We Have a 'Sixth Sense' That Is Key to Our Wellbeing, But Only if We Listen to It

Most people are familiar with the five senses, but not everyone is.

The sense of our body's internal state is this. It helps us feel the internal signals that regulate our vital functions, like hunger, thirst, body temperature, and heart rate.

It's an important sense as it ensures that every system in the body is working well.

It tells us when our body is out of balance by making us reach for a drink or taking our jumper off when we feel too hot.

Interoception is important for our mental health. It contributes to many psychological processes, including decision making, social ability, and emotional wellbeing.

Depression, anxiety, and eating disorders are all reported to be caused by disrupted interoception. It may explain why many mental health conditions have the same symptoms.

It's not known if men and women are different in how they sense their body's internal signals.

The studies have found mixed results when it comes to whether cisgender men and women sense and interpret interoceptive signals from their heart, lungs, and stomach differently. It is important to find out if there are differences in mental and physical health.

We combined the data from 93 studies to get a clear picture. We looked at how people perceive heart, lung, and stomach signals across a range of different tasks.

Some studies asked participants to count their heart beats, while others asked them to determine if a flashing light came on when their stomach contracted, or if they could detect a difference in their breath while breathing into a device that makes it more difficult to do so normally.

Our analysis shows that interoception is different between men and women. Women were less accurate at heart-focused tasks than men. The differences do not seem to be explained by other factors, such as how hard participants tried during the task.

Results for other tasks were not as clear because only a small amount of studies have looked at lung and stomach perception. It is too early to tell if men and women differ in their perception of these signals.

Our findings may help us understand why women have more mental health conditions than men.

Genetics, hormones, personality, and exposure to stress are some of the theories that have been proposed to explain this.

It is possible that differences in interoception may explain why more women suffer from anxiety and depression than men.

Many mental health conditions are linked to difficulties with interoception, which can affect many areas, including emotional, social, and cognitive function.

Understanding the differences in how men and women perceive signals may help treat mental illness.

Studies suggest that men use interoceptive signals more than women when processing their emotions.

Studies show that women pay more attention to interoceptive signals than men.

This could mean that some treatments may work better for some people than others. Future research will need to investigate this.

We don't know what causes the differences. Most men and women experience hormonal changes, and researchers have a few theories about it. Differences in how many men and women are taught to think about their emotions may be to blame.

It is important to understand the factors that affect interoceptive ability in order to develop better treatments for mental health conditions.

PhD Candidate at the Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and lecturer in psychology at RoyalHolloway University of London.

This article is free to use under a Creative Commons license. The original article should be read.