Noticing to Shift Stress: Interoception, Our 8th Sensory Superpower

“The salient stressors in the lives of most human beings today — at least in the industrialized world — are emotional….We no longer sense what is happening in our bodies and cannot therefore act in self-preserving ways. The physiology of stress eats away at our bodies not because it has outlived its usefulness but because we may no longer have the competence to recognize its signals.”

―Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress

In holistic health, and in Hendrickson Method bodywork, we work from the principle that optimal healing includes uncovering mechanics and pathologies (e.g., specific injuries and medical/health issues) as well as environmental and emotional factors. A key component of the latter category is how we manage emotional stressors.

Prolonged chronic stress can have catastrophic effects on health and wellness, that can vary widely from person to person. Chronic stress can negatively affect all systems of the body–musculoskeletal, respiratory, cardiovascular, hormonal/endocrine, GI (gut), nervous system, reproductive, immune–as well as impacting sleep and circadian rhythm, and contributing to mental health issues.

But let’s break this stress thing down a bit here. Stress isn’t all bad. As the body’s evolutionary response to potentially harmful situations, stress can be a lifesaver in critical moments. And research shows that positive stress (known as “eustress”) offers emotional, psychological and physical benefits. The problem comes when we lose our capacity to recognize and discharge stress. When we become so overloaded that we respond to small-dose stressors as if they were four-alarm-fires. When our nervous system gets stuck in fight or flight mode.

So how do we break the cycle? (Especially when the times we’re living through aren’t exactly setting us up for success.) One way involves cultivating our body’s evolutionary superpowers–getting them working for us–to recognize and address early signs of stress in the body before they become chronic.

Many of us learned that humans have five senses–sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound. In reality there are three more! The sixth and seventh are the vestibular system, which controls balance and posture, and proprioception, which helps us sense our body’s location, movements, and actions in physical space. Lesser known to many, is our sense of interoception, which allows us to perceive the internal state of our bodies.

Interoception, or interoceptive awareness (“IA”) covers physiological states–such as hunger/thirst and satiety, the need to pee or poop, sensations such as itchiness or pain, our breathing and heart rate–as well as emotional states such as happiness, excitement, fear, and anger.

While IA is often highlighted as being of significance in skill-building for kids and those with autism/ASD (or other types of neurodivergence), I firmly believe all of us can benefit from cultivating IA. We can’t manage our reaction to our feelings and environment if we don’t notice them in the first place. And sadly our left-brain-oriented, techno-centric society doesn’t provide much spaciousness or modeling for IA, emphasizing instead external productivity at the expense of body awareness.

(If you’ve ever sat at your desk for hours without moving literally anything except your mousing arm, you know what I’m talking about!)

Think of IA as a superpower that you can cultivate to help you stay connected to your body, and better manage stressors that might otherwise build up internally and cause downstream damage.

So how do you hone your IA? I recommend experimenting with various mindfulness and somatic/embodiment practices until you find what works best for your body. From meditation, mindful breathing, and mindful movement such as yoga, to journaling, nature walks, and simply unplugging–there are many “ways in”. And they all come down to hearing and honoring the body’s signals.

There is one major way this plays out with regard to our musculoskeletal health, and I encounter this often in my bodywork practice…

Unfortunately, our tendency to push ourselves and ignore our bodies’ signals–either at our desks, or by going from zero (sedentary) to 60-zillion (HIIT workout) and right back to zero (post-workout texting in the car)–can do incremental harm to our soft tissues that can lurk under the surface for a time, only to emerge one day in the form of an injury, flare-up, or new pain. (If I had a dollar for every time a client came in saying, “I have no idea what happened, I just woke up one day in pain,”...well, you get the idea!) Then suddenly we pay a lot of attention, and can be quite impatient with our body’s healing process and needs.

So a key aspect of IA is learning to heed our bodies’ warning signs before bad flare ups and injuries. For example, I’ve learned to pay attention when my right leg and hip start to tighten up in a way that makes prolonged sitting or long walks uncomfortable–my experience has taught me that these warning signs are my body’s way of telling me it’s time to pause, slow down, and stretch and/or foam roll my back, glutes and hips.

Fortunately, there are a million and one amazing resources out there in the form of books, podcasts, and free online video content. (I might write another blog post on my favorites!) How do you remember to listen to your body’s signals? What practices do you use to slow down and manage stress? If you haven’t already, tell me about them the next time we’re in the studio together!