The Power of Interoception

By: Stefanie Faye

 

When I was a school counselor several years ago, I met Timothy.  He was in fifth grade. He didn’t smile much.  In fact, he didn’t have any kind of expression on his face.  When he spoke, he barely moved his mouth.

The principal, his teachers, and his mom had all come in to see me several times to talk about the fact that he was being sent to the office on a weekly basis for pushing or hitting other kids.  When his mom came to see me, she told me that she was angry and depressed.  She felt like most of the time she ‘couldn’t stand him.’  

What I'd been working on in my own life was something called ‘interoception’.  It is the ability to become more aware of the physical sensations in our body as a way to notice how we are reacting to people and events.  By noticing these sensations, we can slow down the behavior that comes next.  Since it helped me in several situations in my own life, I decided to try to explain it to Timothy.

I started with my own example. Using this skill, I gradually started to notice that when I felt anxious or stressed - particularly when it came to social situations - I felt a prickly sensation in my fingertips.  As I kept noticing this, it became clear that this sensation was somehow related to a fear of being rejected. 

I began reading and learning more about this. What I began to learn was that:

• I could notice those sensations and not immediately do something to ‘get rid of’ the feeling.  Just noticing them was the first step.  
• By not creating a story and adding assumptions about another person’s behavior would help quiet down those sensations.  
• By focusing on my breathing or something else in my present environment,  I was better able to notice that the sensations bubbled up and then faded away - they weren’t ‘permanent’.

But as I'd been learning, the more certain types of hormones are circulating within us, the more accustomed our body gets.  It can get to a point where certain neurochemical and physiological states seem to be more ‘normal’ than others - not because they’re the healthiest, but because they’re the most familiar.  

The reactions that happen the most quickly are generally the ones that are the most automated - and are most influenced by our less evolved structures.  The slower-to-respond circuitry is higher up and further away from our motor centers and the centers that are receiving the inputs from our senses. So those signals need a little more time to travel from the brain stem (attached to the spine) to our frontal lobe.  

This means that the very first reaction we have might feel like an ‘urge’ - maybe it’s an urge to yell or reply angrily.  These are our primitive systems kicking into gear.  But if we wait a moment, we give a chance for our more evolved system to even have a chance to process. I shared all this with Timothy.  I asked him if he noticed any sensations when he was angry or upset.  He said he didn’t. He just felt angry.

I asked him to imagine one of the situations that upset him so he could see if he noticed any sensations in his body.  He imagined a scenario that had happened, but still just felt angry -like a cloud, he said.  He couldn’t pinpoint anything specific. What I also knew is that words are not always the best teacher.  If we are hoping to help someone else have an experience that they hope to have (like feeling more in control over their life, feeling happier, etc.) we need a way to spark that experience.   One way is through modeling.  

We spent the next few sessions with me bringing up situations that were causing me stress or frustration, and I would talk through what I was feeling in my body and where.  After a few sessions of this, Timothy was finally able to pinpoint some sensations. He felt warm in his chest, and he could see his fist clenching. He said to me, " Miss Stefanie! I have an indicator of when I'm angry - my fist clenches!". 

Later that day, he came up to me with a big smile on his face.  He told me that earlier that day, he started feeling angry at one of his classmates, but he looked down and saw that his fist was clenched. He knew that was his ‘indicator’ that he might do something like push or punch. So, he stopped and told his classmate that he wanted to use his prefrontal cortex and talk to them later.  It was a turning point for him - that he knew he could notice the signals his body was telling him and make a choice about what to do with it.

This is what the power of interoception has to offer: it brings the fluctuations and variations occurring within us to what neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene calls our ‘global conscious workspace’. From that workspace, we have an opportunity to upgrade our patterns and responses.

What are sensations and indicators that you might have for certain emotions? For example, is there a place in your body that you notice becomes more active when you feel nervous, anxious, or overwhelmed?  Just paying attention to this and locating it helps activate brain circuitry that can help you find alternate choices for what you do when those feelings come up. 

 

This article was crafted by Stefanie Faye, an independent contributor engaged by CheckIT Labs, Inc. to provide insights on this topic.