Interoception: Our Real-Life Superpower | Carrie DeJong | TEDxChilliwack

Transcript

did you ever play this game as a kid if you could have any superpower which one would you want would you want to be fast like the flash strong like wonder woman have x-ray vision like superman it's always fun to imagine what it would be like to have a superpower but what if i told you you actually have a real-life superpower one that you've probably never even heard of it won't turn us into a real life superhero still this real life superpower does have the capacity to make us better humans let me introduce you to introception our least known and least understood sensory system while it won't make us faster or stronger or capable of seeing through concrete although those things sound like fun i don't think they necessarily make us better humans instead i think the qualities that make us better humans are qualities like empathy resilience good emotional regulation and mental health i think these things would be better than a lasso of truth any day we all know about our sense of smell or our sense of sight senses that help us perceive what's going on in the world around us interception is that capacity to pick up the senses of what's going on on the inside of our body have you ever given any thought to how you notice hunger or thirst interception is that power that capacity to pick up those cues that tell us we're thirsty or we're hungry the vagus nerve is the main pathway for this information and the vagus nerve is this really complex nerve system that connects our brain to all of these different internal organs these are only some of the parts of our body that are connected to our brain through the vagus nerve vagus is latin for wanderer and we can see that this nerve system is aptly named given how much of our body is connected here vagus nerve one of the important things about this nerve is that 80 of the messages sent through the vagus nerve move in this direction from our bodies to our brains not the other way around in fact the the primary job of the vagus nerve is to tell our brain what's happening here inside our bodies intraceptive awareness is the ability to pick up these sensation cues and researchers have told us that some people are better at this than others one of the ways they've determined that is through tests like the heartbeat perception test so they ask people to count the number of heartbeats they have in a given period of time using only their internal sensations as a guide and they've discovered that some people are really accurate at being able to count their heartbeat while some people are not interception operates largely outside of our conscious awareness and it's our ability to pick up and notice these cues that help us regulate our physical bodies we see this in the way that we manage food and thirst and how we manage sleep but this real-life superpower isn't just about managing our physical bodies that's only the beginning in fact this real life superpower helps us by shaping our emotions and our thought process most of us think that emotions start here in our thinking brain what if i told you that emotion really starts here in our physical bodies and that neuroscientists are trying to understand the way our brain uses physical sensations as clues about the emotions we're feeling we intuitively know that emotion and physical sensations are tied together we see this in the language we already use about emotions my heart skipped a beat i have a lump in my throat i have butterflies in my stomach we already have language that pairs sensation and emotion different emotions produce different sensations anger feels different than joy frustration feels different than anxiety and we're meant to be able to pick up these subtle differences or not so subtle differences sometimes and they give us information about the emotion that we're feeling and particularly for the challenging emotions like anxiety or frustration we're meant to use these cues and physical sensations as information that helps us know what's going on so that we can practice emotional regulation tools we can do something to manage this state that we're experiencing and interception doesn't just help us with our own emotion it also helps us pick up and experience the emotions of others something we call empathy this ability to feel what other people are feeling and interception is one of the ways that we pick up and share emotions as humans an interception isn't even just about emotions it also gives us information that helps us know ourselves that helps us have a sense of self awareness we learn things about what we like and dislike with the interceptive cues that we receive you've probably never given much uh idea about the way you know which flavor of ice cream you prefer when there are 30 to choose from how do you know which one is the right one to pick well a craving for rocky road or anything else really happens through interception and the cues that our body is giving likewise the enjoyment of that also is about an interceptive cue we're meant to see and have an experience of something we like and enjoy and feel it here in our body and if interception helps us know what flavor of ice cream we like it's also going to help us with more important things like who am i attracted to what kind of person what kind of career interests me where would i like to live you can see from all of these different things that i've expressed about what what interception does this superpower does so much to help us be amazingly healthy human beings it helps us feel uh it helps us regulate our physical body it helps us experience our emotions and regulate it it helps us with empathy it helps us have a sense of knowing ourselves and self-awareness we truly are fearfully and wonderfully made can you see why i would give up being faster than a speeding bullet for this i might be out of a job as a therapist but i know the world would be a much kinder place and just as i've talked about the great things that interception does for us it's also important to talk about the places of challenge for people what happens for people for whom connecting with their physical bodies is difficult and that happens very often for people autism spectrum disorders and mental health challenges like anxiety or depression or substance use or disordered eating or post traumatic stress disorder these challenges all share one thing difficulty with intraceptive awareness these people all report challenges picking up on their sentient cues feeling them expressing their emotions identifying their emotions or regulating their emotions let me give you some examples people with depression report a real lack of positive emotions instead they experience emotional numbness and a lack of ability to pick up anything that's going on in their physical bodies on the other hand there are people that are really good at picking up their internal sensations perhaps a little too good and this would be true for people who experience anxiety disorders or who have a trauma history for these people their own physical sensations are often a source of anxiety or panic or they're also more likely to misinterpret their sensations and think they mean something that they don't which only increases their anxiety i want to return for a moment to the superpower analogy and just like kryptonite rendered superman powerless we have our own versions of kryptonite we live in a modern world that takes us out of our physical bodies stress sedentary lifestyles substance use unhealthy food choices endless scrolling on digital platforms we humans do a lot of things to take us out of our physical bodies we sit too much we exercise too hard or not enough we don't sleep when we're tired we eat when we're not hungry and we binge on far too many things by the way animals in the wild don't do this and here's a really important fact if we're not managing our physical bodies then we're not managing our mental health or our emotional health either i recognize that conversations about a deeper connection with our body is very uncomfortable for some people especially those with anxiety or an experience of trauma but connecting with our body is such an important way that we have clarity about ourselves about our emotions about what we want and what we like and so it now more than ever we need tools that help us connect with our bodies and listen to the messages that it gives us so what works what helps us build a better connection with our body and listen to the valuable messages that it tells us the great news is there are lots of things we can start with learning about the vagus nerve this powerhouse nerve system does so many things that help facilitate us being healthier people it helps us manage our own uh emotions and connection with other people it helps bring states of relaxation and it manages so many things in our physical body and besides learning about the vagus nerve we can actually start engaging in practices that help us connect with our bodies even in small ways mindfulness is one of the ways we can do this and mindfulness simply is a practice of being where your feet are of being present in this moment to what is around me to what it feels like to sit on the chair that i'm sitting what does it feel like to take a deep breath what does it feel like to taste the food that i'm eating right now and having a moment just where we notice and enjoy a little bit more of a connection with the sensations in our physical bodies besides mindfulness there are many practices that are body centered that we can engage in there are a number of therapeutic approaches that are grounded in helping people who struggle with intraceptive awareness learn how to tolerate and build a comfort level there somatic psychotherapies and trauma-informed yoga are two of them so i've given lots of ideas about how we can connect our brains and our bodies in different ways and some of the reasons why this is so important especially now we all could use more tools to help us be healthier person people i hope that i have encouraged you to be curious about how you can embrace your inner superhero i know you will be healthier for it