Interoception: How Your Body’s Inner Awareness Shapes Pain, Healing, and Resilience
Your body is always communicating with you, through breath, pressure, temperature, tension, hunger, fatigue, and even emotion. Many people come to see me because they’ve tried countless methods to alleviate their pain. When there is so much chaos in the body, the pain is too loud for any other sensation to be heard; comfort can be a distant memory. I often hear from clients that they don’t know what comfort or peace feels like, but that is at the foundation of what they’re seeking.
This internal conversation is called interoception, the nervous system’s ability to sense the state of your inner world. When interoception is clear, you feel connected, grounded, and able to respond to your needs with confidence. But, when it’s muted or distorted, everyday sensations become confusing, overwhelming, or completely lost.
Many of my clients describe this as feeling “disconnected,” “out of sync,” or “numb but overloaded.” And, for good reason: chronic pain, trauma, stress, and fascial restriction all interfere with the pathways that carry interoceptive signals.
What Interoception Actually Is
Interoception is regulated primarily by the insula, anterior cingulate cortex, vagus nerve, and sensory receptors embedded throughout the body, including within the fascial system. Research shows that fascia contains a dense network of mechanoreceptors and interoceptive nerve endings, making it one of the body’s largest sensory organs.
When fascia becomes tight, dehydrated, or restricted, these receptors become compromised. The signals traveling through them become dulled, distorted, or overly amplified.
How Stress and Trauma Disrupt Inner Awareness
Studies in neuroscience show that trauma, sustained stress, and chronic pain reorganize the brain regions responsible for interoception, especially the insula. When the nervous system is stuck in survival mode, the body dampens or scrambles internal cues as a protective mechanism.
This is why you may:
Miss early signs of tension
Struggle to sense hunger or fullness
Feel disconnected from your breath
Override fatigue
Experience emotional overwhelm without clear physical cues
Or sense everything too intensely
This disconnect isn’t a failure of willpower; it is a physiological adaptation.
Fascial Restriction and Interoceptive Confusion
Recent research identifies fascia as a sensory organ capable of influencing autonomic regulation, pain perception, and interoceptive accuracy. When fascia becomes restricted:
Mechanoreceptors cannot send clear information
Chronic tension creates background “noise” in the system
The nervous system loses its sense of internal orientation
Emotional states become harder to track or trust
This is why so many clients tell me, “I don’t know what I’m feeling.”
How Myofascial Release Restores Interoceptive Clarity
Gentle, sustained pressure (the foundation of Myofascial Release) stimulates fascial mechanoreceptors that communicate directly with the parasympathetic nervous system. Research shows this can:
Increase vagal tone
Reduce sympathetic arousal
Improve body awareness
Restore proprioceptive and interoceptive accuracy
Decrease pain sensitivity
As the tissue softens, breath deepens, and the nervous system shifts toward safety, clients begin to perceive subtle sensations again. They feel themselves more clearly, sometimes for the first time in years.
In session, I watch this happen quietly and beautifully:
A client takes a spontaneous, deeper breath.
Their shoulders release without effort.
Emotion rises with clarity instead of confusion.
Their body begins speaking again.
Healing Begins With Listening
Interoception is the foundation of resilience. When you can sense your inner world, you can respond to stress before it overwhelms you, notice tension before it becomes pain, and track emotion before it turns into shutdown.
Myofascial Release helps restore this internal dialogue, not by forcing change, but by creating an environment where the body feels safe enough to reveal what it has been holding.
Your body has always been speaking.
Now, you can finally hear it. If you’re ready to listen to your body, book a session today.
