Regulate & Rewire: An Anxiety & Depression Podcast

How INTEROCEPTION Helps You Heal [Essential 8 Series]

• Amanda Armstrong • Season 1 • Episode 67

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Episode 67 - Essential 8 Series (Part 8)

Do you struggle to feel connected or at home in your body? Do you often feel ungrounded? Do you have anxiety or lack self awareness? When someone is having a hard time are you overly empathetic - is it almost like you absorb their hard emotions? Do you struggle to easily feel when you're hungry or full? These are all signs of low or impaired interoceptive awareness.

Interoception is the ability to fell and understand what's happening on the inside of your body and it is a foundational skill to somatic healing. Hit play to join me for a longer conversation on what it is, why it matters, and how to cultivated stronger interocetion.
 
Resources:

Here's the 3 takeaways:

  1. Interoception is the awareness of how you feel on the inside, it is the key to navigating your nervous system with agency and to really feeling at home in your body.
  2. If you struggle to feel connected to your body, find yourself overly empathetic, struggle knowing when you’re hungry or full, or often feel ungrounded – these are signs of weak interoception.
  3. Want an easy place to start? Pee when you need to pee. 

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Email: amanda@riseaswe.com

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Welcome to regulate and rewire, an anxiety and depression podcast where we discuss the things I wish someone would have taught me earlier in my healing journey. I'm your host, Amanda Armstrong, and I'll be sharing my steps, my missteps, client experiences, and tangible research based tools to help you regulate your nervous system, rewire your mind, and reclaim your life. Thanks for being here. Now, let's dive in. Welcome back. Today is part eight of our essential eight series, and if you aren't sure what that is, over the last couple months together, we have unpacked conversations on sleep, movement, breath, vagal toning, stress management, nutrition, community, and then today's conversation. Last but definitely not least, is all about interoception. So in a minute, we'll unpack what that is, why it is the cornerstone for healing and regulating your nervous system and the goal with each of these episodes.

So our essential eight inside the rises we coaching practice. These are eight habits that heal. These are eight habits that we, in some way or another, offer personalized support to help our clients step into more regulated living. And with the last two months together, none of these episodes were exhaustive in nature. Each and every single one of these topics will be talked about again on the podcast in a different way or through a different lens. And they all could have been an eight part series in and of themselves. What I wanted to do with this essential eight series was just to come in and be this voice that almost was like, hey, friend, like, have you considered the role that x, y or z might be playing in your symptoms or your healing? Because what we see so often in our practice is so many people who feel stuck in their healing journey for one reason or another. And what I feel like our superpower is, is in our whole human whole life approach.

You know, we say, hey, look, your anxiety might be rooted in this really hard thing that happened to you in the past, but it also might be because you are not getting enough sleep, you're skipping breakfast, you're over caffeinating, you don't feel a strong sense of belonging in your community. So before we go and rehash some of the hardest things you've ever been through, let's take a look at right here and right now in this present moment. And are your daily habits facilitating an environment conducive to healing and regulation, or irregardless of your past lived experience? Do these symptoms maybe make sense in the context of today and the current situations that you're navigating and your current stress load? And is there a way we can get a little more strategic about that. And what I also want to reiterate is that none of these episodes involved. The perfect protocol here is the perfect way that you need to sleep and move and breathe. And if you don't do this, then you're not following the research or optimizing yourself as a human. Because when it comes to lifestyle and habits and healing, there is so much nuance. Nuance to what your system needs, what it has the capacity for, what your current life circumstances are in the moment.

And I want to just reiterate how resilient we are as humans. The goal is not to have a perfect protocol. The goal is to have our system, our nervous system, our body, our brain's needs met enough, we need to sleep well enough, move enough, breathe good enough, manage our stress enough. And it's this collective enoughness that creates capacity for healing to happen. I feel like there are far too many voices out there right now offering these textbook really strict protocols. And I think individuals who are especially, especially individuals who are struggling with anxiety and depression, we don't need to be told that we should do more, especially when our capacity is compromised. And so my hope is that with each of these episodes, it wasn't a call to do more in a perfect prescriptive way, but it felt more like a friend. Just saying.

