The autonomic nervous system helps regulate bodily functions such as heart activity and digestion, largely without you having to direct them consciously.
Your body is doing a great deal while you are busy deciding what to say.
The conversation hasn’t started. Your pulse has.
You imagine asking for a change and notice a racing heart or a change in breathing. Those responses belong to the experience. They don’t arrive with a note explaining exactly why they happened.
Excitement, worry, exertion and other physical circumstances can produce overlapping sensations. It helps to include context rather than turn one sensation into a diagnosis or a command.
I AWAKE’s body-based practices invite attention to what you can notice and how you participate. They aren’t a test of whether you’ve achieved the correct nervous-system state.
Interoception explains sensing signals from within your body. Stress response considers what happens around demands and perceived threats.
Khalsa and colleagues’ research review, Interoception and Mental Health: A Roadmap, examines the sensing and interpretation of internal bodily signals. It is a more detailed next read for the relationship between bodily processes and felt experience.
