It's 4pm and you suddenly feel shaky, short-tempered and close to tears. Is it anxiety? Tiredness? Then you realise you haven't eaten or had a drink since breakfast.

If your body's signals often arrive late, faint or jumbled, you're not careless. You might be experiencing a difference in interoception.

What interoception is

Interoception is your sense of what's happening inside your body. The National Autistic Society describes it as knowing whether you're hungry, thirsty, hot or cold, need the toilet, or are ill or injured (National Autistic Society).

How differences can show up

Like other senses, interoception can be more sensitive, less sensitive, or just different from day to day. You might notice:

  • Not feeling hungry or thirsty until you're suddenly very hungry or very thirsty
  • Realising you need the toilet only when it's urgent
  • Not noticing you're ill, in pain or overheating until it's quite bad
  • Feeling "off" without being able to say why
  • Struggling to tell apart feelings that share body sensations, like anxiety, excitement, hunger and tiredness

A scenario

Say you're deep in a project you love. Hours pass. You don't notice your stomach, your bladder or the fact that the room's got cold. When you finally stop, everything hits at once: a headache, a rush to the loo, and a wave of irritability that seems to come from nowhere. The signals just didn't get through while your attention was elsewhere.

The link with feelings and alexithymia

Our bodies play a big part in how we recognise emotions. A racing heart, a tight chest or a churning stomach can be clues about what we're feeling. If those clues are harder to read, naming the feeling can be harder too.

Having real difficulty identifying and describing your own emotions is called alexithymia. It isn't a diagnosis. It's a trait, and people have it to different degrees.

Gentle ways to check in with your body

If your body's signals are quiet, you can give them a bit of outside help. These are options, not rules. Pick one that feels doable and see how it goes.

Being low on food, water or sleep can also make the world feel louder. If you often hit a wall in busy places, why everyday environments can be so exhausting might help you join the dots. There are more simple tools in building your sensory toolkit.

Explaining it to others

It can help to say something simple, like: "I don't always notice I'm hungry or tired until it's quite late, so I set reminders." If someone close to you notices before you do, you could agree a gentle prompt, like "Have you had a drink lately?", rather than "You're being grumpy".

If you're supporting someone, try asking practical questions rather than "How are you feeling?" "Have you eaten?" or "Do you want a break?" can be much easier to answer.

References

  1. National Autistic Society. Sensory differences: a guide for all audiences. autism.org.uk
  2. Loureiro, F., Ringold, S. M., & Aziz-Zadeh, L. (2024). Interoception in autism: A narrative review of behavioral and neurobiological data. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 17, 1841–1853. doi.org/10.2147/PRBM.S410605
  3. Kinnaird, E., Stewart, C., & Tchanturia, K. (2019). Investigating alexithymia in autism: A systematic review and meta-analysis. European Psychiatry, 55, 80–89. doi.org/10.1016/j.eurpsy.2018.09.004