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Interoception – Making Sense of Our Inner World

Posted on by Mountain Valley Treatment Center

As the external sensations of our world continue to become more abundant and all consuming, we often overlook the sensations of our inner world. One of the most important and foundational sensory systems we have is our interoceptive system. Interoception is our body’s internal radar of the condition of our body, conveying information about the state of what is happening within the bounds of our skin.

Our internal organs like our heart, lungs, intestines, bladder and even skin have receptors that send signals to our brain about the condition of those major organs. Interoception is our body’s ability to recognize and respond to those signals. For example, interoception includes awareness of changes in heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, or sensations of pain, hunger, thirst, and other autonomic functions. Interoception also plays a significant role in emotional regulation, as emotions are a cascade of autonomic internal physiological responses that need our interpretation.

As with all things, when it comes to interoception, balance is key. People with limited interoception experience a disconnect between their mind and internal states, therefore they are often unaware of their emotional experiences and have challenges appropriately responding to the cues and signals their body is sending.  A common situation most of us have probably had at some point is the phenomenon of being “hangry.” When this happens, we are disconnected from our bodies and missing the cues for hunger, resulting in irritability or dysregulation. On the other hand, some people are hyperaware of their internal sensations. To provide a similar example, this is when we have a hard time focusing on a meeting or class before lunch because all we can think about how our stomach is growling and feeling empty.

Whether you have limited or heightened interoceptive awareness, building a better relationship with your body’s internal cues is valuable for emotional wellness.

Limited Interoceptive Awareness 

If you experience limited connection to your internal sensations and are often unaware of what is happening in your body, here a few ways to foster a stronger mind-body connection:

  • A guided body scan meditation that cues you to focus on the sensations happening in specific parts of your body.
  • Yoga, Tai Chi, or other movement practices that require you to be attuned to sensations such as breathing, heart rate, etc.
  • Biofeedback is the process of conducting vitals or using a heart monitor to practice recognizing what different states of arousal feel like inside your body.
  • Expand your vocabulary and practice using a variety of different language to describe your internal experiences.  Communicating a visceral experience to yourself or others can be really challenging! Practice naming and describing sensations like their location, intensity, texture, size, color, etc.

 Heightened Interoceptive Awareness 

If you experience hyperawareness, and maybe even a little anxiety about your internal sensations, engage in interoceptive exposures to develop resilience to rebuild your relationship with those internal experiences. Examples of interoceptive exposures include:

Breathing: hold your breath for 30 seconds or breathe through a straw for 60 seconds.

Heart Rate: engage in intense exercise (burpees, running up and down stairs, jumping jacks) for 30 or 60 seconds.

Dizziness: shake your head side to side for 30 seconds or spin in a chair for 30 seconds.

Derealization: Stare at yourself in a mirror for 2 minutes or stair at a wall without blinking.

Temperature: Turn the cold water in the shower for 30 or 60 seconds or sit in a sauna/steam room for several minutes.

*These can be graded up or down according to your comfort level and can be increased as you build interoceptive tolerance.*

With each exposure, try to turn towards the internal sensations that you are having or practice diffusing the from the sensation (i.e. removing judgement and objectively observing and describing what is happening). As with all exposures, the most important part is to REFLECT on your experience. What happened? What did you learn? How does experience change how you might engage with your internal sensations moving forward?

MOVING MOUNTAINS

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Origins & Motivations

Posted on by Justin Alvin

Origins & Motivations

Some people have asked me about the motivations behind establishing Mountain Valley. I do tell them about the data: from the almost 10 million children diagnosed with an anxiety disorder in the United States (NIMH, 2012); to the 700% increase over the last forty years (Gray, P., 2010); to the treatability statistics of CBT and anxiety disorders that would make even the biggest skeptic give you a high five. I do tell them about the benefits of exposure therapy, how the victim of the fight and flight response can heal more rapidly in an environment where there is no one to fight, and nowhere to flee. I do tell them about the concerning shortage of anxiety disorder treatment programs, and how anxiety is an epidemic, so I think we should be doing more.
I do not tell them about how my life as a teenager was circumscribed by anxiety, and the decisions it made for me. I do not tell them about the America I lost at 17 years of age because “tough it out” was not the panacea I needed. I do not tell them about the Mountain I climbed to overcome panic, and the Valley of recovery I was fortunate to find; a Valley where I became more the arbiter of real threat and less the victim of perceived danger. While my own experience inspired the design of Mountain Valley, my frustrations as a clinician treating anxiety provided equal motivation. I was frustrated that however “in the zone” I was, the benefits of the 50 minute hour wore off on my clients almost as fast as the euphoria I felt after hot yoga. I was frustrated by parents who saw medication as the first line of attack, and rarely as an adjunct to therapy, or the “if all else fails” scenario. I was frustrated by how my clients’ fear, and their fear of fear, made “no-shows” as frequent as I remember it raining in London. I was frustrated by my attempts of social anxiety skills groups and panic attack support groups, where six were scheduled to attend, and only one showed. There is nothing like five empty chairs, and decaffeinated herbal tea, to make a 17 year old feel like he is the only one. I know that you probably know that movement and change is tough without the normalization and empathy from a student’s peers; the power of, “I know exactly what you mean,” and, what I heard a student say on her graduation from Mountain Valley last week, “guys, if I did it, I promise, you can, too.”
Anxiety was once a mechanism to solely prepare and protect us from harm, but it seems to have evolved into something annoyingly unnecessary at best and pervasively destructive at worst. While the complex story of the origin of anxiety disorders needs to be told, it is important for our anxious teenagers to know that the experience of it is just an experience; a series of symptoms, and a symptom itself. Mountain Valley helps our residents to understand that they are not defined by their anxious temperament, or the anxiety they experience, but more by their response to it. Denial, apathy, and avoidance are responses and strategies that provide some immediate relief, but overtime, become equally as damaging as the anxiety itself. Severe anxiety is like a weed -it grows fast, damages the garden, and if not removed by the roots, has a tendency to return. Symptom reduction is merely the beginning of the Mountain Valley journey. It is the origin that provides the motivation for our teenagers to address anxiety at its root; from enmeshed relationships with a parent, to years of teasing and bullying, to sibling rivalry. I know you see this all the time. This is not to downplay the influence of “genetic vulnerability” and “biological predisposition” in the origins of anxiety; merely, let us focus more on what we can change, and less on what we can not. In our daily challenges working with students in need, I think they need to know that just as much as we do.

Daniel P.Villiers,Ph.D. Founder & Director of Admissions

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