Hey, have you considered. Have you considered the role this might be playing? Are any pieces of your puzzle falling into place in a helpful way? Is understanding the science behind this habit motivating for you to take a small step in a helpful direction in this area? And just to remind you that this is never a call or an ask to overhaul your life in a day. In fact, I advise strongly against that. Slower is faster, and healing baby tiny steps is what we, what we preach and what we practice with our clients every single day. Now for today's essential eight. Today's habit that heals is interoception. And this is a core skill to cultivate, and it is a foundation to self regulation, self awareness, emotional regulation, all of it. So what is interoception? This is your ability to sense how you're feeling on the inside.

And before I give you any more context on that, I want to invite you into a little experiential exploration of interoception. So if you will just take a minute and tune in to your body and see if there's anything you can feel. Is there any sensation that you notice? Maybe you feel a little hungry or thirsty. Maybe you notice there's an ache in your ankle or your back? Do you notice tension? Or maybe you feel quite relaxed. Maybe you're noticing something about the way that you're breathing. Can you sense your heart beating? And there's no right or wrong thing to notice or to feel? This is just an invitation to pay attention, to come into conversation with your body for a moment. Okay. And just take note, reflect on that experience.

Was there much to feel at all? Was it hard to connect to your body? Was it hard to come into conversation with your body? Maybe it felt overwhelming that the minute you dropped into conversation with your body, it's like your body just started yelling at you. There was almost too much there. Is this maybe a regular practice for you? And if you did come into your body and you noticed some things, maybe take a moment to reflect on. How often in your everyday life do you feel tuned in, checked in? How often are you aware enough of what you feel inside to be responsive to it? Oh, yeah. I notice when I'm starting to feel overwhelmed, and here's how I meet that need. Oh, yeah. I notice when I'm hungry and I'm quick to respond to that. I notice when my body is getting achy and needs to get up and take a walk.

Or do you spend most of your day in your head and not tuned into your body? All right, now, a little bit of nerdy science. The part of your brain that houses interoception, or that plays the biggest role in interoception is something called your insular cortex. And this is a part of your brain that is deep in your brain, and it interconnects various regions of your brain, including your limbic system, your prefrontal cortex, and sensory areas. So your insular cortex receives input from your body's internal organs through your autonomic nervous system, and then it relays this information to the other brain regions that are involved in emotional and cognitive processing. And I share this information with you because one of the things that I love about our approach and methodology is that when you understand your physiology, you understand that there are different regions of your brain that have different jobs that are connected to different functions. And there are certain exercises we can do to target those parts of our brain. And if you look at the research around different exercises and practices that improve interoceptive awareness, there's a lot of overlap. A lot of those are the same as the exercises and practices that improve integration of your insular cortex.

This part of our brain, the insular cortex, helps us make sense of who we are. Interception helps us to make sense of who we are. And some signs that you have weak interoceptive awareness is if you struggle to feel connected to your body. Maybe you struggle knowing what grounded feels like. Maybe reflect on if you've ever said something like, I feel like a stranger in my own body. Some symptoms of low interceptive awareness or problems in the insula are anxiety, lack of self awareness, being overly empathetic. So maybe you notice, you really easily cry when you watch or hear something sad, or you notice when somebody else is having a hard time. It almost is like you absorb that into your own body.

You might also struggle with more of those physiological sensations. Do you have a hard time noticing or recognizing when you're hungry or when you're full? This part of our brain, the insular cortex, houses interception, which, again, just a reminder, I'm reiterating, repetition in these episodes is intentional. Interoception is the ability to understand what is happening inside of our body, everything from hunger and fullness, but also emotions. What are you feeling inside your body? And a lot of the clients that we work with, they really struggle trusting their body, trusting themselves, trusting their intuition. And for a lot of our clients, this makes sense. Why would you want to be inside a body that has so much pain, so many symptoms, so much anxiety? And yet interoception is the key to navigating your nervous system with agency and getting to a place where you can really feel at home in your body. How do you build a relationship with a human? You communicate with them. You get to know them better.

You help to meet their needs. You support them. How do you build a relationship with your body? The same way. And we just happen to call that interoception. And there's a quote I love about this by Doctor Bessel van der Kolk. He's the author of a book called the body keeps the score. And this quote reads, agency starts with what scientists call interception. This is our awareness of our subtle sensory, body based feelings.

