Interoception
Our experiences of everyday environments and tasks are intimately shaped by how our mind and body integrates sensory information. We are all aware of five primary sensory systems (touch, smell, taste, visual, and sound) but we are perhaps less aware of the three "hidden" sensory systems - the vestibular, proprioception, and interoception systems.
What is interoception and why should we build it?
Interoception awareness is how we “feel” our internal experiences - our ability to accurately perceive and identify our internal body states and our emotional states by receiving information from sensory neurons in our internal organs and communicating information about our body states and emotions. It provides us with information such as when we have an urge to go to the toilet, fullness or hunger, thirst, pain, tension, emotions or heartbeat.
Understanding body signals helps us pinpoint true sources of discomfort and helps us interpret and identify what we need in any given moment. It provides information that helps us act in ways to address our unmet needs and regulate our bodies, and that creates stability in our minds and bodies.
When the body is in disequilibrium it communicates this through an interoception signal, for example hunger, cold, thirst or emotions, which activates the person to address the body's need so that it can return to equilibrium (homeostasis).
Our physical and mental wellness is affected by our ability to tune into our bodies and assess what is working well and what isn't, therefore interoception awareness is an important foundation for self-care and self-advocacy.
When we struggle with interoception awareness, it's like hiking in the mountains without a map and compass. We may struggle to know what our body needs from moment to moment, making it hard to care for and comfort our bodies in ways that help us self-regulate our emotions and self-soothe.
A young person may confuse interoceptive signals, they may over-feel or under-feel these signals or simply have difficulty differentiating between body signals and emotion signals, for example, finding it hard to discern if it is it hunger or anxiety. A young person may forget to drink water resulting in dehydration or headaches, or may miss meals or may not realize they are hungry and over-respond later in the day through binge eating. Some young people who have trouble adjusting to or perceiving their body temperature can struggle to respond to body cues of coldness or overheating, or who have weakened pain signals may be less likely to seek help for an injury.
If interoception awareness is about reading and responding to our bodily signals, it will be unsurprising that it plays a significant role in emotional regulation.
Emotional regulation is the ability to perceive our emotions and intervene in ways that help our body self-soothe by engage in a way that helps to reduce the intensity of the emotion. Emotions become more challenging to down-regulate or de-escalate the hotter they get. For example, when our stress level is at a 5 or 6 (1 to 10 scale), it may be easier to bring it back down by taking a walk, doing some breathwork, or reframing our stress thoughts, than when our stress is at a 9 or 10.
For some young people who struggle with interoception awareness, they may not realise are stressed or angry until you are yelling, crying, or punching something. Imagine trying to control an emotion if you don't know you're angry until you're in the red zone.
Relationships
Being able to experience and feel our own emotions helps us create an integrated sense of self and better perceive and understand other people's emotions and experiences.
When our awareness of self (our feelings, thoughts, body, and needs) is solid, it builds a foundation from which we can understand the feelings, intentions, thoughts, and behaviours of others. When we struggle to understand our emotional experiences, it can make it more difficult to understand other people's sadness, fear, excitement, and so on.
The insula (the interoception centre of the brain) plays a crucial role in experiencing ourselves as a self and in interaction with others (Mahler, 2017). For examples research looking at adults who have experienced damage to this part of the brain observed that they may have lowered awareness of their body, and may find it difficult to recognise themselves in a mirror or pictures of themselves. If we are experiencing difficulty picking up, understanding and differentiating our own states of emotions, we may be drawing on less personal experience to then help us understand other people and their emotions. This can make it more difficult to understand other people's perspectives or at times more harder to access empathy for others (Cook, Brewer, Shah and Bird ,2013). For young people in school, this can lead to social confusion for them and misunderstandings about what is going on for them.
Neurodiverse people can commonly experience interoception difficulties, and we are developing an increasingly better lens for understanding this.
If we are talking about supporting self regulation and emotional regulation for young people, it can be really helpful to have an understanding of interoception, what it is and how to build it.
