Understanding Interoception: A Therapist’s Guide to Improving Anxiety, Depression, and Emotional Health
As a therapist, I often work with clients struggling with anxiety, depression, disordered eating, and difficulties managing their emotions. One important but often overlooked skill that can help improve all of these areas is interoception — our body’s ability to sense and interpret internal signals.
What Is Interoception?
Interoception is your brain’s way of tuning into sensations coming from inside your body, like hunger, fullness, heartbeat, breathing, or muscle tension. Think of it as your body’s internal communication system — a way for your brain to “check in” on how your body is doing at any moment. For many people with anxiety, depression, or disordered eating, this connection to their body can feel faint or confusing.
When interoception is disrupted or underdeveloped, it becomes harder to recognize important signals — like when you’re actually hungry versus emotionally upset, or when your heart is racing due to anxiety but you don’t realize it. This can make emotions feel overwhelming and difficult to manage.
If you’re reading this and realizing you often feel disconnected from your body’s signals, you’re not alone. Interoception is a skill that can be learned — and therapy can guide you there. Schedule a session today and start building the skills that support both your mental and physical well-being.
How to Use Interoception in Daily Life
Building interoceptive awareness doesn’t require special equipment or training — it starts with curiosity and focused attention on your body’s signals. Here are some practical ways to engage your interoceptive sense:
Mindful Body Scans: Regularly pause and scan your body from head to toe. Notice any areas of tension, warmth, pressure, or relaxation without judgment.
Breathing Awareness: Pay close attention to your breath. Feel the rise and fall of your chest or abdomen, the rhythm, depth, and temperature of your breath.
Check in with Physical Sensations: Throughout the day, pause and ask yourself what you feel physically. Are you hungry, thirsty, fatigued, or experiencing discomfort?
Hunger and Fullness Checks: Practice distinguishing physical hunger or fullness from emotional urges to eat, which can be especially helpful for those with disordered eating.
Emotional Mapping: Notice how emotions manifest physically. Anxiety might feel like tightness in your chest, sadness like heaviness, or excitement like a flutter in your stomach.
Journaling Internal Cues: Keep a log of what your body signals at different times, especially when emotions are strong. Over time, you’ll begin to see patterns that help you anticipate and manage your mental states more effectively.
Benefits of Cultivating Interoceptive Awareness
By strengthening your interoception, you build a bridge between your mind and body, leading to profound benefits:
Better Emotion Regulation: Recognizing bodily signals linked to emotions can help you catch feelings earlier and use coping strategies before emotions escalate.
Reduced Anxiety: Noticing and naming physical signs of anxiety, like a fast heartbeat or shallow breathing, can reduce fear and help you practice calming techniques.
Improved Relationship with Food: For those with disordered eating, tuning into true hunger and fullness cues supports healthier eating patterns and reduces emotional eating.
Increased Self-Compassion: Developing awareness of your body and emotions fosters kindness toward yourself, improving mood and reducing depressive symptoms.
Greater Mind-Body Connection: Feeling more connected to your body builds resilience and supports recovery from emotional distress.
Why This Mind-Body Connection Matters
When we lose touch with how our bodies feel, emotional experiences can become confusing and overwhelming. For example, chronic stress often shows up as physical symptoms like headaches or digestive issues — symptoms that our interoceptive sense can alert us to if we’re tuned in.
Learning to listen to and understand these internal signals helps create a sense of safety and control. It’s a foundational skill in many therapies because it helps people respond to their emotions thoughtfully instead of reacting impulsively or shutting down.
In Therapy: Using Interoception as a Healing Tool
In my therapy work, I often incorporate interoceptive exercises to help clients with anxiety, depression, and disordered eating reconnect with their bodies. Techniques like mindful breathing, body scans, and tracking physical sensations tied to emotions empower clients to manage distress and build emotional resilience.
If you’re struggling with anxiety, burnout, depression, challenges around eating and emotions, or stress management, learning to tune into your body through interoception can be a transformative step toward healing.
Final Thoughts
Interoception may feel subtle, but it holds powerful keys to understanding your emotions and improving mental health. Start by simply noticing what your body is telling you right now — your breath, your heartbeat, or sensations in your stomach. That small awareness can be the first step in building a stronger mind-body connection and a healthier relationship with yourself.
Your body is talking — are you listening? Let’s build your mind-body connection together. Book a session today.
