We all learn about the five senses in elementary school, but did you know there are actually eight?
In addition to the systems that process visual (sight)👀, auditory (hearing)👂, olfactory (smell)👃, gustatory (taste)👅, and tactile (touch) stimuli✋, there are the vestibular (balance), proprioception (the body’s position in space), and interoception (everything that is happening inside our skin) systems.
While much lesser known than its more popular counterparts, interoception profoundly impacts our daily experiences.
Interoception allows us to perceive and understand the internal state of our bodies. It allows us to recognize when we are hungry🍽️ , thirsty💧, or in pain😖, and to understand the feelings associated with those bodily states.
Interoception also impacts our ability to care for our physical health, regulate our emotions, participate in life socially, and manage many other areas of life that influence its quality.
We also know that neurodivergent people often have sensory systems that work differently than the majority of people due to differences in neurology.
Each individual sense can be hypersensitive (more sensitive than the norm) or hyposensitive (less sensitive than the norm). This means their sensory experiences can be exaggerated one way or another, which often results in challenges.
In this blog post, I will explain📚what interoception is and explore🔍some of the vast influence it has over the quality of our daily lives, especially when that sense is hyper- or hyposensitive.
Check out the link🔗to the full post in the first comment.
#Autism #Neurodiversity #AutisticAdults #AutismSupport #SensoryProcessing #Interoception #Neurodivergent #SensoryExperience #UnderstandingAutism
Executive functioning and social skills coach for neurodivergent adults to help them thrive in college, career, and life
1yHere it is: https://cstu.io/cfb2e8 !