The Hidden Sense That Shapes Our Minds: Why Interoception Is Crucial for Mental Health
When we think of the human senses, we often name the classic five — sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. But scientists have long known there’s another, quieter sense that’s just as important for our emotional well-being.
This is interoception — the sense of the body’s internal state.
Interoception allows you to notice your heartbeat quicken when you’re anxious, your stomach tighten when you’re stressed, or the warmth that spreads after a deep breath. It’s the constant stream of information your brain receives from your heart, lungs, gut, and immune system — and it plays a surprisingly powerful role in how we think, feel, and experience life.
At Being and Becoming Counselling and Wellness Services in Burnaby, BC, our therapists often help clients reconnect with this “hidden sense” to regulate emotions, heal from trauma, and develop a more compassionate relationship with their bodies.
What Is Interoception?
Interoception is the brain’s perception of signals from inside the body. These signals come from specialized receptors — called interoceptors — located in organs, muscles, blood vessels, and tissues. They monitor:
Heartbeat and blood pressure
Breathing rate and depth
Hunger and fullness
Thirst
Body temperature
Muscle tension and pain
Gut sensations and digestion
Immune system activity
This internal data travels through the nervous system — especially the vagus nerve — to regions of the brain involved in emotion and self-awareness.
In simple terms, interoception is the bridge between body and mind. It’s how the brain listens to the body — and how the body influences the brain.
Interoception and Emotion: The Body’s Language of Feeling
Emotions don’t start in the mind; they begin in the body.
When you’re angry, your heart races and muscles tighten. When you’re calm, your heartbeat slows and your body softens. These physical states are the raw ingredients of emotion — and interoception is how your brain reads them.
Psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett describes emotions as “constructed experiences”: your brain interprets bodily sensations in context to label them as sadness, fear, or joy. The same racing heart can mean anxiety before a presentation or excitement on a rollercoaster — depending on how your mind interprets the signal.
That’s why accurate interoception — being able to notice and interpret internal sensations — is key for emotional clarity. At Being and Becoming Counselling and Wellness Services, we support clients in developing this awareness to better understand and regulate their emotional states.
When Interoception Goes Awry
Disruptions in interoception can contribute to mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression, eating disorders, autism, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
1. Anxiety and Panic Disorders
Anxiety often heightens sensitivity to what’s happening inside the body. People may notice every flutter of the heart, shallow breath, or tightness in the chest — and then interpret those sensations as signs of danger. Thoughts like “I’m having a heart attack” or “Something’s wrong” can trigger more fear, which in turn intensifies the physical sensations.
This creates a loop of panic and misinterpretation, where normal bodily sensations are mistaken for emergencies. In these situations, the challenge isn’t too much interoceptive awareness — it’s that the signals are being interpreted through a lens of fear.
At Being and Becoming Counselling and Wellness Services in Burnaby, BC, our therapists help clients learn to reinterpret these bodily cues in a calmer, more balanced way. By pairing mindfulness with grounding and breathwork techniques, clients begin to recognize that physical sensations aren’t threats — they’re simply messages from the body that can be understood and soothed.
2. Depression
Depression is often linked to blunted or disrupted interoception — a dimming of the connection between body and mind. Instead of feeling the natural ebb and flow of sensations that signal emotion, energy, or need, many people with depression experience a kind of internal silence or numbness. They may not notice hunger or fullness, or may feel emotionally “flat” and physically heavy.
This reduced sensitivity to internal signals can make life feel drained of vitality and motivation. When you can’t sense what your body is feeling, it becomes harder to identify what you need — rest, nourishment, movement, or connection. Over time, this disconnection reinforces the sense of emptiness and disinterest that defines depression.
Neuroscience research suggests that interoceptive networks in the brain — especially in the insula and anterior cingulate cortex — play a crucial role in emotional awareness and motivation. When these regions are underactive, people often experience anhedonia (loss of pleasure), difficulty regulating mood, and reduced responsiveness to emotional experiences.
Rebuilding interoceptive awareness can help reverse this pattern. By gradually learning to notice sensations such as warmth, breath, or muscle tension, individuals begin to reconnect with their inner world. This reawakening of bodily awareness can spark renewed energy, emotional responsiveness, and a sense of presence.
3. Eating Disorders
In conditions such as anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorder, the body’s internal signals of hunger and fullness often become confused or muted. Individuals may struggle to sense when they’re hungry or full, or they might experience anxiety and guilt instead of satisfaction after eating. Over time, this disconnection from internal cues reinforces disordered eating patterns and body image distress.
Healing involves learning to rebuild trust in the body’s signals — to recognize hunger, fullness, and satisfaction as natural, valuable messages rather than sources of fear.
At Being and Becoming Counselling and Wellness Services in Burnaby, we support clients in reconnecting with their body through mindful eating, somatic awareness, and self-compassion practices. These approaches help restore healthy interoceptive awareness and promote a more peaceful relationship with food and the body.
4. Trauma and PTSD
Trauma profoundly disrupts interoception — the ability to feel and interpret what’s happening inside the body. During overwhelming or unsafe experiences, the nervous system may disconnect from bodily sensations as a form of self-protection. Over time, this can lead to chronic dissociation or the feeling of being “out of your body.”
For many people who grew up in chaotic or unpredictable homes, this disconnection develops gradually. When your environment feels unsafe, your body learns that tuning into external cues — every sound, facial expression, or sudden movement — is necessary for survival. This hyper-attunement to the outside world, known as hypervigilance or strong exteroception, keeps you constantly alert to potential threats.
But this adaptation has a cost: the more your attention stays outward, the less capacity you have to notice what’s happening inwardly. Over time, this results in under-developed interoceptive awareness — difficulty sensing hunger, fatigue, emotions, or subtle body cues.
