How to Increase Somatic Awareness
Somatic awareness begins with interoception. Just like our outward facing senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, interoception is an inward facing sense that allows us to feel what is going on inside our bodies. Interoception is the awareness of internal body signals, which are communicated through receptors throughout our body, and primarily in our viscera. With it, we are able to access a “felt sense” of reality, a physical experience of a situation, person, or event.
For example, have you ever felt suddenly very happy and felt a tingle run down your spine? Felt your skin crawl with horror? Felt chills when listening to emotionally charged songs or speeches? Felt nauseated with disgust? Felt the hair on the back of your neck stand up in fear? These are all examples of interception.
Interoception is important. It directly impacts our capacity to regulate our emotions through understanding our body’s signals. The more adept we are at noticing our inner cues, the more we are able to notice the nuances of how we are feeling about a situation which helps us to more wisely respond, affecting our ability to make decisions and set boundaries.
Sometimes, through trauma or chronic stress, our interoceptive ability can become distorted. We may lose awareness of what’s really going on inside our bodies. When our nervous system has become dysregulated through trauma and is in a survival state such as fight, flight, or freeze, our brain is more attuned to danger than it might otherwise be. Under stress, our nervous system can easily misinterpret or misread healthy sensations and responses as cues of danger. For example, under stress the sensations of excitement may be interpreted as anxiety, or a sense of calm might signal the possibility of danger yet to come. Alternatively, when our internal experience is one of pain, whether physical or emotional, we might armour ourselves against feeling altogether, or numb or dissociate to ease the pain. These things all compromise our ability for accurate interoception.
Interoception is one of our body’s main way of sensing whether we are safe or not. Our nervous system can access safety and regulation, and move out of states that are oriented towards threat and danger, only when we have an actual physical felt sense of safety. In other words, we need to regain our ability to accurately sense our inner experience in order to cultivate a felt sense of safety. In developing this ability, we can start by growing somatic awareness for positive experiences. As we are able to sense into the interoceptive sensations of positive experiences, we are more able to recognize our body’s healthy inner signals and cues, and especially the felt sense of safety when it arrives. We begin to be able to notice when our nervous system is regulated and to be able to regulate ourselves when needed.
How to Cultivate Accurate Interoception
The element of mindfulness is key to developing interoceptive awareness as it allows you to maintain an attitude of openness, curiosity, and self-compassion as you hold your attention on your present-moment inner experience. Being able to describe your sensations through language can also support you to increase your interoceptive awareness by helping you to link your inner physical sensations to your emotional states and thoughts.
For example, in order to distinguish interception (or inner sensation) from a thought or emotion you need to be able to directly experience it in a physical way. For example, if you are experiencing joy, you could ask yourself, “How do I know that I am experiencing joy?” By asking yourself this question you are looking for the physical sensations that let you know that you are joyful. Where in your body do you sense it, and what is the sensation you notice? Is it in your chest? Is it in your face? Is there an expansion? A lightness? What happens to your breathing? Is there a warmth? How can you describe the sensations? By noticing how you notice your inner experiences you will develop greater interoception.
There are an infinite number of words that describe inner sensations. Some examples are dense, thick, flowing, breathless, fluttery, nervous, queasy, expanded, floating, heavy, tingly, electric, fluid, full, congested, twitchy, tight, hot, bubbly, calm, open.
Here’s some simple exercises to try:
Focus on Breath: Notice your breath. Notice the sensations of your breath flowing through your body. Where do you notice it? Do you notice it in your belly, or your chest, or in your nose or mouth? As you focus on your breath, what else do you notice happening in your body?
Focus on Body: Choose to focus on one area of your body, like your chest, shoulders, or belly, and notice what happens in that one area as you continue to breathe. Do you begin to notice anything shifting or changing? Do you notice a temperature change? An expansion or contraction? A tingling or flowing? A numbness, solidness, or spaciousness? As you stay curious to what you are experiencing, try to give words to what you notice, however small or subtle your sensations may be.
Self-touch: If you are having a hard time locating any sensations, try placing your hands somewhere on your body to help focus your attention. You might try giving yourself a hug, and noticing the sensation under your hands. Is there a temperature or a texture? As you continue to hug yourself, do you notice anything inside start to shift or change?