Interoception is also known as your eighth sense, and this is because it is the ability to notice what is happening in your inner world through your body sensations. In our busy, crazy worlds that we live in, we are often very disconnected from our bodies and we could kind of go around being like talking heads.
Your body has so much inside it that is trying to communicate with you. It's trying to tell you you've not been to the toilet for five hours or you're hungry or it's saying there's a churning in my tummy, just know that I'm feeling nervous about something. When you tune in and you listen to these messages of your body, you send rich bodily information up to your brain and then your brain can make sense of this information and make choices like, "oh, I'm going to go to the toilet", "oh, I'm going to drop my shoulders", "I'm going to take a breath". So we tune into these unconscious bodily sensations and then we can make conscious decisions with what we do with that information, which means that you can care for yourself, you can regulate your emotions because you know how it is that you're feeling. And when you know how it is that you're feeling, it means you can actually tend to those emotions and listen to the signals that they are bringing you.
So interoception is your ability to notice and observe what is happening in your body. So how do we do that? Here are some simple tips that you can integrate into your life. One technique that I often encourage women to use is setting a timer on your phone and checking in a couple of times a day for 60 seconds. Just noticing, how your shoulders feel, how your tummy feels, or is there any sensation in your body that is pulling your attention and then listening to what that sensation is bringing you. Another thing that you can do is ask your body what it needs from you, rather than trying to control and force something. That might be first of all just noticing what is happening inside and what you can do here is start to actually get descriptive and create an emotional vocabulary. Labelling that experience. For example, I'm noticing that I've got a tension in my tummy, and then naming the emotion. So I'm noticing I've got a tension in my tummy and I'm feeling kind of worried about something. When you put words to that experience, it means then you have got important data in terms of how you want to then move forward with that information and you can compassionately meet yourself with those needs of your body and move towards the life that you are wanting to live.