January 19, 2026
Many well-intended regulation strategies unintentionally train endurance, asking neurodivergent people to tolerate environments that overwhelm their body. This post explores why regulation often fails without environmental modifications and how interoception can guide ethical, body-led environmental change.
I want to start off in a really vulnerable place.
Because as an occupational therapist, and especially as someone who is interoception-informed, I spend a lot of time helping people understand their bodies: noticing body signals, making meaning of them, and finding what helps the body feel more comfortable.
So, regulation has always been central to my work.
But here’s my honest, vulnerable epiphany:
Even though I absolutely thought about the environment, I wasn’t considering it in a comprehensive way.
I was thinking about pieces like sensory, predictability, relationships, but not in the deep, systematic way that’s actually needed to support thriving and reduce distress.
And once I saw that, something else clicked (here’s another vulnerable admission):
If we don’t comprehensively consider the environment, our regulation supports can accidentally become training for endurance.
Enduring sensory overwhelming environments.
Enduring unpredictable environments.
Enduring systems that aren’t designed for a person’s body.
That is not the kind of support I want to offer. Because when the environment doesn’t change, the burden quietly shifts onto the person. They’re the one who has to “do the work” regulating in environments that don’t support.
And the hardest part?
Sometimes they are doing an incredible job regulating… and it is nearly impossible.
And instead of the environment getting questioned, they internalize:
“It’s my fault.”
“I’m broken.”
“I’m not good enough at regulating.”
And I don’t want to contribute to that. Because, let’s face it. The person isn’t failing.
The environment is.
Regulation Can Accidentally Become Endurance
In a lot of settings, regulation supports are offered with good intentions. Breathing strategies. Calm down spaces. Visuals. Rewards for “staying calm.” Tools for “coping.” But without environmental modification, regulation can become something very different than we intended.
It can become:
- tolerating the intolerable
- performing calm
- “coping” through chronic masking
- pushing through until shutdown
And that’s why someone can work incredibly hard… do everything “right”… and still melt down or shut down. Because regulation strategies don’t magically remove environmental mismatch. They don’t magically create safety. They don’t magically increase capacity forever. They can support a nervous system, but they can’t override harmful environments indefinitely.
What Environmental Modification Actually Means (It’s Bigger Than Sensory)
When most people hear the word environment, they think sensory environment.
Noise. Lighting. Crowds.
And yes. Those things matter. But comprehensive environment consideration is way bigger than sensory. Environmental modification is about the full context around a person, including:
- sensory load
- physical space and accessibility
- predictability and cognitive load
- task demands and pacing
- relationships and co-regulation
- communication access
- and even systems, policies, and cultural expectations
In other words:
Environmental modifications are changes to the space, routines, demands, or supports that reduce distress and increase participation.
And this is where things start to get really important. Because if we only work on regulation inside the person, we can miss the biggest driver of distress:
the environment they are required to function inside.
A Comprehensive Framework: The Ecosystemic Lens (3 Levels)
This is why David Gray Hammond and I created a framework to provide us with what we call an ecosystemic lens, because “environment” isn’t one thing.
It’s an ecosystem.
And this model breaks environment into three levels:
Level 1- The Inner Ecosystem (Bodymind)
This is what’s happening inside the bodymind.
Interoceptive signals. Nervous system states. Past traumas. Fatigue. Pain. Hunger. Thirst. Nausea. Shutdown.
Distress often shows up here first:
But just because distress appears in the bodymind doesn’t mean it originates there.
Level 2 — The Immediate Ecosystem (Daily Environments)
This includes what a person has to actively navigate day to day.
Not just sensory environment, but also:
- demand load and time pressure
- transitions and unpredictability
- monotropic and polytropic systems
- executive functioning demands
- social and relational safety (or lack of it)
- being believed vs dismissed
- autonomy honored vs overridden
- communication access vs constant misunderstanding
This is often where distress becomes visible, and where it is most likely to be misinterpreted as “behavior.”
Level 3 — The Systems Ecosystem (Power, Access, Culture)
This level includes systems that shape how environments operate:
- school policies
- eligibility rules
- workplace expectations
- healthcare barriers
- cultural compliance norms
- ableism and gatekeeping
- who is believed and who is punished
Level 3 doesn’t stay abstract.
It flows downward into daily life. It shapes what supports are allowed. It shapes who gets accommodations. It shapes whether needs are honored… or treated like problems.
And what’s wild is this:
Distress often shows up in Level 1.
But the root cause is frequently Level 2 or Level 3.
The Real Question: How Do We Know What Needs to Change?
Once we start looking at distress this way, a practical question comes next:
How do we actually know what environmental shifts support a person best?
Because this is where adults often get stuck in a cycle of:
“Try this coping skill.”