The greater that awareness, the greater our potential to control our lives. And I think what he means is not necessarily that we can control the things that happen in our lives, but that our interoceptive awareness is directly linked to how we interpret and respond to those things. And I think that that plays a greater outcome in our lives. The way that we respond to things has a greater outcome on our lives than what is actually happening to us. And navigating your nervous system with agency starts with interceptive awareness, because you have to be able to sense what state your nervous system is in to know which tools are best going to support that state. Another indicator that you have weak interceptive awareness is if you have a hard time catching anxiety before it's panic, or if anger only gets noticed when it's so big. We call it rage. If you only notice overwhelm when it's become burnout or collapse.

Coming into conversation with your body on purpose. And this is something that we do in so many different ways with our clients. In our one on one coaching program, interoceptive awareness is built in the education modules, in the reflective questions that get asked. It's built in the daily and weekly practices that were offered. It's something that we do one on one in session with clients all of the time, both in proactive practice and then throughout the session. Hey, let's pause. Let's go inward. How does that feel? What's your body telling you? What do you think that means? And inside the membership, we have a daily regulation practice.

Every single one of those regulation practices invites you to tune into your body in some way. Together as a group, we practice cultivating more interceptive awareness in our live events and live coaching calls through different practices and different conversations that we have. Because this is the skill that allows you to ooh, this is something that I'm feeling. What is this thing that I'm feeling mean? What is my body asking from me? So I want to give an example in the context of social anxiety. So let's say you go to a party. So you're somebody. First of all, you're somebody who knows you struggle with social anxiety and you've decided, I want to go to this friend's birthday party anyways. So you go to this party and you start to notice that you are feeling anxious about being in a new place or meeting new people.

So what is happening on the inside of your body is that your sympathetic nervous system, that fight or flight response, is being engaged. And this changes your physiology in real, intangible, observable ways. You might feel your heart race in your chest. Maybe your chest gets tighter, you get dry mouth, you notice your breath changes. Maybe you feel dizzy, you want to take a seat or go outside. Anxiety often changes our digestive tract. So maybe you notice you've got butterflies in your system or, oh, all right, I got to run to the bathroom. I didn't have to go a minute ago, but I definitely have to go now.

And in a situation like this, if you have weak interceptive awareness, you might misinterpret these physical sensations in your body as signs of real danger. Oh my gosh I don't feel safe here. Something is really wrong versus, hey, we have the context. We have social anxiety. This is something we should have expected in this setting, and we're still choosing to be here. And so with weak interoceptive awareness, you may not catch that anxiety, like I've mentioned, until it's panic, until it's almost too late to intervene and save the night. But with strong interceptive awareness, you're able to notice those sensations as they begin and then hopefully come into that cognitive part of our brain and provide context. Hey, I know.

Hey, body. I know we don't feel safe, but we are safe. We know we struggle with social anxiety right now, but we're choosing to be here anyways. And remember, you can always leave. And then maybe you engage in some somatic grounding practices and exercises that feel safe for you. Another thing I think is important to mention around interoception is that research shows us that there is altered interoceptive awareness in adults struggling with depression. There's an actual disconnection and learning what you've learned here on this podcast. We know that depression happens in that shutdown state, in that red zone.

And one of the protective mechanisms of that red zone is to disconnect, to numb, to prevent further pain, to prevent further overwhelm. So we can also look at weak or impaired interoception as something that our nervous system might actually do to protect us, especially in instances of chronic or traumatic stress, when a situation becomes overwhelming, when we feel like the pain is too much, especially when it's inescapable, maybe like for children. So, maybe in your childhood, there was an event that felt inescapable, or maybe you feel powerless in a work environment, our nervous system might disconnect us from these internal sensations to protect us from the intensity. And this can prevent us from becoming even more overwhelmed or distressed with that situation. And so if you know that there are experiences in your past where they felt inescapable, they felt overwhelming, they felt really distressing. Oh, okay. This not feeling at home in my body, this disconnection, this lack of interceptive awareness, I I don't know when I'm hungry or I'm full or I often don't go to the bathroom until I'm, like, it's urgent, because I don't notice those early signs that might have originated as a protective mechanism. But can we recognize now that it's at the detriment to the progress that we want to see in healing? And what do we want to choose to do about that.

