The Next Breakthrough in Self Awareness with Caroline Williams

Episode Transcript
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Scott Allender (00:04):
Hi friends.
Welcome to The Evolving Leader.
I'm Scott Allender. I'm herewith Jean Gomes and Jean, I have
been buzzing for a couple ofweeks now, ever since we got to
finally be together in personfor the first I've been dreaming
of this for four years, that wewould sit down in person and

(00:28):
have an in person guest as well.
And we finally got to do it, andthe conversation was so rich.
But before we share thatconversation with our listeners,
I just want to check in with you

Jean Gomes (00:43):
Yeah. Well, like you, I'm feeling really great
and see how you're feeling andalso reflections you might have
about about that day when wespent talking to some guests in
had on the conversation, anycontextualization you might want
person for the first time, whichwas fantastic. I think you know,
to do to set it up?
what I'm feeling is this sensethat of connection with the
first time I started reallydeeply looking at the science of
interoception, and I got thisbuzz when I when I started doing

(01:06):
this, probably seven or eightyears ago, really, when I kind
of recognised that this was areally under appreciated source
of of knowledge now, becausethere's ancient wisdom around
that, around this idea, and it'sbeen a perennial thing, but for
the science to start talking tous about how this, in a sense,

(01:27):
from our bodies, actuallytranslates into better decision
making, better rationalprocesses, is quite
counterintuitive. And also, thenthe slew of evidence around how
interception can improveanything from, you know, kind of
anxiety and autism and ADHD to,you know, judgement under
stressful decision making justsets. Feels to me that this is

(01:49):
an explosion of consciousness isabout to happen because we all
need in as rational people inbusiness. We all need a
scientific or a rationalevidence base to finally believe
what we've probably knownintuitively for a long time. So
to have Caroline on the show anddoing some really brilliant
research into this area amongstyou know, the world specialists

(02:13):
was was phenomenal, bringing allthat together. How you feeling?

I mean, the conversation was so rich, and as
you say, it's permeated so muchof your work and mine as well,
in the workshops I do withpeople and trying to help them
make better sense of thedecisions they make and how they
frame situations. And so I justthink this is such an important
conversation for leaderseverywhere to really lean into,

(02:39):
because this isn't just someacademic discussion without
application. This is, you know,critical, if we
want to maintain a sense of wellbeing, pay attention to how
we're actually really feeling,being able to pull apart

(03:08):
physical sensations fromCaroline, so good to be with you
again. It's been like threeemotional experience and
understand how the two areyears since we've spoken. How
have you been since then,

Caroline Williams (03:23):
I have been okay. I've been spent well at
least one of those three yearslocked away, typing frantically,
related, as well as to paybetter attention to what our
a little bit of travelling aswell. So yeah.

Jean Gomes (03:33):
So Caroline, welcome to the show. A crucial question
for you. How are you feeling?

Well, I'm feeling a lot of things at the
moment. I'm feeling very excitedto be able to talk interception
teams are feeling and the sortof challenges we face in a world
with people who actually areinterested about it, because
I've been on my own in this fora while, apart from the lovely
scientists who've been tellingme about it. But also it's I'm
really passionate about howimportant it is within standing
that's just moving faster andfaster than ever before, with
of the mind, and I feel thishuge responsibility to get it

(03:59):
across. And slightly nervousabout doing the subject justice
in a clear way. So I'm saying alot of things. I think it's fair
to say, excellent. Well, welcomein. This is our first in person,
more ambiguity and just unknown.
So yeah, I invite everybody toface to face interview we've
done in four and a half years ofevolving leaders. So we're so
glad to have a favoured guestfrom season two. I think it was
back in 2022 I think it was,yeah, yeah. Are you still so for

(04:19):
our listeners that haven't heardlisten in. Lean in. This is a
really rich conversation, soyour work yet or watched that
episode, maybe just start with alittle bit about your
background, how you came to dothe work that you do, and then
we'll dive into your most recentwork, which we're excited to
talk with you about. Okay, solet's share it with them now.
I'm a science journalist. I'vebeen doing it now for like, 25
years, which is kind of scary.

(04:42):
And the background, I came froma biology degree, and then I was
one of those weird people at uniwho actually enjoyed doing
essays and writing stuff up. Andso from there, I thought, Oh, I
really like to do this for aliving. Is there such a thing?
It turns out, there is such athing as being a science writer.
I. And so slightly circuitousroute, I kind of ended up doing

(05:04):
that. So I've been an editor atnew site, Feature Editor at New
Scientist specialising inneuroscience initially, and for
a lot of the time, I wascovering neuroscience that
involved looking at the head,the brain, and nothing else. And
then gradually it started toshift towards thinking of the

(05:24):
brain being part of a biggersystem, the body. So that kind
of took me to move, which is mybook I spoke to you about in
2022 which is all about whymoving our body can act as a
hotline to our minds and changethe way we think and feel in
really important ways. And thenthat took me further into the
body, brain, mind rabbit hole,and into interception, which is

(05:48):
what we're talking about today,and why that matters for our
minds and our mental health andour understanding of ourselves.