“Try that regulation strategy.”
“Try harder.”
Instead of:
“Let’s understand what your body is responding to, and what would create a better environmental fit.”
And that’s where interoception becomes absolutely irreplaceable. Because interoception helps us stop relying on outsider assumptions and start using the body as real-time feedback.
Interoception Makes the Invisible Visible
Interoception helps a person notice their internal body signals and connect those signals to lived experience.
It helps answer questions like:
- What does my body feel like when I’m comfortable?
- What does my body feel like when I’m uncomfortable?
- What happens inside me when the environment changes?
- What helps my body recover?
- What makes things worse?
And when we use interoception in this way, the person’s body becomes information.
To guide us. Because when we’re trying to reduce distress, the person’s body can tell us things no outsider observation ever could.
Using The Interoception Curriculum as an Environmental Compass
One of my favorite things about The Interoception Curriculum is how much it helps us understand a person’s felt experience from the inside out.
Because once someone can notice body signals more clearly…
their body becomes feedback.
their body becomes information.
their body becomes a guide.
Here’s how this can look when you apply it through an environmental lens.
Step 1 — Establish Baseline Comfort vs Discomfort (Using Focus Area Experiments)
Before we change anything about the environment, it helps to establish a baseline.
Questions like:
- What experiences make your body feel comfortable?
- What experiences make your body feel uncomfortable?
- How do you express internal comfort and discomfort?
This is where Focus Area Experiments from The Interoception Curriculum can be incredibly powerful.
They’re playful, hands-on activities designed to bring sensation to one specific body area so a person can practice noticing and describing body signals.
At this stage, we’re not “fixing.”
We’re gathering information.
And we’re learning the person’s baseline:
What does comfort feel like in your body?
What does discomfort feel like in your body?
How does your body show it?
Step 2 — Build Shared Language + A Relationship of Belief
The curriculum also builds something deeper than strategies:
a shared language and a collaborative process.
One that communicates:
I believe you.
Your body signals matter.
We’ll be curious together.
And what’s important is: expression doesn’t have to be verbal.
People might describe sensations through:
- gestures
- movement
- visuals
- AAC
- or creative systems like weather, animals, numbers, and colors
Whatever fits their lived experience.
And when we make space for that?
We learn so much.
Step 3 — Continue Focus Area Experiments (Now Testing Environmental Adaptations)
Then we keep using Focus Area Experiments, but now to explore environmental shifts.
We can test environmental adaptations while tracking body feedback, such as trying a modification and noticing what happens in the body. Increased comfort? More discomfort? No change?
This is how we reduce distress by improving fit, using the body as our guide.
Because the goal isn’t:
“How do we help you cope better?”
The goal is:
“How do we create conditions where your body can actually thrive?”
What This Changes (And Why It Matters)
When we use interoception and environmental modification together, something important happens:
We stop putting the full burden on the person. We stop treating distress like a personal failure. We stop treating support like “tolerate more.”
And instead, we treat distress like information. We treat it as meaningful communication. We treat it as feedback about what needs to change, inside the bodymind, within daily environments, and within systems.
And for many neurodivergent people, this shift is not just helpful.
It’s healing.
Learn the Full Model
If this lens resonates if you’re ready to stop putting the full burden on the person and start assessing distress as an environment-and-body story, David Gray Hammond and I go deep in our new course: When Environments Hurt: A New Framework for Understanding Distress Beyond “Regulating the Person”
In the course, we teach you how to see the layers that shape distress, how to assess them, and how to apply practical, ethical shifts that support real thriving.
Environmental Modifications and Sensory Overload: Common Questions
How do I reduce sensory overload in the classroom?
Reducing sensory overload starts with lowering the “cost” of the environment, not asking the student to cope harder. Begin by decreasing sensory load (noise, lighting, visual clutter), increasing predictability (visual schedules, reducing and previewing transitions), and limiting time pressure. Then use body-based feedback (interoception) to track what environmental adjustments actually creates more comfort, safety, and participation.
What is a sensory-friendly classroom (and what actually makes it sensory-friendly)?
A sensory-friendly classroom is not just a calm-looking room, it’s an environment designed to reduce nervous system strain. It supports regulation by offering predictable routines, accessible breaks, flexible seating/positioning, reduced sensory chaos, and relational safety (being believed, not punished for distress). The goal is better fit, so regulation supports don’t become endurance training.
What are environmental modifications in occupational therapy?
Environmental modifications in occupational therapy are changes to the context including space, routines, demands, communication supports, and expectations, to reduce distress and increase participation. Instead of focusing only on teaching regulation strategies inside the person, OT environmental modification asks: what can we change in the environment so the body doesn’t have to work so hard to function? Interoception can guide these changes by using the body as real-time feedback.
Until next time, Kelly.