As adults, people with this pattern often feel tense and on edge, highly attuned to others’ moods yet disconnected from their own inner experience.
At Being and Becoming Counselling and Wellness Services in Burnaby, BC, our trauma-informed and somatic therapists help clients gently restore interoceptive awareness while calming the overactive vigilance system. Through body-based mindfulness, breathwork, and grounding, clients relearn that it’s safe to turn attention inward — rebuilding trust in their body and a sense of safety from the inside out.
Restoring safe interoceptive awareness is central to trauma recovery. As you rebuild the capacity to feel what’s happening inside, you strengthen your ability to self-regulate, set boundaries, and inhabit your body with ease.
Interoception and the Sense of Self
Interoception doesn’t just tell us how we feel — it helps define who we are. The ongoing feedback between the body and brain creates what neuroscientists call the embodied self: the felt sense of being alive, grounded, and “at home” within yourself.
When we are connected to our body’s signals, we have access to a continuous stream of guidance. Subtle sensations let us know when we’re tired or hungry, when something feels right or wrong, when we need rest or movement, comfort or connection. This awareness shapes not only our emotions but also our choices, boundaries, and sense of direction in life.
When interoceptive awareness is disrupted — as often happens after trauma, chronic stress, or long periods of self-neglect — we may become disembodied, living primarily in our heads. We might struggle to know what we feel, what we need, or what truly matters to us. Without the body’s input, it becomes difficult to discern what brings safety, meaning, or joy.
Disembodiment can look like:
Feeling “numb” or detached from emotions
Having trouble identifying needs or desires (“I don’t know what I want”)
Ignoring hunger, fatigue, or pain signals until they become extreme
Relying on external validation or logic to make decisions instead of inner knowing
Feeling disconnected from purpose or intuition
In essence, when we lose touch with our interoceptive awareness, we lose touch with the internal compass that guides authenticity and self-trust.
At Being and Becoming Counselling and Wellness Services in Burnaby, BC, we help clients rebuild that connection. Through mindfulness, somatic therapy, and trauma-informed counselling, individuals learn to tune back into their body’s quiet messages. As interoceptive awareness strengthens, many people rediscover emotional clarity, inner stability, and a renewed sense of identity.
Reconnecting with your body isn’t just about feeling physical sensations — it’s about reclaiming access to yourself. It’s how you come to know what you feel, what you need, and what matters most to you.
How to Improve Interoceptive Awareness
The good news is that interoception can be strengthened — just like attention or mindfulness. With consistent practice, you can learn to tune into your body’s messages more clearly and respond with greater calm and care.
1. Mindfulness and Body Scans
Mindfulness practices that focus attention on bodily sensations — such as body scans or mindful breathing — are among the most effective ways to build interoceptive awareness. These exercises help you notice sensations without judgment, increasing sensitivity to subtle internal cues while cultivating a sense of calm and presence.
2. Breathwork
Practices like diaphragmatic breathing, box breathing, or paced breathing allow you to focus on the rhythm of your body. This helps regulate the nervous system, reduce stress, and reconnect awareness to physical sensations.
3. Yoga and Somatic Movement
Gentle, mindful movement practices — such as yoga, tai chi, or qigong — invite you to feel the body from the inside out. As you notice balance, tension, and breath, your brain strengthens its ability to interpret interoceptive cues.
4. Biofeedback
Biofeedback technology can help you observe real-time data on your heart rate, breathing, or muscle tension. Over time, you learn how stress and relaxation change your body — and how to consciously influence those responses.
5. Therapy
Many therapeutic approaches directly target interoceptive awareness by helping you notice, name, and work with bodily sensations during emotional experiences.
These include:
Mindfulness-Based Approaches (such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy), which integrate meditation and body awareness to enhance emotional regulation.
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, which blends somatic awareness with trauma processing to help clients safely reconnect with their bodies after stress or trauma.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which incorporate mindfulness and body-based grounding to build self-regulation and acceptance.
Somatic Experiencing, which helps release stored tension and restore the body’s natural rhythm of safety and calm.
At Being and Becoming Counselling and Wellness Services in Burnaby, BC, our clinicians integrate these evidence-based methods within a trauma-informed, body-centered framework. Clients learn to listen to their body’s cues, rebuild trust in themselves, and cultivate a grounded sense of presence in daily life.
The Everyday Benefits of Interoceptive Awareness
Enhancing interoception can:
Improve emotional regulation
Reduce stress and anxiety
Strengthen intuition and decision-making
Deepen empathy and connection
Promote self-compassion and confidence
Increase the ability to notice and attend to your body’s needs, such as rest, nourishment, and movement
These skills enrich everyday life, helping you respond to challenges with greater calm and self-awareness.
Reconnecting in a World That Teaches Us to Tune Out
In our fast-paced, tech-driven world, it’s easy to lose touch with our bodies. Constant busyness, screens, and stress pull us outward, away from the quiet signals that guide our well-being.
When we ignore these cues — exhaustion, tension, hunger — we lose vital information about our needs and boundaries. Reconnecting with interoception isn’t indulgence; it’s a return to balance.
At Being and Becoming Counselling and Wellness Services in Burnaby, BC, we help individuals slow down, tune in, and rediscover their body’s natural wisdom through trauma-informed, mindfulness-based, and somatic counselling approaches.
A Return to the Body
Ultimately, interoception reminds us that mental health lives in the body as much as in the mind. It’s in the pulse of the heart, the rhythm of the breath, and the sensations that tell us when we’re safe, joyful, or at peace.
To care for your mind, you must listen to your body.
Take a moment — feel your feet on the ground, notice your breath, sense your heartbeat. This is interoception — your body’s quiet intelligence.
When we learn to listen, we discover the body has been speaking all along.