If you are someone that reluctantly clicked on this page because the term or the idea of mindfulness is aversive—maybe you’ve tried it and it is not a match for you—or maybe you don’t believe it is a match for your clients—you are not alone! We’ve got you. Scroll past the “sciencey” section to learn about how we are adapting body mindfulness to make it more accessible and successful for a wider variety of people.
Interoception & Mindfulness: A Hidden Science
Can I strengthen my interoception connection (or my client’s interoception connection)? And if interoception can be supported, how can I nurture this interoception growth? These are both common questions we are asked!
Interoception is highly changeable, so yes, interoception can be strengthened, and this is true for people with a variety of ages, backgrounds and learning styles.
One of the most used strategies for all this interoception growth is body mindfulness, which invites us to notice how our body is feeling in the present moment.
Research suggests interoception and mindfulness are closely linked and interoception is believed to be a key underlying component influenced by many mindfulness practices. In fact, scientists believe that interoception is one of the primary reasons why many people report benefits from mindfulness practices. In other words, even though many people do not realize it, when using mindfulness strategies, they are activating the insula, which is the interoception center of the brain, and thus are actively working to strengthen their interoceptive connection.
There are countless benefits to understanding our own interoceptive experiences, so it makes sense as to why mindfulness is said to have countless benefits. The benefits are largely influenced by the changes occurring in interoception.
We have plenty of body mindfulness resources available to help change the interoceptive experiences for yourself or your clients.
Interoception and Mindfulness Exercises
There are a variety of mindfulness approaches and strategies available. It can be overwhelming to know where to start or which specific practice will maximize interoception results. It can be helpful to think about mindfulness falling into two different categories: Outside Mindfulness and Inside Mindfulness. While both categories of strategies are important when it comes to interoception, inside mindfulness, or body mindfulness, is where we put our effort when seeking to explicitly support that interoception growth.
Noticing Out: Mindfulness Outside the Body
In this category, you’ll find activities that invite our attention outside the body. The external world is full of things that can be turned into a mindfulness activity. Engaging our external senses to notice the outside world, like paying attention to a specific sight or sound, is outside mindfulness.
Noticing In: Mindfulness Inside the Body
With noticing in, you do the opposite of noticing out. This category is all about attending to what’s going on in your body. How is your body feeling? What is happening on the inside? Engaging our internal senses to notice the inner world, like paying attention to a specific sensation in your hand or in your heart.
What Can Make Traditional Body Mindfulness Difficult?
Many people report a mismatch between traditional mindfulness approaches and how they currently experience the world. Some commonly reported issues with traditional body mindfulness include:
Attention: In many traditional mindfulness practices, a high degree of attention is required, and that can be really hard for some people. Mindfulness experts agree that you can gently redirect your attention back to your body if you notice your mind wandering, but that doesn’t make the practice of focusing any less difficult!
Abstract Directions: Mindfulness itself is abstract, and for some people, identifying something internally that they can’t see can feel too abstract. These instructions are especially challenging if the person has a muted interoceptive experience.
Unsafe Relationship with the Body: In traditional mindfulness exercises, the assumption is that the person has a safe relationship with their body. However, that is not the case with many people, as there are some chronically dysregulated people that really struggle with mindfulness.
How Can We Adapt Mindfulness to Better Meet an Individual’s Needs?
We have a series of strategies called Interoceptive Awareness Builders, or IA Builders for short. Our IA Builders are all versions of adapted body mindfulness. There’s a framework for using our IA Builders called the Interoception Curriculum, which walks someone through a sequential way of using our IA Builders.
If you don’t have the Interoception Curriculum, never fear! When using body mindfulness practices to enhance interoceptive awareness, these tips can help you adapt to get the most out of each exercise.
Break Up Mindfulness into One Body Part at A Time
Focusing on one body part at a time, like noticing how your hands or feet or lungs feel, can help reduce the cognitive load and provide a simpler goal.
Start With External Body Parts and Work Your Way In
For some people, noticing how exterior body parts feel can be easier and more concrete. These body parts, like your nose, eyes, ears, hands, or mouth, can be observed while also trying to notice how that body part feels. After getting comfortable noticing external body parts, then use a slow shift towards noticing the inside body parts.
Ensure Full Body Autonomy
Body mindfulness should always be presented as an invitation, not a demand that requires completion. Each person should have full control over the process, with full body autonomy. If someone is hesitant or refuses, consider the why. Perhaps they don’t feel safe in the current environment, or perhaps their body is not regulated enough to do the activity. Or maybe it is as simple as needing to present the body mindfulness exercise differently.
Support Communication
Many people struggle to put words to their inner experience and find it helpful to have some communication and/or language support available to them during body mindfulness activities (e.g., a menu of sensation words). However, keep in mind that we all have differences in the way our body feels and in the way that we might describe that sensation. For example, someone might describe inner sensations as colors, shapes, or animals or words such as hot/cold/wet/sticky/etc. Stay curious and seek to understand and validate each person’s experience.
Evoke Body Sensations in Playful Ways
This work doesn’t need to have an overly serious vibe. It can be effective and playful at the same time. Even adults enjoy the playful aspect of some of our IA Builders as we use them to invite attention to body sensations. Dancing to a favorite song for a few minutes and noticing your heart, squeezing putty and noticing how your hands feel, or rubbing your feet on the carpet and taking note of sensations in your toes are all credible examples of body mindfulness.
Try These Activities to Enhance Your Interoceptive Awareness
When looking for resources and activities to try to help enhance your interoceptive awareness or connection, we have three different sets of activity cards for you to explore!
Interoception Exercise Cards
Turn traditional exercises into explicit interoceptive awareness builders! The Interoception Exercise Cards are a series of 124 cards that provide guided prompt(s) for noticing the interoceptive body signals that arise while doing a specific exercise like Sit-Ups or Jumping Jacks. If you are looking for creative, fun activities to enhance interoceptive awareness in the clients you serve, or in yourself, these cards are for you!
Interoception Activity Cards
The Interoception Activity Cards consist of 170 activities that can be finished in just 60 seconds or less, without any special equipment. These activities help enhance interoceptive awareness and complement the Interoception Curriculum lessons. They can also be used independently as a fun way to cultivate body mindfulness. If you’re seeking ways to enhance your interoceptive experience, these cards are a must-try!
Interoception Yoga Cards
The Interoception Yoga Cards nurture explicit interoception connection during traditional yoga poses. This set of 134 cards provides guided exercises for recognizing interoceptive signals that arise while assuming poses such as Cobra or Child’s Pose. Whether you’re a healthcare professional or simply looking for a fun, creative way to enhance interoceptive connection, these cards are the perfect resource.
Interoception-Informed Yoga
Yoga can provide an opportunity to connect with the body and mindfully notice how it is interoceptively feeling. This is especially true when we incorporate explicit invitations to notice or pay attention to how certain body parts feel while practicing yoga. For example, saying something like, “How do your hands feel while they’re pressing into the mat? Or how does the skin on your forehead feel when you are in this pose?” Invitations to nurture body connection and notice interoceptive sensations while assuming poses can provide helpful practice. So shifting from a focus of assuming a pose to a focus on noticing the way the body feels during that pose, makes it more of an explicit interoception learning activity.
If you are looking for a resource to help you make this shift to using yoga as an explicit Interoceptive Awareness Builder, check out our Interoception Yoga Cards.
Explore Interoception and Mindfulness with More Resources
Mindfulness doesn’t have to be as challenging when you have the resources to support you or your clients. For more information about interoception and adapted forms of body mindfulness, check out the Interoception Curriculum here.
