The Surprising Link Between Interoception and Mental Health

The Surprising Link Between Interoception and Mental Health

When we think about our mental health, we often focus on factors like genetics, environment, and life experiences. However, there's growing evidence that interoception plays a critical role in our mental well-being.

In fact, recent research has found that individuals with better interoception tend to have better mental health outcomes. By developing our interoception sense through practices like mindfulness meditation and yoga, we can potentially improve our mental well-being and overall quality of life.

But how do we, as OTs translate this into meaningful experiences for our sensory children in the therapy space?

Whilst there has been a lot of work in the interoception world of late, the evidence for the treatment of poor interoception awareness sits in the psychology field around practices like Mindfulness. For example, Gibson (2019) describes the evidence that mindfulness results in neuroplasticity changes in the insula, where interoception processing occurs. 

Weng and colleagues (2021) report that interoceptive pathways may be manipulated at various levels to develop interventions to improve symptoms in a range of disorders. For example, "various pathways can be manipulated at neural, behavioural, and psychological levels to change the representation of and attention to interoceptive signals, which can alter interconnected physiological systems and improve functioning and adaptive behaviour. Interventions can alter interoception via neuromodulation of the vagus nerve eg slow breathing to change respiratory rate and depth, or awareness processes such as mindfulness-based interventions. Aspects of this framework may be applied to other physiological systems and future research may integrate interventions across multiple levels of manipulation or bodily systems".

From an Occupational Therapy perspective, we are fortunate to have OTs like Kelly Mahler, who has taken this work and her own, distilling interoception practices down to more practical and useful strategies for OTs to support the children we see in our therapy rooms.

Kelly refers to two aspects of mindfulness: Noticing In (Internal) and Noticing Out (External). When Noticing Out we can draw our attention to sensory aspects of our external world like noticing smells, sounds, touch. Noticing In can be a bit trickier as it's related to tuning in, and noticing our bodily signals (heart racing, butterflies in our tummies). 

She recommends focusing on one body part at a time, which she refers to as 'chunking'. She advises on ongoing collaboration with the child, ensuring their agency and sense of safety during these interactions. Kelly also recommends considering the child's capacity for attention, abstract thinking and interoception awareness/accuracy when planning interoception-based activities. 

Many children may resist tuning in to their bodies as this may be triggering or confusing for them. Honouring the child and approaching interoception work from a neurodiversity and sensory-affirming lens is fundamental to our interactions with children.

So go slow and tune in to your own 'gut reactions'.....

See you all soon, 

Kerry 

References:

Gibson, J. (2019). Mindfulness, interoception, and the body: A contemporary perspective. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 2012.

Mahler, Kelly (https://www.kelly-mahler.com/)

Todd, J., & Aspell, J. E. (2022). Mindfulness, Interoception, and the Body. Brain Sciences, 12(6), 696.

 Weng, H. Y., Feldman, J. L., Leggio, L., Napadow, V., Park, J., & Price, C. J. (2021). Interventions and manipulations of interoception. Trends in neurosciences, 44(1), 52-62.