Have you ever stopped to ask yourself, “How am I feeling?” Or even “What am I feeling?”
Our bodies are constantly sending messages to our brains about what’s happening inside us. But how do we receive and interpret those messages? The answer lies in a sensory system called interoception.
Interoception is our internal sensory system. It allows us to notice, interpret, and understand what is happening inside our bodies. Often referred to as the eighth sense, interoception helps us answer an important question: How do I feel? Just as nerves carry messages from the brain to the body, sensory nerves also carry information from the body back to the brain. This ongoing communication allows the brain to monitor what’s happening internally and respond accordingly.
Much of this communication happens automatically, without us even realizing it. However, this information plays an essential role in how we feel, function, and respond to the world around us. When we are not able to feel this information to maintain health and balance, the body turns up the volume and creates symptoms.
What Does Interoception Help Us Sense?
Interoception helps us recognize a wide range of internal sensations, including:
- Basic physical needs: Hunger, thirst, fullness, fatigue, and the need to use the bathroom.
- Internal body signals: A racing heart, muscle tension, changes in breathing, or a growling stomach.
- Emotional awareness: Physical sensations can influence how we experience and interpret emotions. For example, a racing heart might be associated with excitement, fear, or anxiety.
Our brain constantly receives and processes these signals, helping us understand what our body needs and how we should respond.
The Brain, Spinal Cord, and Body Connection
The brain and spinal cord play important roles in receiving, processing, and coordinating information from the body. As sensory information travels toward the brain, different areas of the nervous system help evaluate and organize these signals.
Some of this processing happens before we are even consciously aware of what’s going on. Our nervous system is continually assessing internal information and helping determine which signals need attention and how the body should respond.
The spinal cord is an essential communication pathway in this process. It carries sensory information toward the brain and motor commands from the brain back to the body. The nervous system also has mechanisms that regulate how sensory information is processed.
When communication or processing within the nervous system is disrupted, our ability to interpret and respond to certain signals may be affected.
Why Does This Communication Matter?
Imagine you’re the CEO of a company. You rely on different managers and departments to report what’s happening throughout the organization. If important information never reaches you, how can you make the best decisions for the company? The same principle applies to the brain.
The brain relies on information from the entire body to help coordinate movement, regulate internal functions, respond to our environment, and maintain balance. When sensory information is incomplete or not processed effectively, the brain may have a harder time responding appropriately to the body’s needs. This is one reason why healthy communication throughout the nervous system is so important for overall function, regulation, coordination, and development.
Supporting Your Nervous System
Your nervous system is constantly working behind the scenes to help you feel, move, grow, and adapt. From recognizing hunger and thirst to developing balance, coordination, and emotional awareness, the information travelling between your body and brain is essential to everyday life.
NeuroSpinal Optimization care focuses on assessing spinal obstructions and supporting healthy movement and nervous system function. Spinal obstructions can either block or modify the information that’s coming up to the brain from the body. Especially during childhood, we want to support healthy movement, sensory experiences, coordination, and development as children grow and explore the world around them. And as adults it makes sense to optimize nervous system function so that we can take advantage of our potential and the other healthy habits that we’re undertaking.
Your body is constantly communicating with your brain. The better we understand that connection, the better we can appreciate just how important our nervous system is to the way we feel, function, and develop.