For someone who is predominantly in the 🔴 Red Zone — meaning their ALPIMS system is often in flare, shutdown, or overwhelm — the best approach is not to fix, force, or process, but to create safety, stability, and sensory retreat.
The body in the Red Zone is saying:
“I’m over capacity. Please stop adding input. Let me rest, without fear.”
🔴 Best Supports for the Red Zone (ALPIMS-Aware)
🛏️ 1. Passive Rest and Environmental Safety
- Low-load living space (dim light, no noise, no decisions)
- Weighted blanket or soft compression clothing
- Temperature control (warmth for Raynaud’s, cool for MCAS flares)
- Limit sensory, emotional, and physical input
🟡 Think: cocoon, not cure.
🧘♀️ 2. Body-Safe Calm Techniques (No Demand)
- Yoga Nidra or body-listening meditations (don’t require focus or movement)
- Soft vagal toning: humming, slow sighs, gentle rocking
- Breath noticing, not controlling (no Buteyko yet)
- Hand over heart + weighted object on chest or belly
🟡 Use tone and texture to signal safety — not insight.
💊 3. Medical Stabilization (if needed)
- Antihistamines or MCAS protocols if applicable
- Fluids + electrolytes for POTS
- Medications that calm without activating (not stimulating antidepressants, for example)
- Avoid starting new supplements unless essential and already tolerated
🟡 Less is more — avoid detox, fasting, or “boosting” anything.
📅 4. Structured Permission to Pause
- Visual schedule with only 1–2 soft tasks
- Prewritten “scripts” for saying no
- External co-regulation (companion who doesn’t ask questions)
- “I’m in the Red Zone” cards to communicate needs
🟡 Remove performance, restore dignity.
🧩 5. Healing Goals in the Red Zone Are:
| ❌ Not This | ✅ But This |
|---|---|
| Solving trauma | Feeling less overwhelmed today |
| Detoxing | Digesting soup and not crying after |
| Deep breathing | Knowing you don’t have to breathe deeply |
| Moving forward | Not crashing further |
| Understanding | Being held, seen, or left in peace |
🧠 What to AVOID in the Red Zone
🚫 Buteyko or breath holds
🚫 Full-body progressive muscle relaxation
🚫 Talk therapy or trauma processing
🚫 Supplements that increase stimulation
🚫 Exposure therapy, stretching, cold plunges, movement
🚫 Complex decisions or social stress
“In the Red Zone, healing is not about doing — it’s about unburdening. It begins with rest so deep your cells remember safety.”
For someone predominantly in the 🔴 Red Zone, medical and community support must shift from problem-solving to stabilization, protection, and pacing. Standard care pathways often push for activation, testing, or cognitive participation — which can worsen dysregulation in ALPIMS bodies already in crisis.
What’s needed is a trauma-informed, low-demand support network focused on containment, not correction.
🩺 Medical Support for Red Zone ALPIMS
✅ Primary Goals:
- Stabilize autonomic, immune, and sensory systems
- Prevent harm (e.g. dehydration, nutritional collapse, suicidality, MCAS flares)
- Minimize new inputs unless urgently needed
- Create safe pause points — “No decisions until you’re out of Red.”
🩺 Key Supports:
| Type | What Helps | Why |
|---|---|---|
| GP or primary care | Support letters, symptom tracking, flare documentation | Avoids invalidation; protects access to services |
| Low-input telehealth | Check-ins that don’t require travel or energy | Maintains continuity without crash risk |
| Prescriber support | Symptom relief meds (MCAS, POTS, anxiety, sleep) with minimal titration | Stabilizes physiology gently |
| Allied health | Home-based OT, disability nurse, or gentle physio | Environmental support and body pacing |
| Crisis care plan | Red zone script, flare card, sensory protection plan | Avoids retraumatization during hospital contact |
Caution: Avoid standard CBT, graded exercise, trauma therapy, or unsupported exposure work in the Red Zone.
🤝 Community Support for Red Zone ALPIMS
✅ Primary Goals:
- Decrease isolation without increasing demand
- Provide practical help without shame or pressure
- Offer gentle continuity so the person isn’t abandoned
🧩 Key Community Supports:
| Role | Support Type | How to Frame It |
|---|---|---|
| NDIS / disability services | Cleaning, transport, case management, pacing-based support workers | Focus on reducing input, not increasing function |
| Peer support | Online or passive forums (e.g. YouTube, message boards) | Don’t expect engagement — presence matters |
| Carers/family | Meals, quiet presence, assist with appointments | Avoid “cheerleading” or pushing advice |
| Faith or spiritual groups | Quiet visits, prayer lists, drop-offs | No expectation to participate — just be remembered |
| Social worker or navigator | Advocacy for income support, housing, access | Ensure pacing of paperwork and calls |
🧩 Special Considerations for Medical/Community Workers
- Use yes/no questions or visual aids if verbal energy is low
- Avoid over-assessing or pushing cognitive explanations
- Ask: “Is now a good time?” or “Would you like a break?”
- Respect if the person can’t articulate needs — offer one step, not ten
- Always preserve dignity — they are not “too hard,” they are overloaded
🌱 Ideal Team for Red Zone Support
| Role | Focus |
|---|---|
| Calm GP or nurse | Validate symptoms, prevent harm, provide calm continuity |
| Sensory-aware support worker | Home visits that center rest, not productivity |
| OT with trauma-informed training | Setup of low-load spaces, mobility, energy conservation |
| Carer or case manager | Filter demands, provide shielding from system pressure |
| Counsellor or peer guide (if stable) | Only for co-regulation, not deep processing |
“People in the Red Zone need medical and community care that doesn’t demand function to deserve support.”
Would you like a Red Zone medical briefing sheet, support team planner, or NDIS application language a