Well, we touched on interoception when we talked
to you about move right, theinterplay between the body and
the mind. But let's just startwith the definition, because I'm
sure our listeners are many ofthem are saying intro what? What
are you saying? Right? So let'sjust start. What is
introception? Yeah,

it's a kind of, it's not a great word for
it, really. I've kind of spoketo all scientists over this
process and say it does need arebrand, doesn't it? Because you
tend to say the word of peopleglaze over like it sounds like
it's something that anaccountant made up or something.
But it's, it's quite simple,really. Interoception is, is a
casual term for how we sense,perceive and interpret signals
from inside our body. So thesenses you want to learn about

(06:32):
at school, which is, you know,sight, sound, all those, those
are exteroceptive. They're,they're receiving the outside,
the external world. Intraceptivesensation is anything that
happens inside the body so itcovers everything from heartbeat
to stomach sensations to muscletension to pain and more, sort
of vege sort of sensations likehow much energy you feel you

(06:57):
have. Do you feel on edge, or doyou feel confident? You know,
these are all based oninteroceptive changes sensations
within the

Jean Gomes (07:05):
body. You start the book talking about the fact that
we've got this kind of ratherdetached view, both in science
and in wider kind of literatureand on society, between the
brain and the body. And that,you know, kind of goes back to
people like Rene Deschamps, whokind of tried to separate that
out. And so, where are we todayin terms of that is, you know,

(07:27):
is the Is that still the case?
Or do you think we're makingprogress?

Definitely making progress. But I think
part that the difficulty is mostobvious when the fact that we're
talking about body, brainconnections, the fact that we
talk about the body and brainsif they're two separate things,
and that does go back to sort ofDeschamps day, and you know, the
idea that that the that the mindwas something immeasurable and

(07:52):
ethereal and not physical atall, and the body was a physical
thing, and that these two thingswere totally separate. And then
over the years, there have beensome attempts to put the body
and the mind back together. SoWilliam James, who's known as
the father of psychology, andCarl Lange who so there's a
theory that can't that the JamesLang theory of emotion. So they

(08:15):
were back in 1880s they putforward the idea that the our
emotions are an interpretationof what's going on in the body.
So we don't our heart doesn'tbeat because we feel scared. We
feel scared because our heart isbeating. So that was that was
brought up a long time ago, butat the time, we didn't have the

(08:37):
understanding. People pushedback on it and said, Well, hang
on a minute. All these thingsare happening in the body that's
far too slow and squelchy, andthen nothing is exciting as
what's going on in the brain. Soit all kind of got shoved to us
to a side, and it was only inthe 90s that people picked this
idea back up, and it's slowlybecoming better known in
neuroscience. But you know,we're still the case where, if

(08:59):
you're interested in the mind,largely, you go into
neuroscience and you study thebrain. So there's work to do,
but it's definitely it feelslike there's a tipping point
happening where neuroscientistsare going all right? So our
brains attached to the body andstarting to look deeper,

talk more about why that matters. Because, you
know, I think in the West, asyou're saying, We hero the mind,
right? It's the onlyintelligence that we care about,
and we think it sits independentof everything, right? We've got,
like, you know, heads on a stickthat we could take our brains
out of our in our heads, off ourbodies, attach them to a robot,
and it'll be the same. We'd havethe same level of consciousness.
All these kinds of things thatreally aren't true, are they? So

(09:36):
why? Why is it important that weunderstand what's happening in
our body that. Why is that? Whatdoes that matter?

Yeah, well, I mean that the whole point that
we have the brain, so the kindof the idea that the our bodies
evolved and then the brain waskind of plunked on later as an
afterthought, is just not theway evolution works. So we
started off as you know, littleblobs sort of move. Around,
we're back in the primordialsoup. And the basis, you know,

(10:04):
the non negotiable for survivalis to be able to withstand
changes that happen in theoutside world and buffer those
changes and carry on andsurvive. So the way I put it in,
in the book about, you know,this idea of homeostasis, being
able to get back to some kind ofa balance whatever's happening.
You know, we think of Earth asbeing this kind of Mother Earth,

(10:26):
but it's not as if Mother Earthcares whether we survive or not.
You know, you're not the mothergoing. Are you okay, dear? Have
you got enough to eat? Have yougot a water bottle with you? Are
you warm enough? You know lifeexists on earth because it found
a way to buffer the outsideworld, change something on the
inside and get on with it. Andas bodies evolved to become more
complicated, the nervous systemcame along to keep track of all

(10:46):
that. And in our branch of theevolutionary tree, that ended up
in a very complex brain thattalks amongst itself, as well as
taking all this information fromthe body. And so we've got this
complex back and forth going on.
Forth going on. So the idea thatthe mind is somehow not of the
body doesn't make any sense.

(11:09):
Because the whole point of thesechanges matter because what
they're telling us, if our heartis beating faster, they're
telling us that we our body isprepared for action if there's a
change in how how concentratedour blood is, maybe we need to
take him some water to drink. Sothese are motivating sensations,

(11:31):
and the reason that we becomeaware of them is because we need
to think about it, otherwisewe're going to die. So they're
the foundation of of ourfeelings about whether to do
something, whether they're goodor bad, you know, approach good
things, get away from badthings, and also motivate our
behaviours. Otherwise, we wouldprobably just sit in a cave, you
know, napping a flint thing, andjust dive starvation, because

(11:53):
you need the motivation to getout and and find ways to
survive. So, so, yeah, soeverything that we think,
everything we feel the decisionswe make is all built on these
changes in our bodies that tellus what to do. And why? Yeah,

Jean Gomes (12:07):
I mean, I think this is really fascinating that you
know, the the idea that thebrain's principal mission is
just to keep us alive, it's notto do all these higher orders of
thinking. So it would be reallyhelpful to try and get an
understanding of how what, interms of what you've learned
about how interoception reallyinforms the higher orders of
thinking, and so that you knowthat our listeners can get a

(12:28):
real understanding of why thismatters to them in their
everyday kind of

work. Yeah, so the the kind of higher order
stuff came along to to make useven better at working out what
to do. So it's sort of taking,sort of two and two and putting
it together to make five. So Imean, some of the these things
sort of happened by accident,and we've kind of inherited

