Interoception - The hidden but oh so important 8th sense

Did you know that our bodies are naturally wired to achieve and maintain an optimum level of comfort and health? They do this by constantly giving us signals as to how we are feeling, which prompt us to do what we need to keep us at our healthiest and most comfortable - This is known as INTEROCEPTION, our 8th sense.

So how does interoception work?

Interoception is like having a little friend inside your body that helps you understand how you feel. This friend tells you when you are hungry or thirsty, lets you know if you are hot or cold, and even helps you understand if you are feeling happy or sad. It's like a special power that helps you know what your body needs, like eating when you're hungry or putting on a sweater when you're cold. This helps you take good care of yourself and understand your feelings better!

Imagine your body is like a big, busy city, and inside it, there are lots of tiny workers. These workers are super special because they have an important job: they listen to everything that's happening in your body-city and send messages to your brain. This is what we call interoception.

So, let's say you've been running and playing. One of these tiny workers might notice that your heart is beating really fast. He'll quickly send a message to your brain saying, "Hey, our heart is pounding! We might need to slow down and rest." Or, if you haven't drunk water in a while, another worker might notice your throat is dry and tell your brain, "We're thirsty! Let's get a drink of water."

These workers also help you understand your feelings. For example, if you're nervous about something, like maybe your first day at school, they might make your tummy feel a bit funny. That's their way of saying, "We're feeling nervous right now."

By listening to these messages, you can understand what your body needs and how you're feeling. It's like having a superpower that helps you take care of yourself and understand yourself better. You become a superhero who knows exactly what to do to be happy, healthy, and ready for fun adventures!

Sounds simple, but these messages can be very tricky to make sense of and many children misinterpret them, while others may not pick up on any messages at all.

Some children are unable to recognise when they are hungry or full, or need reminding to drink as they do not pick up on the messages that they are thirsty. Some may not recognise when their bladder is full, which can cause accidents, while others may not dress appropriately for the weather as they have difficulty registering when their bodies are cold and in need of warmth or too hot. With regards to emotions, some children may seemingly go from 0-100 mph with no obvious trigger, some may quickly move from happy to uncontrollably over-excited, while others may suddenly lash out or need to escape a situation. These behaviours are the result of children not recognising or listening to the messages from their little internal body workers that they are becoming overloaded, anxious or angry. As such, they do not do what they need to do to restore the balance (be this removing themselves from the situation or environment, seeking help or comfort from a trusted adult or giving themselves the sensory input they need) and they escalate to a point of being completely overwhelmed and unable to control their actions and emotions.

So how we can we help our children to put on their superhero capes and listen to what their bodies are telling them and make sense of what the messages mean?

We get CURIOUS! We become Interoception Investigators!

Firstly, we encourage our children to simply watch and listen to their different body parts, to help them become more mindful of every part of their body and the different sensations they are feeling.

For example, you may like to start by focusing on the hands. Ask your child “how do your hands feel?”. You may like to give some ideas of different words to give them inspiration e.g. dry, tight, sore, tense, numb, tingly, floppy, hot etc. You may also like to given them choices to help them e.g. “are your hands moving or still? Are they wet or dry? Are they hot or cold? etc.” The point is you are drawing their attention to that body part.

(An important point to make here is that no answer is wrong! Everybody feels their inner feelings differently. It is also OK to feel nothing at all or to not know how you feel.)

Check back in with your child regularly throughout the day and particularly when they are doing different activities (hanging on monkey bars, doing exercise, washing their hands, being outdoors compared to indoors, wearing gloves, putting on moisturiser, being in the bath etc.), again just asking how their hands feel or giving them guided questions, to see if they notice anything new or different.

Then do this with other body parts - try the feet, mouth, cheeks, tummy, chest/lungs, heart, muscles etc. gradually moving through the whole body.

By starting the process of being curious, you are opening your child’s mind to what may be happening inside their body and are encouraging them to take notice of the messages their little workers are sending. Once they are more aware of their body’s signals, we can start connecting these to emotions, asking WHY the body may be feeling this way, what feelings are they feeling? Do sensations feel comfortable or uncomfortable?

We can then work on the final step - doing what we need to do to make our bodies feel good and giving our bodies what they need.

So, start getting curious and have fun listening to your bodies!

If you have any concerns about your child’s interoception, sensory or emotional regulation, do feel free to get in touch at rosie@therapyspot.co.uk.

For further reading about interoception and regulation, there are lots of useful books online, including mine! Available here.