of alertness or energy and how it fits with the environment.

• Regulation: Your ability to recognize that level and use tools to shift it to match what the moment requires.

  
  

Someone who is well-versed in their regulation needs can either “gear up” or “calm down” depending on the situation. The more you and your child understand your internal cues—and what helps you shift—the easier it becomes to find that balanced “just right” zone.

How Occupational Therapy Helps

A big part of OT is discovering what supports your child’s regulation. In sessions, we observe how their body responds to arousal shifts and sensory differences that might be contributing to moments of high arousal. Next, we explore strategies that help return to a regulated state. Two tools that are often effective for children with sensory differences are:

• Movement 

• Breathing strategies 

  
  

Stay tuned—we’ll be breaking down how movement and breathing can support regulation in our upcoming posts!

References

1. Ayres, A. J. (1979). Sensory integration and the child. Western Psychological Services.

2. Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, 

   Attachment, Communication, Self-Regulation.