(12:54):
them, so it's not like they werethere for this reason, but so
our brain cares a lot aboutwhat's going on in the heart. So
things that happen on aheartbeat affect what we're
likely to remember what wenotice. So if something scary
happens when your heart iscontracting, you're more likely
to notice it, and you're fasterto move away from it. So and if

(13:16):
your heart is beating faster,you're more likely to notice
things in the environment thatare threatening. So there's been
some experiments looking atracial bias, where what are
people likely to see someonewith either a tool or a gun in
their hand and assume it's a gunbased on their their race, and

(13:37):
if someone's heart beat isbeating faster, they are much
more likely to jump to theconclusion it's a bad thing. So
racial biases are much strongerif somebody's agitated, which
seems like something peopleshould know in this in this day
and age, also memory is affectedby what's going on in your body.

(13:57):
Motivation. If you're feelinganxious, then you're going to
respond differently to toanother way, and also how
motivated you are depends onthings like a body brain
assessment of what it is youhave to do, how much energy you
have in the tank, how much it'sgoing to cost you. Is it worth

(14:18):
it? So there's this whole thinggoing on that affects whether
you have it in you to dowhatever you have to do. So
there's ever, yeah, there's justbeing aware that you have this
body that that is that isaffecting the way you think and
how you feel about things. Ithink is, in and of itself, kind
of important. But

we're not often that conscious of it, are we
right? So we think we're makinga logical decision, you know, in
a boardroom, perhaps, and we maybe unaware that we're depleted
right? Our bodies are sending asignal. So we feel that the idea
before us is nonsense. It's thewrong thing to do. We're
agitated, as you said, how? Whatdid your research reveal, in
terms of how the differences ofpeople's sensitivity to their

(14:59):
end? Reception and what we cando to develop more sensitivity.

Yeah, so that's a really important point,
because we all vary in howsensitive we are. And sometimes
that can be just, you know, likegenetic variation, where, like,
you either have great eyesightor not good eyesight. And
sometimes it can be as aresponse to life experience. So
if you were brought up expectingthe world to be a dangerous
place you're going to be well,it might make you more sensitive

(15:25):
to your intercepted signals. Itmight make you have been
overwhelmed at some point andshut them down, and so you're
totally unaware of what's goingon. So we all vary for various
reasons. But what's interestingis the research suggests that if
you can learn to more preciselyfeel what's going on your body
and interpret it and be curiousabout what it means and

(15:48):
interpret it accurately.
Then you can actually get betterat that. And that can have all
kinds of knock on effects aboutinto your self regulation, your
understanding yourself, yourrelationships with others,
because empathy is based onphysical changes in somebody
else's body that you're pickingup on, and then that sort of
mirrors it in your own body. Soyou're physically feeling what

(16:09):
other people are feeling to alower extent. So it affects your
sense of self, your relationshipwith others, how you think and
how you cope with changes, andwhether you know what's driving
those feelings within your body.
So one example I think of is,and it's happened to me, you can
meet somebody and you can say,okay, they're giving me bad
vibes. I just don't don't likethis person. And it might be

(16:31):
that your intuition is pickingup on something really not nice
about that person. Youabsolutely should go with your
gut and not trust them. It couldalso be that they really remind
you of someone who was ahorrible teacher in your life,
or someone who bullied you, orsomething like that, and you're
reacting to that, and it'shappened to me, and I've been
laughing like that guy, and thenturns out they're actually a
lovely person, and you're whatyou're reacting to isn't

(16:51):
appropriate. So having this kindof more granular sense of what
you're feeling and what'scausing that can be really sort
of informative.
There's a lot of kind of focuson the vagus nerve right now,

(17:12):
and you see a lot of socialmedia influencers talking about
stimulating their vagus nerveand so on. Can you talk to us
about the role that that playsin interoception, and why we
should be thinking about it?
Yeah, well, there are three mainpathways, interoceptive
pathways, and the vagus nerve isa really important one. So we
think of that as theinteroceptive superhighway. So
the vagus nerve, it sort ofcomes out the bottom of the

(17:34):
brain and it winds through thebody. So vagus means wandering.
It's the wandering nerve, and itso it doesn't go down the the
spinal column with all the othersensory nerves. It kind of goes
checks in with all the organsalong the way. And the a lot of
the attention about the vagusnerve has been in its role in
the parasympathetic nervoussystem, which is the opposite to

(17:55):
the sympathetic nervous system.
So sympathetic nervous system,fight or flight, ready, self
fraction parasympathetic, calmdown. Everything's rest and
digest chill. And so a lot ofthe talk about the vagus nerve
has been about, okay, you canstimulate it, and that calms the
body which is which is, allfine, but the parasympathetic
arm of the nervous system takesup about 20% of the fibres in

(18:20):
the vagus nerve, which is100,000 nerves strong. It's a
great big bundle of nerves, notjust one nerve. The other 80%
are sensory nerves. So if itinteroceptive signals that run
from the body to the brain, andwe know a lot less about them.
So there's one researcher,Steven liberlis, who's looking
into this, and he calls it the,you know, the Dark Matter of the

(18:42):
vagus nerve, because there's allthis stuff. There's a lot of
things that are being sensed bythe vagus nerve that we don't
even know what they're doing,weird things, like, there's some
sensory nerves that detect lightwithin our fat and, yeah, and
just all kinds of weird stuffthat they're finding.

