Frontiers in Psychology
June 9, 2015
Norman A. S. Farb, Jennifer Daubenmier, Cynthia Price et al.
630 citations
Interoception, the sense of internal bodily signals, is essential for embodiment, motivation, and well-being but remains poorly understood. This review integrates perspectives from neuroscience, clinical practice, and contemplative studies, introducing an expanded taxonomy of interoceptive processes. It argues that many of these processes can be explained by a predictive coding model of mind-body integration, which describes tension between expected and felt body sensations. This model parallels contemplative theories and links interoception to affective and psychosomatic disorders. Maladaptive interpretation of bodily sensations may underlie many contemporary maladies, and contemplative practices may reduce these biases, restoring a sense of presence and agency.
Kinesiology Review
August 1, 2020
Wolf Mehling
24 citations
A key mechanism in mind-body movement approaches is the maturation of bodily awareness, an experiential learning process with distinct phenomenology and neurological underpinnings. This report focuses on assessing changes in bodily awareness, crucial for documenting this learning in research and clinical settings. Objective lab-based assessments are briefly reviewed. Qualitative methods include interviews, focus groups, and second-person observation of movement. Additionally, several systematically developed and validated self-report questionnaires are now available and presented here.
Research square
June 4, 2025
Isaac N Treves, Ya-Yun Chen, Caitlyn L Wilson et al.
Mindfulness-based interventions produce small-to-medium improvements in self-reported interoceptive awareness, according to a meta-analysis of 29 randomized controlled trials involving 2,191 participants (77.8% female, mean age 32.8 years). The overall effect size was g = 0.31, with mindfulness-based programs showing the largest effects (g = 0.41). Improvements in interoception were similar in size to improvements in self-reported mindfulness and were linked to reductions in psychological distress. No evidence of publication bias was found, and no other moderators—such as practice dosage or clinical sample—were significant. The findings suggest that mindfulness training leads to adaptive changes in how people subjectively experience bodily signals, which may contribute to better mental wellbeing.