Many people know about the five senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste. The importance of these five senses has been ingrained in us since childhood. But the human body isn’t that simple.
The human body is complex, and it’s this complexity that allows our bodies to protect us and carry us through life.
Our bodies have additional senses that allow us to connect with the outside world as well as to what’s happening within our bodies. Two of these additional senses are called interoception and exteroception.
Interoception is what allows us to be in touch with our bodies, both emotionally and physically. It’s the sense that gives us the ability to connect with our internal felt sense of self. Our bodies communicate with the outside world with a sense called exteroception.
The balance between interoception and exteroception is what allows our bodies to receive signals from the outside world, process them internally, and then understand them. Although our understanding of interoception and exteroception isn’t as much as that of the five senses, researchers uncover more and more everyday.
It has been found that interoception plays a big part in:¹
Emotion
Consciousness
Behavior
Social cognition
Pain
Awareness
Mindfulness
Homeostasis (the balance within the body)
Many people lack an awareness of or have decreased regulation of interoception. This means that many people cannot understand the signals their body sends them. There are several ways that interoception gets disrupted such as with mental-emotional trauma, physical trauma, mold illness, chronic infections, or being involved in an accident. Luckily there are many things you can do to regulate interoception and become more in-tune with your body.
But first, there needs to be an understanding of exactly what interoception is and why it’s so important.
What Is Interoception and Why Is It So Important?
Interoception is the bodily sense that allows us to be in touch with what our body is communicating to us. While we are all born with this sense, our awareness of interoception is something that develops with time and intentional practice.
Our body is constantly sending us signals to communicate with what we need, and interoception is what allows us to feel and respond to what the body needs. These signals allow us to feel things like:²
Hunger
Thirst
Satiety
The urge to use the bathroom
Emotion and emotional regulation
Temperature
Fatigue
Muscle ache
Pain
Itch
Interoception is what allows our body to adapt to and react to the external environment. Without proper awareness of interoception, our body cannot function properly.
The importance of interoception in everyday life continues to be proven. Several interoceptive pathways within the body have been discovered.
One of these pathways involves the relationship between interoception (internal senses) and exteroception (external senses). An area within the brain called the insula has been found to be the “middle man” between signals received from outside the body and signals received from inside the body.
As shown in the picture below, the insula plays an important role in things ranging from addictive substances, music, and emotion.³
Picture credit: The New York Times
The insula has been found to process:⁴
Awareness of signals and messages sent from the body
Feelings of pain
Taste
Smell
Touch
Interoception is also what allows the body to experience complex emotions like empathy. Not only does the insula allow us to interpret and feel the pain within us, but scientists have also identified a pathway connecting the insula and our ability to interpret and empathize with the pain of others.⁵ Interestingly we use the exact same pathway to feel our own pain as well as the pain of others.
When people have decreased levels of interoceptive awareness due to physical or mental-emotional trauma, then the pathways between the insula and the body are dysregulated. This means that it’s difficult for many people to understand the messages they receive from their bodies. Decreased interoceptive awareness can result in many forms of acute and chronic illnesses related to mental health, the nervous system, digestion, and pain.
Given the significance of decreased interoceptive awareness, it’s important to understand how it happens. By understanding what causes interoception impairment, you can identify this imbalance within yourself.
As Stephen Porges says in his book, The Polyvagal Theory:⁶
“The way we perceive our reality is a reflection of the state of our own nervous system.”
Once you assess how you perceive the world and find that there is room for improvement with how you feel on a daily basis, you can really begin to heal.
Dysfunction of Interoception: Cause and Effect
Even though our body is always sending signals in an effort to communicate, it’s difficult for many people to understand these signals and messages. When these messages from the body are ignored, our interoceptive awareness decreases. Some examples of things that may contribute to poor interoception include:
Those with busy schedules who have found themselves ignoring their body’s hunger, thirst, and tiredness cues in order to keep working or make their next meetings.
Someone on a diet or trying to lose weight may be ignoring their body’s hunger cues to lose a few pounds.
People with chronic pain typically have to ignore their pain signals on a daily basis in order to cope with the constant pain they experience.
By consistently ignoring these signals sent by the body, the ability to stay connected with and in-tune with the body decreases.
It has also been found that people with unresolved trauma have difficulty with interoceptive awareness.⁷ In fact, those with unresolved traumas have vastly different nervous systems. This difference can result in a misinterpretation of how signals from the outside world are read, delivered to the brain, and then interpreted by the body.
An individual with unresolved trauma can have an extreme disconnect between external and internal senses. And this disconnect or dysfunction can result in both physical diseases and mental health conditions.
Because of its significance in the functioning of the nervous system, it’s no surprise that poor interoception can result in several mental health conditions.
Dysfunction of interoception has been linked to:⁸
Anxiety disorders
Mood disorders
Eating disorders
Addictive disorders
Somatic symptom disorders
This common finding of poor interoception may be why mental health conditions have similar symptoms like insomnia or fatigue.⁹
Mental health conditions can be debilitating and can consume your life. While poor interoception can be the cause of mental health conditions, proper awareness of interoception can be the solution.
Can Poor Interoception Be Fixed?
If you suffer from a condition mentioned above and you have recognized signs of poor interoception, you’re likely wondering how you can improve this.
By recognizing the signs of poor interoception, you can make conscious efforts in your daily life to improve interoception within your body. Insula development and interoception can be improved through different exercises, therapies, and mindfulness practices. I will review my recommendations in my next blog piece: 4 Ways to Improve Interoception Within Your Body.
Even if you don’t have a physical or mental health condition, everyone can benefit from regular practices that improve interoception. Understanding exactly what your body is communicating to you is an amazing ability: one that everyone can develop.
And once there is an increase in interoceptive awareness, your body can begin to heal mentally, emotionally, and physically.
Works cited:
1. Osteopathy and Mental Health: An Embodied, Predictive, and Interoceptive Framework – (frontiersin.org)
2. Alexithymia: a general deficit of interoception – (nih.gov)
3. A Small Part of the Brain, and Its Profound Effects – (nytimes.com)
4. Effect of manual approaches with osteopathic modality on brain correlates of interoception: an fMRI study – (nature.com)
5. How Do We Experience the Pain of Other People? – (neurosciencenews.com)
6. Porges S. The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company; 2011.
7. The Body Holds the Healing – (psychologytoday.com)
8. Interoception and Mental Health: A Roadmap – (nih.gov)
9. We Have a ‘Sixth Sense’ That is Key to Our Wellbeing, But Only if We Listen to It – (sciencealert.com)