(19:03):
And a lot, yeah, a lot of it.
And a lot still to know aboutwhat happens. We still hope for
you. There's a lot, yeah,there's a lot going on in there.
So, yeah, the vagus nerve ishugely, hugely important. And
the reason it's, it's reallyinteresting is because, if you
can tweak those signals, so somesignals come from the stomach
fullness sensations, and some ofthe, you know, the gut brain
interactions, they all run alongthe vagus nerve. So if you can

(19:24):
get in there, and there's beensome studies where there's been
some stimulation by the stomachin the vagus nerve, can you
affect appetite? Can I hate youto treat obesity? Can you change
some of the sort of gut braininteractions that underlie
things like IBS. You know that,because that's a very much an
interceptive. You know, thebrain affects the stomach.
Stomach affects the brain. It'sall back and forth. So there's a

(19:46):
lot of interest in can weharness once we know exactly
what these signals are and wherethey're going and what they're
doing, can we then harness,harness them to improve health?
In new ways. What's your yourtake on that, given what you've
researched? Do you think that'sviable? It's

(20:07):
very early days, but they saythe vagus nerve stimulation for
appetite treating obesity, doesseem to be kind of quite
promising. So as an alternative,I mean, it's still invasive,
obviously they have to go in,but it's less invasive than than
a stomach, a gastric band, forexample, so you're not having a
whole part of your stomach takenout. But that does seem to be

(20:27):
quite promising. There's troublewith the vagus nerve at the
moment. We've got researcherswho I went to see, who are
trying to map all of these100,000 fibres, and it's going
to take them a little while, butthey're they're on the way.
Until then, it's very difficult,because you've got this bundle
of 100,000 fibres. Some of themare going body to brain, some

(20:49):
going to brain to body. How youtarget those is very tricky. So
there's a lot of hype aboutVegas vagus nerve stimulation,
putting something on your ear,and that's going to calm me
down, and that's going to makethis and the other happen. I
don't think we're there yet.
What would

the role of the brain like the brain's
predictions? Wouldn't thatfactor into whether or not the
stimulating of the vagus nervewould have the impact that we'd
want? Right? So if the right,because we've had Lisa Feldman
Barrett on the show, we'vetalked about sort of the brain
as a predictor and thedisconnect between what the
experiences. So I'm just curiousto know more about what you're

(21:24):
you're seeing there.

Well, this is a thing. So I think the
interventions that are beinglooked at, you know, see it very
much as a loop. So you've gotthe brain predicting what's
happening in the body, and thenthe body's the the incoming
signals either back that up, andif they do, then not much really
happens. And you're probably notaware of it. If they don't,
there's a clash. And thensomething you become aware of

(21:46):
it, something happens. But thisis a, you know, very much, a
back and forth. And so the ideais, can you intervene somewhere
in that system and change thesignal? So then, if you're
changing the bottom up signalfrom the body, then that will
feed in to the brain'spredictions and then will that,
you know, tip things in theright direction. So that's the
idea, like, if you can find theright bit to intervene, but

(22:09):
yeah, you're right. You need tochange the whole thing. Because
if the brain, and in some of theexperiments that I took part in,
one was looking at perception ofthe breath and because the
sensation of having enough airto breathe is sort of a non
negotiable for the brain. It'snot if you if you don't feel
like you've got enough aircoming in, that's urgent and

(22:30):
important so you know about it.
But if that changes, how ableare people to change the brain's
predictions and update it basedon the new information coming
in. So this is relevant tothings like post traumatic
stress. So do you think, do youlook around and go, actually,
I'm objectively in a calm, safeenvironment here, and downgrade

(22:51):
the panic signal? Or do you gowith what you've learned the
hard way, and it goes up. And sothis experiment I took part in,
I was actually really surprised.
They primed either a hard breathor a easy breath through a
snorkel tube. They primed itwith a beep, so it was either a

(23:12):
high pitched beep or a low pitchbeep. There was a learning
phase, and I pretty quickly justused that high pitched beep
meant easy breath, low pitchednot so nice. And then after a
while, they switched it up, butI didn't know this, and they
asked me to press a button. Didyou feel it being a restricted
breath? And did you expect thatbased on the beep? And after I'd
learned that the high pitchedwas the easy breath, they

(23:37):
switched it up, and I was veryslow to relearn that that
connection wasn't there anymore.
And in fact, a third of the timeI felt a difficult breath when
there was not one there, and Ifelt an easy breath when they
were restricting the oxygen. Somy brain was predicting No, no,
no, no. You've learned this thehard way. This is Yeah, and
afterwards I was, I was asshocked as everybody else,

(23:59):
because it should have beeneasy, but, yeah, but your
predictions do play in and somepeople are better at shifting
their allegiance back to whatthe body is saying, and other
people sort of are moreflexible. So being flexible to
update what's going on insideyour body outside the body, and
so putting this all together iswhat we mean by by good
interception. Yeah. When we talkabout the connection that the

(24:22):
vagus nerve has with the insularcortex and how, though, how that
kind of affects our executivefunction and thought processes,
because that's a very importantrelationship, yeah, so it's kind
of the insulin is the mostimportant bit of the brain that
most people have never heard of,basically. So there's, so I
talked about the vagus nerve.
There's other inputs as well.
You've got all the spinalnerves, which don't they go to

(24:44):
the organs, but they also gothroughout your whole body,
through the muscles and fasciaand everything else. And then
you've got the the chemical, thechemical changes in the blood,
the hormonal changes, theinflammation markers, all these
kinds of things. And they all goto the same place. The first
stop is the brain. Them, which,for some things we already know,
and I think it's probably goingto turn out a lot, there's like
a dial in there where it kind ofthings either get escalated or

