The perception of stimuli sent by our organs to the brain, plays an important role in regulating emotions and counteracting anxiety and depression. New studies have highlighted the importance of interoception
Numerous new studies have shown that interoception has enormous effects on personal well-being. Less well known than outward-facing senses such as sight, taste, touch and smell, it has been found that the ability to perceive the signals the body's organs send to the brain can determine our ability to regulate emotions and our susceptibility to mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. Interception is the brain's perception of the state of the body. One test to assess one's degree of interoception is to try to hear a heartbeat just by standing still and closing one's eyes. According to Professor Manos Tsakiris, a psychologist at Royal Holloway, University of London, expanding interoceptive research can identify techniques that could help treat a range of mental health problems.
How interoception helps regulate emotional and physical states
Dr. Helen Weng of the University of California at San Francisco pointed out that interoception is a key mechanism for body and mind, "in which understanding our body's signals helps us understand and regulate emotional and physical states." This idea originated back in the 1990s when Professor Antonio Damasio hypothesized that emotions begin with unconscious changes in the body, called "somatic markers." For example, if we encounter a dog that growls at us, our muscles stiffen and our heartbeat increases even before we become aware of the emotion (fear) that causes us this type of encounter.
Only when the brain, through interoception, detects the alteration of the internal state of the body, a person can experience feelings such as happiness, sadness or excitement. However, not all individuals are able to detect interoceptive signals correctly or in the same way. For example, it has been noted that people with depression show a reduced ability to sense their own body signals, such as heartbeat, and this would lead to emotional numbness as a result. People with anxiety, on the other hand, are more attentive to their interoceptive signals but misread them by perceiving a small change, such as heart rate, much larger than it actually is. This would lead to "catastrophizing" their feelings and amplify their sense of panic.
A test of 121 adults with autism, the results of which were published in Lancet, found that those who had improved their interoception skills reduced their anxiety levels in less than three months with 31% completely eradicating the disorder. Interception, for many neuroscientists, is our most important sense, and by learning to pay attention to the signals it sends us we may be able to feel better in both body and mind.
The organs of our bodies largely influence our brains, and research into the links between the mind and the physical is plentiful. A study by University College Cork has recently identified the gut as a possible "elixir of youth" to counteract brain aging.
Stefania Bernardini