Some have called interoception our “sixth sense,” and they’re right. Being able to hear and sense what’s happening around us is just as important as what’s happening inside us. Listening to and paying attention to the signals our bodies send us not only helps us live better but also alerts us when something is wrong.
What is interoception?
Interoception literally means “internal perception” of the body. It is the ability to connect with different internal sensations, to “listen” to our bodies. In practice, it involves being aware of the sensations generated in our muscles, skin, organs, and bones and giving them meaning. This is a very important ability for our well-being, both physical and psychological.
Interoception: Taking better care of ourselves and being more empathetic
Doctors agree that people who have developed a good level of interoception tend to be healthier because they take better care of themselves. To prevent a heart attack in time, for example, it is essential to recognize the prodromes (the sensations that precede the acute phase) so that it can be stopped in time. If a person lacks good interoception, they will be unable to capture or understand these sensations, putting their life at greater risk. Therefore, sensing the signals coming from our bodies and learning to make sense of them can help us address various illnesses in time.
However, the effects of interoception are not limited to our physical health. Neuroscientists have no doubt that physiological states play an important role in emotional experiences, which is why there are increasing studies linking this “sixth sense” with empathy and altruism.
This was confirmed by researchers at Keio University, who analyzed different parameters of physiological states while people performed tasks with neutral content or related to empathy. They discovered that, indeed, afferent feedback from visceral activity contributes to making inferences about the emotional state of others and acting accordingly. Simply put: interoception allows us to be more empathetic.
Another study conducted at the University of London found that people who were more accurate at estimating their heartbeat without taking their pulse, a measure used as an indicator of interoception, were also better at detecting the emotional states of others, especially those conveyed through body movements.
Researchers at Stockholm University also found that people who have naturally developed their sense of interoception are more altruistic and generous. However, they point out that improving this “sixth sense” in the laboratory does not generate behavioral changes. What does this mean? That some people have a special ability to “listen to their heart” and connect with others.
The dark side of interoception
Some people have “excessive” interoception, which puts them at greater risk of developing anxiety disorders and hypochondria. The problem is that if we don’t know how to deal well with these internal signals, we run the risk of perceiving them as alarming and reacting with fear and anxiety.
In a way, this is the mechanism behind panic attacks. When a person has experienced very unpleasant somatic manifestations, they are likely to develop a hypervigilant attitude; that is, they obsessively focus on physiological signals, which can lead them to confuse completely normal bodily sensations with the signs of a panic attack. Thus, interoception lies at the root of the “fear of fear.”
In fact, a study conducted at the University of Naples revealed a relationship between awareness of bodily sensations and somatoform disorders (such as hypochondria and somatization). However, these researchers also point out that the problem lies not in the level of interoception but in people’s tendency to misinterpret and amplify bodily sensations. In other words, the problem is not the perception of internal states but the meaning we attribute to them.
Mindfulness: The way to develop healthy interoception
The practice of mindfulness is very beneficial for developing healthy interoception. The key is that mindfulness meditation, like Vipassana meditation, allows us to pay attention to physical sensations, developing our ability to recognize what is happening to us. It also teaches us not to react to those sensations but to learn to control those that are unpleasant or even painful.
Neuroscience has already proven the effectiveness of this technique. Recently, a group of neuroscientists from the University of Toronto used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine people’s ability to access interoceptive representations, comparing a group that had received mindfulness meditation training with another group that had never practiced this technique.
They found that, indeed, some areas of the brain of people who practiced mindfulness meditation, including the insula (linked to emotional visceral states) and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (related to self-awareness), were reorganized to allow the conjugation of sensory experiences of the environment with internal sensory experiences.
Therefore, mindfulness is not simply a technique to amplify and raise awareness of what happens in our body, but it also allows us to “tame” the mind so that it doesn’t overreact to these sensations. In other words, it helps us connect with our body from a place of equanimity and integrate external experiences with internal ones.
References:
Piech, R.M. et. Al. (2017) People with higher interoceptive sensitivity are more altruistic, but improving interoception does not increase altruism. Scientific Reports ; 7:15652.
Christensen, JF et. Al. (2017) I can feel my heartbeat: Dancers have increased interoceptive accuracy. Psychophysiology ; doi: 10.1111/psyp.13008.
Longarzo, M. et. Al. (2015) The relationships between interoception and alexithymic trait. The Self-Awareness Questionnaire in healthy subjects. Front Psychol ; 6:1149.
Farb, N. et. Al. (2013) Mindfulness meditation training alters cortical representations of interoceptive attention. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci ; 8(1): 15–26.
Fukushima, H. et. Al. (2011) Association between interoception and empathy: evidence from heartbeat-evoked brain potential. Int J Psychophysiol ; 79(2): 259-265.
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