(25:07):
or kind of regulated down again.
So the brain stem firstimportant part, and then it goes
on to the thalamus, which is akind of switchboard, and then on
to the insula. So the insula isreally important because it's
where the bottom up signals comein, and the top down, signals,
which is all the cognitivestuff, all the expectations and
stuff and all the emotions andthe sensory stuff from outside,

(25:29):
they all get put together. Andthat's where the magic happens.
And somehow, I guess, I thinkit's fair to say we don't know
exactly how this is where thissort of sense, the inner sense
of me here. Now, this is how Ifeel comes from. So it's kind of
like the hub. So everything froma perception of time, how you

(25:51):
feel, you know, all this isdealt with by the insulin the
insula is connected to lots ofparts all over the brain. So,
and it's a really fascinatingbit of the brain. So if you want
to know where it is, it's kindof above your ear, if you were
to go, pull your fingers reallydeep in, pull your brain apart,
and the two folds, it's rightdown the bottom, one on each
side. Fascinating bit. Andthere's some interesting
research that shows that whenpeople have the strong

(26:12):
interoception, their judgementunder stress starts to improve.
What have you what have you seenthere in the in the the work
that you've been doing? So it'sinteresting that. So the these
thing that's tempting to thinkis that we should all be more
aware of our body signals, andthat isn't necessarily a good
thing. So for example, ifsomebody has a heart arrhythmia

(26:33):
and they didn't know about it,and the doctor tells them
they've got a heart rate, me,they can become too focused on
their heart signals. Similarly,in eating disorders, people
become hypersensitive to thesensation of food in their
stomach, and it's horrible. Andyou know, so sometimes you don't
want more sensitivity, sometimesyou want less sensitivity. And
researchers, Sara Garfinkel,who's one of the, you know, the

(26:54):
big people in this area ofresearch, and Yuvi, they found
that what's important isn'tnecessarily how sensitive you
are, it's how how much you thinkyou are sensing signal and how
much you are the differencebetween those two makes a

(27:17):
difference. So if you thinkyou're really sensitive and
you're not, that can, like,relate to the accuracy of, yeah.
So So you might think you'rereally sensitive and you're not.
You might think you're not andyou really are. And so bringing
those two things together, andwhat Sara Garfinkel has done is
some training where she'strained people to be more
sensitive to their heartbeat. Soit's quite simple, really, in

(27:37):
many ways, you get people toraise a heartbeat doing a little
bit of exercise, and then, sothen almost everyone can feel
their heartbeat, and then youget people to pay attention to
it as it slows down. And in thestudies, they give them a bit of
feedback about how well they'redoing. And over time, it's
interesting, because they getbetter at detecting their own

(27:58):
heartbeat, but they become lessaware of it consciously. So
these are people who hadanxiety, and so when they felt
their heart rate normally, itwas like, oh my god, it's a bad
thing. They became less aware ofit, partly because that
escalation to this is somethingimportant you need to do
something about. It didn'thappen at a lower, sort of
unconscious level. It all beensort of regulated. So in some

(28:22):
ways, you want, what you want isthe equivalent of potty
training. So you want to know,there's an issue. What the issue
is, go and deal with it, get onwith your day, and so you don't
spend all day or, you know, soit's a kind of balance. You
don't want to extreme. You don'twant to be cut off to it, yeah,
as Sara Garfinkel says, youknow, it's not good to be two in

(28:43):
your body. You want to be livingin in the world, but you want to
have access to it when you needit. Yeah. That's a good
distinction to make, I think,and to be able to interpret it
so if you if you know what itmeans, then it won't necessarily
go out of control.

You can we talk a bit about the role of emotion
and sort of delineating betweenthe sort of physical sensation,
you know, we've talked a lotabout the body brain connection,
but you mentioned anxiety,right? And so anxiety can, you
know, produce all sorts ofemotions, right? Because it's a
physical, physiological thinghappening, right? You're having
this anxiety experience, andthen you might feel all sorts of

(29:25):
things about it, or emotionscould be fueling it, right? So
can you pull apart theimportance of delineating
between physical sensation andemotion? Yeah,

I mean, this is lucife and Barrett's thing,
isn't it? Like she would be thebest person to talk about this,
but I'll do my best. So the ideais that
the intraceptive sensations,they are driving our feelings.
They make us feel something. Sothe whole point of them is they
make us feel something. Theymotivate us the emotion. This is

(29:56):
Lisa Fauci and Barrett's idea.
And a lot of people agree. Heris, is the
interpretation of what thosefeelings mean. So the classic
example is you feel like this.
Are you excited or are youanxious? Like it could be
either, and your interpretationof it is informed by your
predictions, is informed by yoursituation. Are you about to go

(30:19):
and give a big talk to somepeople, or are you about to go
and do something reallyexciting? And sometimes it'd be
different difficult to tellthose two things apart when
you're about to go on a rollcoach, are you excited or are
you terrified? I don't know, butI feel a lot. And so yeah, the
emotions are the way we makesense of these feelings. The
feelings are there, whatever andbut in theory, you can interpret

(30:41):
them differently. So what LisaFeldman Barrett told me when I
spoke to her was importantthings to be curious. You know,
you notice these sensations.
What might it mean? Am I? Am Ifeeling this because I'm in
danger? Am I feeling galvanised?
Am I feeling overconfident?
Should I be feeling thisconfident, no, just to just not

(31:03):
even be critical of what you'refeeling, but at least and notice
it and be open to the idea thatmaybe you're not feeling what
you think you're feeling. Yeah,at least, at least give it some
time to breathe before youdecide that you desperately hate
that person. Well, actually,they're just making me feel a
bit nervous because they remindme of my science teacher,
whatever.

