Differences in how men and women perceive internal body signals could have implications for mental health
By Jennifer Murphy, Lecturer in Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London
Freya Prentice, PhD Candidate at Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, UCL
Most people are familiar with the five senses (touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste), but not everyone knows that we have an additional sense called interoception. This is the sense of our body’s internal state. It helps us feel and interpret internal signals that regulate vital functions in our body, like hunger, thirst, body temperature and heart rate.
Although we don’t take much notice of it, it’s an extremely important sense as it ensures that every system in the body is working optimally. It does this by alerting us to when our body may be out of balance – such as making us reach…
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Wednesday, January 19, 2022