Areas › Your body › Feeling from the inside
Thirst, hunger, the ache of having sat too long: these are not nagging, they are instructions. When self-care keeps failing, it is often because the instruction never arrived.
People who have been through a lot sometimes stop registering the signal at all, and then eating, sleeping and resting all go sideways. If that is you, the honest problem is not that you lack willpower. It can help to set the odd check in by the clock rather than by feel, and to treat any faint signal you do catch as worth acting on straight away.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Have they not thought about their own selves? (Quran 30:8). Turning attention to your own state is treated here as something worth doing, not as self-indulgence.
أَوَلَمۡ يَتَفَكَّرُواْ فِيٓ أَنفُسِهِمۗ مَّا خَلَقَ ٱللَّهُ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضَ وَمَا بَيۡنَهُمَآ إِلَّا بِٱلۡحَقِّ وَأَجَلࣲ مُّسَمࣰّ ىۗ وَإِنَّ كَثِيرࣰ ا مِّنَ ٱلنَّاسِ بِلِقَآيِٕ رَبِّهِمۡ لَكَٰفِرُونَ
Have they not thought about their own selves? God did not create the heavens and earth and everything between them without a serious purpose and an appointed time, yet many people deny that they will meet their Lord
Qur’an 30:8read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A meta-analysis of studies using the eating disorder inventory found that people with eating disorders consistently report feeling cut off from or confused by what is going on inside their bodies, across diagnoses and not explained away by depression. That is self-report rather than a test of sensing, and it covers one clinical group. Still, it fits the idea that a disturbed relationship with food and rest can sit on top of a perception difficulty.
Jenkinson PM, Taylor L, Laws KR. (2018). Self-reported interoceptive deficits in eating disorders: A meta-analysis of studies using the eating disorder inventory.. Journal of psychosomatic research doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
You cannot act on a message your body has stopped delivering to you.
When not to
If you are not registering hunger or fullness at all, or eating has become frightening, take this to a doctor or therapist rather than managing it alone.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
You do not have to close your eyes. If keeping them open, soft and lowered, is what lets you stay in the room, that is the better version for you.
If you are going to bring attention to your body, start with where your body is rather than what it feels. Feet on the floor, back against the chair, the weight of your hands in your lap.
When what is happening inside gets too loud, turn outward. Name what you can see, listen for the furthest sound, press your feet into the floor.