I think that's so important. What you just said
about curiosity, right? It'slike that. That's a good
anchoring point to come backinstead of reacting to what's
happening so quickly, makingassumptions, just staying
curious. Like, what is thisphysical sensation of my body?
What is this emotion I'mfeeling? What's the story behind
that? All of those kinds ofthings? Exactly,

I think in the world we live in at the
moment, it's a really importantskill to have because, you know,
it just feels like theexistential threats just keep
coming at us. You know,pandemics and climate change and
the world's going to help. Youknow, there's all 24 hour
rolling news. We're bombardedwith all this stuff, and most of
it feels really scary, and sowe're feeling all these things,

(31:59):
and that can make us react in inall kinds of weird ways, whether
it makes us withdrawn and feelhopeless, or whether it makes us
feel galvanised to go out and dosomething about this. You know,
when we see this sort ofpolarisation in society, but
we're just emotionally activatedand yelling at each other, and
no one is, you know, reallythinking about, why am I feeling

(32:22):
this way? What exactly am Iangry about here? And so one
thing that's quite interestingto do is, if there's something
just making you feel somethingfrom the news,
look at it from differentoutlets with different political
persuasions. You know, does thatwill make you feel angry? Does
that will make you feelgalvanised? Does this one make
you feel hopeless? Like, what?
Are you feeling about this, andwhat can you do about it? And

(32:43):
the answer might be, actually, Ican't do anything about it. I'm
just kind of process thatemotion and go, God, it feels
scary to being a grown up inthis day and age, you know, but,
but just being aware that thisis going on, because the risk
is, if you're not tuned in withwhat's going on, you can be
dragged around by your emotionsvery easily, and acting in ways
that maybe doesn't align withhow you really feel. One thing

(33:03):
that we seem to be inevitablyalways feeling is exhausted and
depleted. Is there anything inthe work and interoception that
can help us to kind of combatthat or think about it
differently? Yeah, because Ithink, you know, one in five
people, according to variousstatistics, is complains of
being tired all the time. Anddoctors see it all the time.

(33:25):
They write T, A, T, T, you know,abbreviate it is so common.
Can't even bother to write itdown anymore, tired all the
time. And we're talking about inotherwise healthy people, not
talking about chronic fatigue,but but the research into the
interoceptive basis of energy,or subjective vitality, is how
it's sort of studied, couldinform treatments for things
like problematic fatigue. Soit's just the idea of thinking

(33:47):
of it as as a body brainassessment of what you've got in
the tank. So this goes back toLucille Feldman barracks, body
budgeting. Body budgeting. Yeah,so which you all know about. So
the brain is constantly tryingto work out what you can afford
to do, and if you can't affordto do what you need to do, or if
it's really not worth it. Andthere's, you know, it's not, not

(34:10):
worth depleting your energy. Forwhat comes out of that
assessment is a lack ofmotivation. You don't want to do
it. You feel exhausted. So theidea we have, I think, you know,
all the doctor can really off atthe moment, oh, are you eating
properly? Are you sleeping well,are you doing some exercise? And
you might be doing all thosethings, but you might still get
up in the morning and go, Oh,God, it's just too much. And

(34:30):
that could be an outcome of amany, many things, and it can be
a sort of a bottom up problem,is it that? So there's really
interesting research looking towhat the mitochondria are doing
in the cells, releasing energywithin the cells, and what that
has to do with the energy thatyou feel that you have. And the
answer is quite a lot. So study,studying people with

(34:50):
mitochondrial diseases thataffect how they can release
energy shows that we do have away of feeling when we are low
on energy. Be physically andlots of things can contribute to
that. It can be lack of exercisethat we're not actually powering
up our mitochondria. We haven'tgot really good, efficient
mitochondria going on. Therecould be lots of reasons why you
could be eating too much sugar,which overwhelms the

(35:13):
mitochondria, and they end upchecking out less energy, not
more. I told you, stop eating somuch sugar. Yeah, it really
does. Really does backfire. It'sa really miserable thing to say,
you know, and then you want toreach the chocolate bar, but
don't, I mean, do do it anyway,but notice that you're tired
afterwards. Then you go to bed,yeah, then go to bed. Or it
could be, you know, Emma, itcould be that you'll you have to
go and see somebody, and thethought of being in that meeting

(35:35):
with someone who just drains youjust know it's going to be hard.
That prediction is actuallydraining your energy that you
need to get through thatsituation. So
seeing it is a kind ofpartially, sort of top down
thing and a partial bottom upthing, you can you have a better
chance of saying, Okay, what?
What's going on here, and tryingto find a way around it. So one
interesting thing is, how do youfeel when you're with people,

(36:00):
people that make you feelenergised, enthusiastic and like
everything's worth doing. Spendmore time with them if you
possibly can, the people thatdrain you and you're just like
you just feel like you cannot bebothered. You know, keep them at
arm's length mentally, eventhough that can make a real
difference to how energised youfeel in everyday life. And you
know, when you're feelingexhausted at the end of a day,

(36:21):
oh, can I be bother to meet thatbrown for a drink? Maybe you
can, because they will make youfeel 10 times better when you
when you've done it. So yeah, Ithink this idea of just
thinking, Why am I so tired,having this idea that, well,
it's partly my, it's partlybrain, it's partly body, and
it's the interaction between thetwo, at least, opens up the
possibility that you might beable to do something about it,
or at least not get too get toodragged down by the idea that

(36:43):
you feel terrible and there'snothing you can do about it.

