Inserception is the ability to recognize the stimuli and sensations that our body sends us. The art of living and understanding this beautiful physical wrap full of delicate connections, receptors, cells and tissues. He sends us the most varied messages, the ones we don’t have. I don’t always listen. However, practices such as mindfulness can help us achieve this.
Some say that we should basically be grateful that we do not have this well-developed or perfectly phased meaning. It can’t be pleasant for anyone to hear how a leukocyte faces an infectious agent, how our gastric juices are released, or how a neuron sounds when it dies, for example.
Understanding the meaning of inserception, the signals our body sends us, helps us act in a healthy way.
However, it must be said that it is not necessary to go to extremes to appreciate what interoception offers us, as well and for example, what was demonstrated in 2011, thanks to a study by psychologist Hirokata Fukushima, is that this function is closely related to empathy.
When we connect with someone to understand their emotions, needs or concerns, our body reacts in a particular way.
The emotional states of others are like stimuli to which we are almost never indifferent. The brain and heart react, and sometimes even the skin.
Understanding more deeply the mysteries of interoceptive function will allow us to know a little more about the relationship between body and mind, but not least, it would also help us to take better care of our health, we would understand these indicators, which sometimes warn you that something is not right in us.
People spend much of their time taking care of themselves, taking care of their hygiene, eating in a balanced way, exercising, enjoying looking good, choosing clothes according to their style, painting, machining, taking care of their skin and trying to spend a quiet night.
As curious as it may seem, there is something we lack in this routine: listening to our own body, neglecting what it says when it sends us, for example, a message of pain, a tension accumulated in the back of our neck, a headache that stalks our forehead insistently, etc. Our mind is stressed and the whole body reacts to this destabilizing emotion, yet we don’t pay the attention it deserves.
Athletes often have a well-developed sense of interoception, good athletes are able to discern when a physical sensation is normal or pathological, they know when pain in a knee may be due to a simple overload or an indication of muscle damage.
Sometimes they are able to negotiate with pain for hours to reach the finish line or give their best in a match. The mind-body connection presents an effective alliance to improve our performance when we need it.
Immersion perception has been widely studied in the field of emotional psychology, learning and biofeedback, so in recent years it is common to find new works to delve into this topic, such a special and at the same time important sense of the human being.
An interesting aspect to keep in mind is that basic processes such as thirst, hunger, sleep or feeling of cold or heat are messages that our feeling of interoception sends us, mechanisms that guarantee our survival and that we must know. Others, on the other hand, are more subtle and go unnoticed.
If one wonders what brain structure regulates these processes, one can consult a work published in 2012, it is the insular cortex, a very deep area located on the lateral surface of the brain that regulates processes such as awareness of our emotions and the body. Feelings.
The insular cortex is a control center. Is the always interesting and unknown union between mind and body evident?
Mindfulness is a way to become aware of our sense of interoception
This practice based on meditation and mindfulness allows us to connect with our physical sensations, in this way we can better relate to ourselves and understand our minds, as well as understand our needs and the impact of the environment and its processes on the body.
Being able to listen and discern each of the body’s signals is to invest in health and quality of life, we would handle stress much better and anticipate indicators of possible diseases (such as high blood pressure), we could also be more productive knowing our limits.
Would we be aware that we are not machines, but a wonderful delicate system, made up of cells, tissues and emotions?