Let's take another couple minutes and talk about a few other reasons or things that might contribute to weak interceptive awareness, to weak interoception. So, number one, we live in a world right now of constant distractions, especially from technology. So with being able to be constantly distracted, it reduces our attention to our internal cues. We become over reliant on external cues for different things. We can become overloaded. We have sensory fatigue. Our technology can disrupt our sleep, decreases self awareness, reduces physical activity, increases our media consumption, where we're tuning inward less and we're paying attention to outward what other people seem to be experiencing. Because there was once a time before we had little tiny computers in our pockets where when we went on a walk, we just went on a walk.

When we stood in line at a grocery store, we just stood in line at a grocery store. When we peed, we just peed. And because we are able to constantly be distracted by one thing or another, we aren't given an opportunity or given enough space or quietness to sense or feel or understand what's going on inside. Another contributor to weak interception could be body shame, for whatever reason, could also be shame around particular emotions. Well, I wasn't allowed to feel anger as a child, so I suppressed anger. So I no longer feel anger. Anger comes up and I just disconnect from it. Well, I felt a lot of shame around my body, so I'm just not.

I'm gonna ignore my body. I'm not gonna stay in conversation with my body. So I think the natural next question is like, okay, how do we cultivate better interceptive awareness? How do we cultivate interoception? This is the cornerstone to healing. Amanda, what do I do? Because I said yes to all of those things. I don't feel at home in my body. I struggle to feel grounded. I'm not always aware of my hunger or fullness cues. So just a reminder, with each of these essential eight videos in the show notes, I have put together a completely free downloadable workbook that offers a summary of that habit, some options for you to step into practice to make some behavior changes in that particular category.

So what you'll find in the workbook for interoception is you'll see a little review summary about what it is. And then underneath that, a list of what ways to improve interception. And what I want to share with you here is that one of my favorite places to start with clients, especially clients who struggle being in conversation with their body or have been disconnected for a really long time, is to invite you into conversation with your body through urges, through the need to pee, the need to eat, the need to drink. These physiological urges oftentimes feel like a safer place to start. And eventually being in tune and responding and noticing those physiological needs, this opens the door to being more aware of our emotional cues. So if you are looking for a place to start this week, pee when you need to pee. Notice when you need to pee and respond to that. And every single time you do that sends a little love note to your nervous system, to your body that says, oh, my gosh, they listened.

I've shut down. I've stopped trying. It's like that friend that never calls you back, that friend that never answers the phone, you're going to eventually stop calling that friend. And so when you start to notice, oh, I was thirsty, I'm going to go drink, I'm hungry, I'm going to go get a snack, and you not only notice the need, but you meet it. That's your body being like, oh, hey, you called me back this time. Okay, okay, let me try. Let me try again. Will you feel this one? Will you respond to this one? Hey.

Hey, friend. Our body wants to be acknowledged. It wants to be in conversation with us. It wants to get its needs met. And so if you're looking for just a really simple place to start, pee when you need to pee. And I have been doing this with clients for years, but it felt really silly for this to be what we were talking about this week because I found myself in two different situations being like, oh, I'll just pee later. So I have been taking a, like, dance fitness class for almost two months now. Don't be impressed.

I'm not good. It's actually part of some deeper work that I'm doing right now to do a thing that I know I'm not going to be very good at just for the sake of having some fun with it. So that's this thing. But I got to class. And class still, it's not even that. It was late. Class was still two minutes from starting. But I was like, oh, I have to pee.

And my immediate thought was like, no, no, no, it's okay, it's okay. Like, you can hold it. And then I had this thought. I was like, but why? Like, why? Like, you're more conditioned to deny meeting, like, you're an adult. You're an adult. You have to pee. Go pee. You're not going to take a dance.

An hour long dance fitness class, having to pee, especially after having two children, like, go pee? And I know this is a really silly example, but how often do we put off meeting simple needs to write another email to just sit a little longer? Oh, I just don't feel like it. Whether that's to get up and get a glass of water. And I know some of you listening, you're like, man, I'm a teacher. I like, really can't pee when I need to pee. Okay, but is there some other thing that you can do to notice a physiological urge and meet that need? Or notice how often you've trained yourself to suppress those things because of a particular work environment or whatever? And when you're outside of that environment, can you be more intentional, to be more attuned and to meet those needs?

