Is This My Body - Interoception

An old girlfriend of mine would never wear a jersey or a coat when it was cold because it didn't look write or it didn't go with what she was wearing. I always thought this was crazy until I read the Scientific American Mind (May/June 2012), the article was entitled "Inside the wrong body".

 It describe a women who was never cold and was never tiered because she just never registered these conditions. She eventually to a battery of physiological test when she had a relapse of anorexia nervosa. One of the tests was interoception, "the awareness of the internal state of ones body" and it deals with emotion, pain, thirst, hunger and body temperature. Individuals with poor body image such as those suffering from anorexia struggle with interoception.

My old girlfriend is a runner who does not feel pain and does not know when to stop. She has a very poor body image, but she is beautiful and she suffered from anorexia as a child. This article described her perfectly.

Poor body image is wide spread amongst women running at around 50% and on the increase in men although there has not been as much research amongst men. One in twenty suffer from clinical body image disturbance in which they cannot stop thinking about minor or imagined flaws. My old girlfriend has spent a fortune on a patch of veins on her leg that only she can see. She has had every laser treatment, injection and at one time was considering have the patch cut out.

Why do some suffer from these problems and others don't. Recent research indicates it is a combination of environmental and biological factors acting together. Interoception is the biggest biological factor. It has been implicated in anorexia, bulimia and body dysmorphic disorder.

Identifying the underlying problem is always the first step in finding an effective treatment. To me this article was great new, maybe my old girlfriend could follow some treatment regime instead of wasting her money on bogus treatments for her imagined veins.

Receptors located in various parts of the body register conditions of the body these are sent via neurons to the Insula, a region in the brain near the ears. This creates self awareness by registering the bodies states. It integrates the external and internal data. This integration results in how we perceive ourselves, our body image, how we think we look. The greater the contribution from interoception the better the body image.

The article used a great example of a runner, could have been my old girlfriend. A runner with good interoception would focus on her heart rate, her pace, stride etc. One with poor interoception would worry how she looked, her flabby thighs etc. My old girlfriend would iron her running outfit before any run, training or event. She never wore shorts except when she had to at an event because of her veins on her legs.

Dysmorphia, distorted body image ranges from worrying about looking good to anorexia. The opposite is also possible, one in ten obese people think their weight is normal. This is also due to poor interoception.
People with poor self awareness are easily swayed by the opinions of others. They use how they think people perceive them to set goals instead of their own standards.

The answer to these problems and for my old girlfriend is to build up her interoceptive awareness. This would improve her body image and strengthen her fragile sense of self.

Mindfulness, described as being a mental mode in which you are fully present in the moment without elaboration or judgement. What is required is a way to train people to heed and experience their ongoing physical sensations. Certain forms of yoga have proved to be very effective. The practitioner is forced focus on both their breathing and body sensations produced by each pose.

In studies on adolescents receiving treatment for anorexia, each had a hour long yoga session for 8 weeks. At the start of the treatment they could not balance on one leg, at the end they all could. They also improved in all areas of their eating disorder.

The forms of yoga that seem to be most effective in this area are hatha and vinyasa, although all are effective.
I am encouraging my old girlfriend to join a yoga class, as the study subject said after joining a yoga class, not only is she aware of being hungry but she is also aware that she wants to eat.

To measure your level of Interoception click on this link, How to Measure Your Level of Interoception

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Neil_Anthony_Jackson 

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