Let's stay within a minute longer in a sort
of organisational context,right? Because you might not
have the option to sort of say,I'm going to stay away from that
person because they suck thelife out of me, right? Yeah, I'm
going to have to, I'm going tohave to power up, and I'm going
to still have to have energyafter that meeting. Somehow. I
don't know if you've got anysort of Top of Mind suggestions,
but I'd love to kind of staywith this in the sort of context
of leadership.

Well, yeah, I mean, I'm a freelancer. I walk
on my own, so I'm I've only gotmyself to drag myself down and
pound myself back up. Yeah,you're right. You can't always
do that, but, but the but theknowledge that so, as Lisa
Feldman Barrett describes it.
You know, we might we helpmanage each other's body budgets
so somebody else's expectationsand demands depletes us because
we're taking that their demandsand needs into our own

(37:30):
assessment. So even if you cansort of mentally put a barrier,
like, Okay, I know that you'reexhausting and sort of protect
yourself a little bit. That'sthat's a good way to know that
you have,they don't have to drain you.
No, I'm taking from what you'resaying. I mean, this is a source
of knowledge and informationexactly that we're getting, and

(37:52):
if we tune it out, then it's notavailable to us. We could tell
ourselves a different story,couldn't we? So, you know, yeah.
Or you can just, you know, onceyou know the things that
energise you, you can say, Okay,well, I've got to have this
awful away day with this person.
You can, you can sort ofschedule in some time to rest
and recharge in whatever wayworks for you. And obviously

(38:14):
it's different for some. Somepeople want to go and lie in a
flotation tank and, you know,close their eyes and, you know,
go to bed, hide under a blanket,whatever. Other people want to
go for a run. Other people wantto hang out with their friends,
you know, but knowing how tosort of get yourself back, put
yourself back togetherafterwards, is kind of
important. So just also beingcurious about that one, what
makes me feel good? How can Ifit more of our end? Being

(38:34):
intentional? Yeah, absolutely.
Well, the ability to understandyour needs, I think, rather than
wants, is so crucial for modernlife, isn't it? And if you don't
have that sensitivity for thatinformation, it's not available
to you. Really, is exactly andto be able to see, you know, to
separate the wants from theneeds. And that doesn't mean you
you don't do the wants, youknow. So for example, you could
eat a meal. You can, you know,notice when your intercepted

(38:58):
signals of fullness have kickedin. I don't need to eat any more
of that. And you know, you youstill have the urge to eat
dessert. Okay? Is that becauseyou want the pleasure doesn't
mean you say, No. Pleasure is aan important feeling too, and it
makes life worth living. So yousay, Do you know what? I am
full, but I fancy a chocolatemousse. Eat it for the pleasure.
But like just just mindlesslygoing, Oh, I shouldn't. I'm

(39:21):
gonna, yeah, then you have theguilt and the shame. That's a
whole other load of feelings youdon't need to have. So yeah, I
have no shame eating chocolatemoves neither. I think Jean
tries to shame me when I eat it,but

Jean Gomes (39:35):
that's very unfair.
I'm just, I'm just trying tohelp you

energise my my cells, cellular energy. I

definitely still reach for chocolate
biscuit when I'm stressed, andthen an hour later when I'm on
the surface, go, I don't feelgood. I think, well, I knew I
wouldn't. Doesn't mean in themoment, that's what I needed to
get me through. Yeah?

Jean Gomes (39:54):
I just care about Scott's mitochondria. I mean,
you know the technically, it's

very, it's very kind of you. Yeah? Yeah.
Yeah, you're managing his bodybudget. What about

the microbiome?
I was curious about that,because you write about that as
well, right? The sort of role ofthe sort of gut microbiome and
its influence on all this,

yes, and what's really fascinating, so
people know about the microbiomenow it's been, you know, it's
been a thing for a while, and weknow that, you know, it affects
mood. But I think What is lessknown is that things that are
being secreted by the microbiomein your gut affect your cravings
for food as as well as mood. Sothere's all kinds of stuff going

(40:31):
on. There are direct there arecells within the gut that have a
direct line via the vagus nerveup to the brain that are like,
okay, you've had enough of this.
Now you need to have some moreof this. And, and the microbiome
is very involved in that, inways that we're just beginning
to understand. And, and so thatsometimes can can rewrite the
pathways in ways that make uscrave things against our will.

(40:52):
So, yeah, they're really, reallyimportant. The kind of
frustrating thing about themicrobiome is everyone wants to
know, okay, what should I betaking? What should I what five
weird tricks should I do to geta great microbiome? And the
answer really comes down to eata diverse, varied diet, lots of
fibre, because that's what givesyou a nice, diverse microbiome.
Ultra processed foods, you know,not so much you end up with a

(41:14):
much less diverse microbiome.
And the ones that should beeating the fibre that you're not
eating start sucking into themucus lining of the guts, and
then that all causes all kindsof problems, inflammatory
reactions, all these kind ofthing. So, yeah, they're,
they're really important andkind of emerging source, because
they talk to each other. Youknow, you need to have these
diverse ones, because they can,one makes something that the

(41:35):
other one eats, and then itmetabolises something that then
tells you to do this. And, yeah,I kind of fascinated, because
you think about, people talkabout the gut as the second
brain, but these microbiome youget, they're almost like the
third, because they're callingthe shots in ways that we don't
even realise, making us feelthings and want things. And it's
kind of speaking, it's kind of

Jean Gomes (41:52):
interesting idea to imagine this kind of other being
inside you doing all of that.
Yeah, all they

ask for is a bit of fibre and a nice fairy
diet, and they'll be nice toyou.
So you mentioned Sara Garfinkeland Hugo crichley, and then
they're incredibly important inthis whole world of interception
research, and they've kind ofdone so many pioneering studies.

