Interoception: The Body’s Sixth Sense
There are five well-known senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. But neuroscience identifies a sixth: interoception—the body’s ability to perceive its internal state.
Noticing your heart rate quicken, feeling a knot in your stomach, sensing a tightness in your chest, or noticing your hands getting warmer or colder—all of these are processed through the interoceptive system.
This system operates through the brainstem, the insular cortex, and the anterior cingulate cortex. And it doesn’t just generate “bodily sensations”—it contributes directly to decision-making, emotion, and meaning-making.
Damasio’s Somatic Marker Hypothesis
While conducting neuroscience research at the University of Southern California, Antonio Damasio came across an unexpected finding. Patients whose emotional processing capacity was impaired due to brain damage performed normally on intelligence tests—but experienced severe impairments in making everyday decisions (Descartes’ Error, 1994).
Damasio’s explanation: In the decision-making process, the brain uses the bodily traces of past experiences—the “somatic markers.” These markers are rapid assessments conveyed through bodily signals. Without them, the ability to compare options and make decisions becomes functionally impaired.
In other words: making rational decisions requires both emotion and the body. Without both, pure reasoning is not enough.
Why Does Interoceptive Accuracy Vary?
Research shows that interoceptive accuracy—the ability to accurately perceive bodily signals—varies greatly among individuals. This variation stems from both genetic and experiential factors.
Chronic stress, trauma, and the long-term practice of suppressing bodily signals (such as a “feel it, move on” culture) reduce interoceptive accuracy. Research by Sarah Garfinkel and Hugo Critchley demonstrates a significant association between low interoceptive accuracy and anxiety disorders, depression, and alexithymia (the inability to name emotions).
Somatic Awareness and Emotional Regulation
Lisa Feldman Barrett’s research on emotions (How Emotions Are Made, 2017) shows that emotional experience is largely constructed by the brain’s interpretation of bodily signals. Emotions are not passively felt; they are actively produced—and the quality of interoceptive signals is critical to this production.
The practical implication of this finding: someone who reads bodily signals better labels their emotions more accurately, regulates them more effectively, and generates more functional responses in their relationships.
A Capacity That Can Be Developed
The good news: interoceptive accuracy can be learned. Research shows that mindfulness meditation, yoga, breathwork, and somatic movement practices significantly enhance this capacity.
This enhancement doesn’t just mean “feeling better.” It has measurable effects on decision-making quality, emotional regulation, and stress response management.
“The body is not separate from the mind; it is part of the mind. And this part is often the wisest.” > Adapted from Antonio Damasio, Descartes’ Error, 1994
Cevvela’s Perspective
- Somatic awareness (interoception) is the capacity to perceive the body’s internal state—defined in neuroscience as the “sixth sense.”
- Damasio’s somatic marker hypothesis demonstrates the essential contribution of bodily signals to the decision-making process (1994).
- Low interoceptive accuracy is associated with anxiety, depression, and difficulties with emotional regulation.
- Emotion is largely constructed by the brain from bodily signals; the quality of the signal determines the quality of the emotion (Barrett, 2017).
- Mindfulness, breathing, and somatic practices increase interoceptive accuracy—and this increase translates into measurable functional gains.
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