03/11/2025
Mindfulness - this is very much an undervalued practice in our day to day life. From the simple pleasure of performing one single activity wholeheartedly and whole-mindfully.
When was the last time you were so in tune with the task at hand without other tasks popping into your head?
As a healthcare practitioner, I am finding more and more people are not able to experience the mindfulness that is required to hear what our body is telling us. The consequence of this is that our body then has to get to a stage when it YELLS at us, which results in ill-health.
When we are disconnected from their body’s signals, nutrition becomes something we “do” rather than something we “feel. And so, that is where INTEROCEPTION comes in.
Interoception is the brain’s ability to sense, interpret, and respond to internal bodily signals — such as hunger, fullness, thirst, temperature, heart rate, or gut sensations.
It’s sometimes described as our “sixth sense” — how we feel what’s happening inside our body.
These signals come from sensory receptors located throughout the body (in the gut, heart, lungs, skin, and more) and travel via neural pathways, especially the vagus nerve.
Together, they shape how we perceive internal states like satiety, discomfort, or calmness — and directly influence our eating behaviours.
Interoception and Nutritional Behaviour -
When interoceptive awareness is intact, a person can:
* Recognise true physiological hunger vs. emotional or stress-driven hunger
* Sense satiety cues, preventing overeating
Notice gut comfort or discomfort, supporting mindful food choices
*Tune into energy, mood, and digestion, adjusting their eating intuitively
However, in today’s world — with chronic stress, sensory overload, irregular eating patterns, and emotional disconnection — many people experience interoceptive confusion or blunting.They might:
* Eat because of stress, boredom, or habit rather than hunger.
* Miss fullness cues until they’re uncomfortably full.
* Feel anxious or restless but interpret it as hunger
* Ignore gut sensations like bloating, nausea, or fatigue.
This “disconnection” can drive maladaptive eating patterns, affect digestion (through sympathetic dominance), and further weaken gut-brain communication.
Factors That Disrupt Interoceptive Awareness -
* Stress and cortisol overload: Dampen vagal tone and body–brain signalling
* Poor sleep: Impairs insular cortex regulation
* Ultra-processed diets: Reduce satiety signalling and disrupt gut microbiota
* Multitasking while eating: Splits attention, weakening perception of fullness
* Dieting and external food rules: Replace internal cues with external control
Supporting Interoception Through Nutrition and Practice -
As a Clinical Nutritionist, I can help clients reconnect to internal cues by combining nutritional and behavioural tools by:
1. Support the Gut–Brain Axis -
Encourage whole-food, fibre-rich meals to stabilise blood glucose and improve gut-brain signalling
Include omega-3s, magnesium, and polyphenols to support vagal tone and neural communication.
Promote hydration and balanced meals to reduce physiological “noise” that can mask subtle signals.
2. Use Interoceptive Awareness Exercises
Pre- and post-meal check-ins: “How hungry am I on a scale of 1–10?” / “Where do I feel hunger in my body?”
Mindful eating practices: Slowing down, eating without screens, noticing taste, smell, and texture
Body scan meditations or breath awareness.
3. Regulate the Nervous System
Incorporate slow breathing, gentle movement, grounding, or gratitude rituals before meals to shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic dominance — improving digestion and signal awareness
4. Encourage Self-Compassion Over Control
Shift from “What should I eat?” → to “What does my body need right now?”
This change nurtures trust and reduces the cognitive load of eating.
Restoring interoception is like turning the volume back up on the body’s internal language — a language that helps guide nourishment, balance, and self-care.
Now is the time to SLOW down. Breathe and listen.
Kelly xx
