What if your body notices something before you have words for it, but that doesn't necessarily mean you already know what it means?
Have you ever opened an email and realized your shoulders had tightened before you had even finished reading it?
Maybe you walked into a room, and something in you changed. Your breathing became shallower. Your stomach tightened. You felt suddenly alert, although you couldn't immediately explain why.
Or perhaps the opposite happened. You arrived somewhere and felt yourself exhale. Your shoulders dropped. Your face softened. You hadn't consciously decided to relax. You simply noticed that something had changed.
We often describe experiences like these by saying, “My body knew before I did.” There may be something important in that statement, but perhaps not quite in the way we sometimes assume.
Your body is continuously receiving and responding to information. Some of that information comes from around you. Some comes from within you. Changes in heart rate, breathing, temperature, muscle tension, hunger, fullness, fatigue, pain, and countless other physiological processes contribute to an ongoing conversation between body and brain.
The scientific study of how we sense, process, and interpret internal bodily signals is called interoception.[1]
And the more researchers learn about interoception, the more interesting the phrase “listen to your body” becomes. Because listening is only one part of the process. We also have to interpret what we hear.
Noticing Comes Before Interpreting
Imagine that you are about to have an important conversation. As you think about it, you notice tightness across your chest. What does that tightness mean?
It could be anxiety. It could be anticipation. It could be anger. It could be that you are bracing yourself for a conversation you expect to be difficult. It could be connected to something entirely unrelated to the conversation. And, depending on the sensation and circumstances, a physical change can sometimes be something that deserves medical attention rather than psychological interpretation. The sensation is real. The meaning is not necessarily obvious.
Research on interoception increasingly describes a process that includes not only signals arising within the body but also how those signals are sensed, processed, integrated, and interpreted. Context matters too. What we believe is happening around us can influence how we understand what is happening within us.[1]
So perhaps the first question does not need to be, “What is my body telling me to do?” Perhaps it is simply, “What am I noticing?” That question leaves something open. It allows us to become curious before we become certain.
Noticing comes before interpreting.
A Signal Is Information, Not Automatically an Instruction
In September, I wrote about self-trust in a world that often feels uncertain. One of the ideas I introduced there was simple: a signal is information. It is not automatically an instruction.
That becomes even more important when we begin talking about the body. Phrases such as “trust your gut,” “your body knows,” and “listen to your intuition” can remind us of something valuable: our own experience deserves our attention. But they can also become another kind of pressure.
What happens when your body gives you several signals at once? What happens when fear appears around something that deeply matters to you? What happens when something familiar feels comfortable simply because it is familiar? What happens when your thoughts say one thing, your emotions seem to say another, and your body responds in a way you don't understand?
The answer doesn't have to be that one source is right and the others are wrong. They may all be providing information.
Self-trust, then, is not necessarily the ability to identify one perfect internal signal and follow it. It may be the ability to stay curious long enough to consider what you are experiencing.
A signal is information. It is not automatically an instruction.
Your Body Is Already Part of the Conversation
Interoception is not an unusual ability that some people possess and others do not. Internal bodily signalling is part of being human. What differs is how those signals are experienced, noticed, measured, and interpreted.
A major recent review of interoception and emotional processing describes several dimensions involved in the process, including bodily signals, the accuracy with which they are sensed, neural processing, and higher-order interpretation.[1] That complexity matters because popular discussions sometimes collapse all of these things into a single idea called “body awareness.” The research is much less tidy.
A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis examining cardiac interoceptive accuracy and stress found some associations depending on how both stress and interoception were measured, but other expected relationships were not found. The authors cautioned that substantial differences between studies and ongoing questions about measurement make simple conclusions difficult.[2]
In other words, science does not currently support the idea that becoming better at detecting internal signals automatically gives us clearer answers, lower stress, or better decisions. That does not make bodily awareness unimportant. It makes curiosity important.
What If You Didn't Have to Name It Yet?
One habit many of us develop is immediately trying to explain what we notice. My chest feels tight: I'm anxious. My stomach feels unsettled: something is wrong. My shoulders feel heavy: I'm stressed. My breathing changed when that person entered the room: they must be making me uncomfortable.
Sometimes those interpretations may eventually make sense. But notice how quickly we moved from a physical observation to a conclusion.
What would happen if we left a little space between the two? “My chest feels tight.” And then stopped. “My breathing became faster.” And stopped. “My shoulders dropped when I sat down.” And stopped. “I feel warmth in my face.” And stopped.
For a few moments, we don't need to decide what any of it means. We are simply learning to notice ourselves.
A Simple NOTICE Practice
Try this sometime today. You don't need a quiet room. You don't need to meditate. You don't need to change your breathing. Just stop for a moment.
Ask yourself: What am I noticing in my body? Perhaps you notice your feet against the floor. Perhaps you notice your breathing. Maybe there is tension somewhere. Maybe there is warmth, coolness, heaviness, movement, hunger, tiredness, ease, discomfort, or nothing particularly noticeable at all.
Then ask: What am I noticing in my thoughts or emotions? Again, you don't have to explain them.
