Interoception - The Forgotten Sense

A message from our Welfare Lead, Lucy McCully, about the importance of interoception and understanding our individual needs.

As children, we learn about our senses at a very early age. We explore our likes and dislikes through touch, tastes, sounds and smells. These initial explorations into our sensory integration, and how we interact within our environment, helps us to build an understanding of our own needs and enables us to tentatively navigate the world around us.

Some of our likes and dislikes may be the first hints at a greater area of need. Hypersensitivity results in a person experiencing over-stimulation from certain aspects of the world around them whereas hyposensitivity is when a person experiences little or no response from a stimulus. Someone showing discomfort and complaining of intense smells or sounds may be able to access sensory feedback, hidden from most of their peers. Our brains are wonderful machines, and it is not until we explore our own sensory integration that we begin to identify our own unique needs.

Over the years, I have developed a greater interest in sensory integration and how we are in tune with our own bodies. It has also led me to develop further, my understanding of interoception and links between sensory integration and our emotional response, especially when linked to neurodivergence.

Interoception is our ability to notice our internal body signals. The receptors inside our organs send signals to our brains. This process maintains homeostasis (a stable and constant internal environment), which is critical to our survival. When these receptors are compromised or the signals that we receive are not fully meeting our needs, it can lead to feelings of dysregulation. We may experience stomach cramps and fatigue without realising we need food and energy, a dry mouth and headache without realising we haven't drunk enough water.

New research has shown there are links between interoception awareness, our emotional state, complex thinking and our sense of self.

"When a person has muted or intense interoceptive experience, they may be missing important clues about their emotions. It can feel like navigating an emotional labyrinth without a map."
Kelly Mahler OT and Interoception Specialist.

Additionally, research has also shown that these key areas of our brains show signs of neuroplasticity. We can retain our brains to achieve a greater sense of self!

What can we do to understand interoception and improve our awareness?
Kelly Mahler is an American Occupational Therapist and creator of the Interoception Curriculum. Mahler outlines three main ways to begin to help ourselves and those that we support:
1. Use body talk
Label the way your body feels during daily activities ("my muscles feel loose when you cuddle me; my heart feels fast when I play tag with you"). Not only are you serving as a good model, but body talk also naturally tunes you into your own body signals.
2. Build body curiosity
Teach yourself and the young people that you work with to notice how their body feels during daily activities ("how does this make your hands feel? How does this make your stomach feel?")
3. Directly teach that body signals are clues to emotions
("You said your muscles are wiggly, and your voice sounds loud, what emotion could that mean? You said your stomach is growling. That could be a clue to what emotion? What does the heavy feeling in your eyes mean?")
Kelly Mahler

There are many ways that we can help to develop interoceptive awareness. Time spent each day to think about our own bodies and how they are reacting with the world around us. Mental body scans can help us to slowly become in tune with ourselves. Carefully focusing upon each part of our bodies, noticing sensations and possible discomfort helps us to recognise what we need to feel at peace.

Meditation and breathing techniques (e.g. box breathing, belly breathing and muscle tensing and relaxing, amongst other techniques) help to focus our sense and find our grounding. We learn to take time to tune into our bodies.

Interoception is a sense that can cause difficulties for many people living within an unforgiving world but it can also be harnessed and developed to give us a greater understanding of internal and external needs. A skill that will lead to achieving our own homeostasis and happiness.

Written by Lucy McCully
Welfare Lead at SENse Learning