10/29/2026
Most of us can name five senses. There’s a sixth one doing quiet work all day, and it rarely gets mentioned.
Interoception is your sense of your own internal state. It’s how you know you’re hungry, thirsty, cold, needing the loo, or starting to get overwhelmed. It’s also the bridge between a physical signal and doing something about it. You feel cold, so you reach for a layer. Simple, when the signal comes through clearly.
For a lot of people it doesn’t. Research on autistic and ADHD adults describes interoceptive signals that arrive muted, delayed, or so intense they’re hard to interpret. Some people only notice they’re cold once they’re shivering. Others feel something strongly but can’t identify what it is.
That explains something important. Regulation depends on noticing. You can know exactly what helps and still never reach for it, because the signal never got loud enough to register until it was already too much.
Which is why everything we do starts here. Notice first. Everything else follows.
Is there a body signal you tend to miss until it’s urgent? Tell us in the comments.