And finally: What am I noticing around me? Sound. Light. People. Temperature. Movement. Space.
The purpose isn't to become extraordinarily sensitive to every sensation. It is simply to include yourself in the moment you are already living.
Try a Before and After
Choose an ordinary transition. Before opening an email you have been avoiding, notice yourself. Before walking into a meeting, notice yourself. Before making an important phone call, notice yourself. Before entering a busy store, notice yourself.
Then check again afterwards. What changed? Perhaps your breathing changed. Perhaps your posture changed. Perhaps nothing changed. All three are information. You don't need to decide immediately why.
Over time, practices like this may help us become more familiar with our own patterns. And familiarity is different from certainty.
Mapping What You Notice
Researchers have been using body maps to explore where people report experiencing bodily sensations associated with emotions. A 2026 systematic review of this work in psychiatric populations found meaningful differences in reported bodily experiences while also emphasizing that the mechanisms connecting bodily sensations, emotion identification, and emotional regulation remain incompletely understood.[3]
For our purposes, we don't need to turn body mapping into an assessment. We can use the basic idea much more simply.
Take an outline of a human body. Without trying to diagnose or interpret anything, mark where you notice something right now. Maybe your shoulders, jaw, stomach, hands, chest, or feet. You could use different marks for tension, ease, warmth, movement, or simply “something I noticed.” Then leave it alone. You don't have to turn the page into an answer. It can simply be a record of a moment.
Your Lived Experience Belongs in the Room
October brings World Mental Health Day. The World Health Organization's 2026 theme is “Lived experiences heard: real voices, real change.” The campaign focuses on people with lived experience of mental health conditions having meaningful influence in mental health systems and decisions, rather than merely being invited to tell their stories.[4]
That is a much larger conversation than the individual awareness practices we are exploring here. But there is a principle within it worth carrying into everyday life: our lived experience is information that deserves consideration.
That does not mean our experience is the only information that matters. Research matters. Medical knowledge matters. Professional expertise matters. Context matters. Other people's perspectives can matter enormously. And our own experience belongs among them.
This is one of the places where self-trust and awareness meet. Self-trust does not ask us to choose between ourselves and expertise. It asks us not to disappear from the conversation.
When the Body's Signal Needs Outside Help
There is an important boundary here. Not every bodily signal belongs in a self-reflection exercise.
New, severe, persistent, or concerning physical symptoms may require assessment by an appropriate health professional. Awareness should not become a reason to explain away symptoms as stress, emotion, energy, or intuition.
Sometimes noticing your body leads to reflection. Sometimes it leads to rest. Sometimes it leads to changing something. And sometimes it leads to saying, “I need someone who knows more about this than I do.” That, too, can be an expression of self-trust.
What I Notice in My Own Practice
This distinction between noticing and interpreting also matters in my own work.
During sessions, I often notice change before either the person I am working with or I have words for it. A breath may deepen. Shoulders may lower. Hands may unclench. Posture may shift. A person's voice may change in pace or tone. Sometimes the change is subtle enough that the first useful question is not, “What does that mean?” but simply, “Did you notice anything change?”
Those observations are part of my professional practice. They are not medical findings, and I do not treat them as proof of a particular emotional state, energetic condition, diagnosis, or outcome. They are cues that something may have shifted and an invitation to become curious about the person's own experience.
That matters to me because it keeps the person receiving the session in the conversation. I can observe a change from the outside, but I cannot decide for someone else what that change means. The person may describe ease, tension, warmth, emotion, nothing noticeable at all, or something completely different from what I expected. Their experience belongs beside my observation rather than underneath it.
Muscle Biofeedback, Body Sway, and Breath as Feedback
In some of my BioEnergetic Wellness and Touch for Health-informed work, I use what I call muscle biofeedback. I prefer that term to “muscle testing” because I am not primarily testing muscular strength. I am observing a change in response within the context of the session.
At other times, I may notice body sway or a change in breathing rather than use a manual muscle response. For me, these can function as practical forms of feedback: something appears to have changed, so we pause and notice.
I want to be very clear about the boundary around that. These responses are not medical diagnostic tools, and I do not use them to determine that a particular disease, trauma, emotion, or hidden truth is present. A breath change can have many causes. A sway response can be influenced by balance, attention, expectation, fatigue, and other factors. A muscle response can vary for many reasons.
Their usefulness in my practice is not that they give me an unquestionable answer. Their usefulness is that they can create another moment of awareness.
Something changed. What do you notice?
The Practitioner Is Not the Answer
This is also why I believe awareness-based work has to include self-trust on both sides of the relationship.
A practitioner can bring training, observation, experience, and a particular framework. A client or participant brings something equally important: the direct experience of living in their own body and life. Neither perspective has to erase the other.
My role is not to tell someone what their body is saying. It is to help create conditions in which they can notice more clearly, consider what they notice in context, and decide what they want to do with that information.
Sometimes that may lead to another question. Sometimes it may lead to rest, a conversation, a boundary, a medical appointment, or no action at all.
Self-trust is not created by transferring authority from an expert to a bodily sensation. It grows when we learn to participate more fully in our own process while still making room for evidence, expertise, context, and uncertainty.