The good news here is that interoception is a skill. And engaging in interoception also engages the part of our brain that helps us to cultivate a greater sense of self. It also helps to stimulate the vagus nerve, which helps aid self regulation and all of these things. When we have a greater sense of self, when we're more connected to our body, when we've improved vagal tone, they all work together to help us be greater self regulators. And ultimately, the greater accuracy you have of tuning in to these internal sensations, the greater ability you have to making aligned decisions in your life, the more you feel in charge of your mind, your body, your emotions, and to living the life that you want to showing up intentionally and really embodying and showing up as your authentic self. So quick interoception is your ability to tune in and assess what's going on inside. It involves awareness of sensations and signals from inside your body. Things like hunger, thirst, heartbeat, breathing, need, choose the bathroom.

And it also includes sensations associated with emotions or your nervous system state. And this internal awareness is the number one skill to become an effective self regulator for this nervous system regulation work and greater and healthier and improved interception leads to greater awareness and a greater sense of self. Reduced emotional overwhelm and it improves coping and regulation skills. I hope this has taught you something new about interceptive awareness. And more importantly, I think why it's so important to cultivate. And as some of you choose to step into this work, this may feel really playful.

Yep.

Pee when I got a pee. Eat when I got to eat. Ooh. I think this is maybe an earlier sign to stress and overwhelm. I'm going to head to the workbook and make sure I put that in my mapping for others of you. You have a really good reason for why there's impaired interoceptive awareness. Being connected didn't feel safe. There were situations that were overwhelmingly distressing and that need to numb, that need to disconnect.

And as you step into this journey, please do so in a way that evokes compassion, curiosity, knowing that there's, there's no finish line to this work. There's no timeline for this work.

Now, bringing this all together with our three tangible takeaways. Number one, interoception is the awareness of how you feel on the inside. It is the key to navigating your nervous system with agency and to feeling at home in your body. Number two is that if you struggle to feel connected to your body, if you find yourself overly empathetic, you struggle knowing when you're hungry or full, you often feel ungrounded. This is an indicator to you that there is weak interception. What are exercises and practices you can do to engage your insular cortex and to invite yourself into intentional conversation with your body? And number three is if you want an easy place to start focus this week, pee when you need to pee. And if that's not the physiological need that you want, what does it look like to choose a different one? Eat when you're hungry, drink when you're thirsty. Go to bed when you feel tired.

That first urge of tired, start inviting yourself into conversation with your body in a way that feels neutral and safe. We often find with our clients, us with a physiological need, and then that opens the door to coming into conversation with, okay, I don't want to only know that I'm angry because I've started yelling. What does it look like to be more in tune? How do I know that anger is coming before I've yelled? What does that look like? And if that doesn't feel comfy to explore on your own, do that with a practitioner, with a safe other. And this is just another invitation that if you're looking for more personalized support, if you are like, okay, well, Amanda, I didn't know what interception was before today. Thanks a lot. Now I do. And now I'm like anxious over my interception. I don't know where to start.

This is a core tenet of the work that we support our clients in, both in our one on one coaching program and inside the membership in the life coaching experiences in the daily practices that are in that space as well as in the education content. It's not just, hey, learn this thing. Hey, learn this thing. Now take a minute and pause. Reflect. How does that feel for you? What do you notice? Come up for you. How can we personalize what we're learning? So that's what I have for you today, is interception. Maybe you want to hear from a couple other people on this.

Look for their podcast. Type in the word interoception, especially if you're new to this. Go to YouTube, see what other people are saying about interception. See if there's somebody who can help you really grasp this concept and find a starting point that feels good for you. Just a final spoiler alert. Next week, while not officially one of the eight pieces of our essential eight series, it is going to be a conversation that really helps to round out the last couple months of conversations together. We're going to talk about what it means to step in to more regulated living, what it means to feel safe enough to be living regulated enough to start to heal. So until then, sending so much hope and healing your way.

Thanks for listening to another episode of the regulate and rewire podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe and leave a five star review to help us get these powerful tools out to even more people who need them. And if you yourself are looking for more personalized support and applying what you've learned today, consider joining me inside Rise, my monthly mental health membership and nervous system healing space. Or apply for our one on one anxiety and depression coaching program, Restore. I've shared a link for more information to both in the show notes. Again, thanks so much for being here and I'll see you next time.