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Interoception: the hidden sense that shapes wellbeing

#1
C C Offline
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021...eroception

INTRO: If you’re sitting in a safe and comfortable position, close your eyes and try to feel your heart beating in your chest. Can you, without moving your hands to take your pulse, feel each movement and count its rhythm? Or do you struggle to detect anything at all? This simple test is just one way to assess your “interoception” – your brain’s perception of your body’s state, transmitted from receptors on all your internal organs.

Interoception may be less well known than the “outward facing” senses such as sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell, but it has enormous consequences for your wellbeing. Scientists have shown that our sensitivity to interoceptive signals can determine our capacity to regulate our emotions, and our subsequent susceptibility to mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.

It is now one of the fastest moving areas in neuroscience and psychology, with academic conferences devoted to the subject and a wealth of new papers emerging every month. “We are seeing an exponential growth in interoceptive research,” says Prof Manos Tsakiris, a psychologist at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Importantly, these findings include promising new ways for you to “tune in” to the body and alter your perception of its interoceptive signals – techniques that may help treat a host of mental health problems. It is only by listening to the heart, it seems, that we can take better care of the mind... (MORE)
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#2
Syne Offline
The brain is very adapted to tuning out repetitive stimuli, internally and externally, so it doesn't overwhelm or distract from higher priorities for our attention. I doubt that getting "in tune with the body" has any direct psychological benefits other than learning to control one's attention, which can be done with external stimuli too.

Will they test such things to see if they're being led but their own presumptions? Doubt it.
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