Using the Permission Slip Deck Differently This Month
Last month, I suggested using the Permission Slip Deck and Stress Be Gone Deck as ways of creating a pause. This month, I invite you to experiment with them slightly differently.
Choose a card. But before deciding whether you agree with it, like it, dislike it, or intend to do what it suggests, notice what happened when you read it.
Did your breathing change? Did you smile? Did your shoulders tighten? Did something feel easy? Did something feel uncomfortable? Did you immediately think, “I can't do that”? Or did absolutely nothing noticeable happen? There is no preferred response.
Then ask: What am I noticing? Not: What does this mean? Not yet. That tiny pause between noticing and interpreting is the practice.
Your Body Doesn't Have to Give You the Answer
Perhaps this is where I would change one of the most common messages in wellness. Instead of “Listen to your body. It knows,” I would suggest: “Notice your body. It is part of the conversation.”
Sometimes a bodily response may become an important clue. Sometimes it may help us recognize a pattern we have overlooked. Sometimes it may draw our attention to a need. Sometimes it may simply tell us that something changed. And sometimes we will not know what it means.
We can still notice it. We can become curious. We can consider the context. We can gather more information. We can ask for help. We can wait. And, when necessary, we can choose.
The goal isn't to become perfectly fluent in a secret language of the body. It is to become more familiar with ourselves. Because before we can consider what our experience means, we first have to notice that we are having it.
Notice your body. It is part of the conversation.
Noticing comes before interpreting.
And perhaps finding your way back to yourself sometimes begins exactly there.
Natascha Polomski, MSc CIH (BioEW) | Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
Published: October 2026 | Last reviewed: October 2026
About the Author
Natascha Polomski is a Self Trust & Awareness Guide, BioEnergetic Wellness Professional, speaker, and PhD candidate in Complementary and Integrative Health. Through her work at Turn Up the Frequency Vibrational Wellness, she helps overwhelmed professionals reconnect with themselves, recognize stress before it becomes burnout, and build lasting well-being through awareness, practical tools, and BioEnergetic Wellness.
References and Research Behind This Article
References
1. Greenwood, B. M., & Garfinkel, S. N. (2025). Interoceptive mechanisms and emotional processing. Annual Review of Psychology, 76, 59–86. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-020924-125202
2. Irigoras Izagirre, N., Palmer, R., Schulz, A., Agostinho, M., Canaipa, R., Lima-Araujo, G., Maeda, S., Millon, E. M., Plans, D., Treister, R., Williams, I. A., & Murphy, J. (2026). Investigating the relationship between cardiac interoceptive accuracy and stress: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 180, 106454. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2025.106454
3. Theis, A., Steiger, N., Desmedt, O., Maurage, P., & Leganes-Fonteneau, M. (2026). Bodily maps of emotion in psychiatry: A preregistered systematic review. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry, 111864. doi:10.1016/j.pnpbp.2026.111864
4. World Health Organization. (2026). World Mental Health Day 2026: Lived experiences heard: Real voices, real change.
Peer-Reviewed Research
[1] Greenwood, B. M., & Garfinkel, S. N. (2025). Interoceptive mechanisms and emotional processing. Annual Review of Psychology, 76, 59–86. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-020924-125202
[2] Irigoras Izagirre, N., Palmer, R., Schulz, A., Agostinho, M., Canaipa, R., Lima-Araujo, G., Maeda, S., Millon, E. M., Plans, D., Treister, R., Williams, I. A., & Murphy, J. (2026). Investigating the relationship between cardiac interoceptive accuracy and stress: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 180, 106454. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2025.106454
[3] Theis, A., Steiger, N., Desmedt, O., Maurage, P., & Leganes-Fonteneau, M. (2026). Bodily maps of emotion in psychiatry: A preregistered systematic review. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry, 111864. doi:10.1016/j.pnpbp.2026.111864
Additional Reading
For readers interested in exploring the ideas in this article further, helpful areas of additional reading include research on interoception, embodied awareness, bodily maps of emotion, stress and interoceptive accuracy, lived experience, and the relationship between bodily signals, emotion, and decision-making.
The Permission Slip Deck and Stress Be Gone Deck from Turn Up the Frequency Vibrational Wellness can also be used alongside the simple NOTICE practices introduced in this article. They are intended as reflective prompts that can help create a pause for noticing rather than provide an answer about what a bodily signal means or what someone should do.
Important Note
This article is provided for educational and informational purposes and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical or mental health condition. The information and reflective practices shared here are not a substitute for individualized medical, psychological, or other qualified professional care.
Thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, changes in breath or posture, muscle biofeedback responses, body sway, and other internal experiences can provide information worth noticing and considering, but they are not automatically instructions or diagnostic findings. Context, available evidence, professional expertise, personal circumstances, and other relevant information may all be important when interpreting experiences or making decisions.
If you experience new, severe, persistent, or concerning physical or psychological symptoms, or have concerns about your physical or mental health, please consult an appropriate qualified healthcare professional.
Helping You Find Your Way Back to Yourself.
Images created with AI