What is interoception?
Interoception is often called the “eighth sense.” While most people are familiar with the five traditional senses—sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell—interoception is your sense of what’s happening inside your body. It’s closely tied to homeostasis—the process by which your body meets its essential needs and stays alive. Interoception allows you to notice hunger, thirst, pain, temperature, a racing heart, a tight chest, symptoms of illness like nausea and congestion, and the physical sensations associated with emotions.
In other words, interoception is how your body communicates with you from the inside.
Interoception and Emotions
Emotions aren’t just thoughts—they have a physical dimension. When you feel anxious, you might notice a churning stomach or a tight chest. When you feel joy, you might notice a lightness or warmth. Interoception is the system that allows you to pick up on these internal signals and make sense of them. This is one reason interoception is so closely connected to emotional awareness and regulation.
How is interoception different for Autistic people and ADHDers?
Research has shown us that about 75% of Autistic people have interoceptive differences, while the statistics for ADHD are less clear. These differences tend to manifest as one of two profiles, with each person having a unique experience within that profile.
Some people have a higher threshold for internal signals, meaning the signals are quieter or harder to detect. You might not notice hunger until you’re starving, miss early signs of illness or pain, or find it difficult to identify what you’re feeling emotionally until the feeling is already overwhelming.
Others experience interoception more intensely. These internal signals feel louder, more vivid, and are harder to ignore or manage. Emotions are felt powerfully in the body, and physical sensations are amplified, making it difficult to distinguish between different internal states.
Many neurodivergent people also describe experiences that don’t fit neatly into either category or shift depending on the situation, stress levels, specific sensory stressors (as in misophonia), or overall sensory load.
Why does this matter?
Interoceptive differences have a real impact on daily life. They can affect your ability to notice and name emotions, recognise when your body needs something, regulate your nervous system, and understand why you’re reacting the way you are.
They are also linked to mental health problems such as anxiety, panic attacks, flashbacks and dissociation in PTSD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and depression.
Understanding your own interoceptive style is a valuable part of building self-awareness—and a useful starting point for developing skills to support your emotional wellbeing. Interoceptive awareness and the ability to interpret it accurately are skills that can be learned.