(42:19):
Can we talk about a few of thoseand why they're important. Yeah,
so. So Sara gofinkel got intothe idea of what does the body
mean? Because she was studyingPTSD in veterans in the US, and
she was trying to study theiranxiety levels. And she was
like, Well, hang on a minute.
You can't ignore these physicalchanges in their bodies. They're

(42:39):
very much a part of theexperience of racing hearts.
Experience. They're racingheart, they're not being able to
breathe. They kind of need torun away or fight. So she
started looking into that, andbecame aware of Hugo crichley's
work. So he was doing a lot ofreally interesting stuff,
looking at what the brain takesfrom the heart beat, what the so
he did the first neuro imagingstudies that showed that the

(43:05):
brain keeps tabs on the heart,and that affects how we think
and how memory works, and how weperceive, especially fear. And
so they started working togetheron this, and she's gone on to do
all kinds of really fascinatingthings. So, yes, so as I said,
the training studies that shedid about you, can we she
noticed that when she was tryingout the equipment for heartbeat

(43:26):
detection, asking people to tryand tune into their heartbeat
and count number of beats in 30seconds, she was testing the
equipment, she realised that shewas actually getting better at
it over time. Sure, maybe, maybeyou can train that. And if you
can train people to be better atheartbeat detection, what does
that do to their anxiety levelsand their ability to control

(43:48):
that? And so that led down thisreally interesting path. So a
lot of the work has been donebecause of that, beginning in
the heartbeat detection. That'swhere interception really
started making a splash, becauseobviously Anxiety disorders are
rife, and, you know, tellingpeople to think about things
differently doesn't really help.

(44:08):
We've still got massively risinglevels, so maybe this body
centric approach could reallyhelp. And it does seem really
promising. There's some reallyinteresting things in children
with autism and helping them?
Yeah, I think the study theydid, the training study, was in
adults with autism, and sotraining people to so anxiety is
often a problem with autism, andlow interceptive awareness as

(44:33):
well, also in ADHD, and this canlead to a problem called
alexithymia, which is, it's nota condition as such. It's a
description of an inability toput names on your emotions. So
you have a physical sensation,name on your physical sensations
and fits to what they mean. So,you know, when you feel
something in your body, can yousay, I am scared, I am anxious,

(44:54):
you know. And so that's a realproblem in, you know, the. US
conditions. And so the firststudy was with people with with
autism and training them to bebetter at detecting their
heartbeat. After a few sessions,I think it was 12 sessions, a
lot of them were not qualifyingfor anxiety disorder diagnosis

(45:16):
anymore, and they followed upwith these people a year later,
and they still had these, theseamazing effects, and they were
saying things like, oh yeah. NowI know when I feel my heart
doing this, it's just this, andI don't let it escalate. And so
people, they always be able toput these two things together
and then not let it get carriedaway. And then they've moved on
to another really interestingthing, which is hypermobility.

(45:39):
So people who have hypermobilejoints, so you think double
jointed, you have more stretchycollagen in your joints, which
is why you're bending so verycommon. One in five people, lot
of not musicians, lot of balletdancers, obviously gymnasts,

(45:59):
if you have this stretchycollagen in your joints, you
also have it in all of yourblood vessels in your body. And
so you have various reflexes, sothat when you stand up, for
example, or the blood goes toone area of your body, your
blood vessels can contract tosend that body, that blood back
to your heart. And if you've gotvery stretchy blood vessels,

(46:20):
that's not as efficient. So youstand up, your blood tends to
rush to your feet, or if it'shot, the blood rushes to the
surface of your skin. And whathappens then? Because the body
has to keep blood flow goingaround, it's non negotiable. You
need to keep your brain going.
You need to keep your body andyour organs going. So the only
way to get more blood flowingand to get blood flowing better
is to increase heart rate. Butif you're not interceptively

(46:41):
aware of what's causing that,then that can cause anxiety,
because there's no explanationfor why your heart's suddenly
beating faster. So a lot ofpeople, you know, like one in
five people, has hypermobilejoints. A lot of people also
have anxiety, and there's a hugecrossover. So this is the work
of Jessica Eccles, who workswith Sara Garfinkel, and you go
preachy. She's at Sussex aswell. So they did this, the

(47:02):
training study with people withhypermobility, the same thing.
So I spoke to some of the peoplewho are in the study, and they
say, Oh yeah, yeah. It doesn'tstop it happening, but it means
I know what it is. And I thinkif I just sit down and do some
some breathing, if I just waitfor it to pass, it doesn't take
over. So people were sayingbefore they'd had these what
seemed like totally random panicattacks out the blue. Now it's
like, okay, maybe I just stoodup too quick. Maybe I ate too

(47:25):
much and all the bloods in mystomach, so having that extra
level of explanation takes itaway. Well, I think

Jean Gomes (47:32):
there's, there's a, there's a flip to all of this,
which what's the consequencesof, of not tuning into your
body, of having, you know, sortof like just living in your
brain and so on. And

are we getting worse at it? Yeah, I try
and make the case that we are. Imean, it's impossible to know,
really, but I think, I think thefact that the outside was so
attention grabbing that you soyou can either pay attention to
the outside world or the insideworld. You can't do both at
once, but the fact that theoutside world is so like, yeah,

(48:06):
there's interesting studies withthe Hadza people in Tanzania
that hunt together as theydescribe their emotions. This is
a nice fell and Barrett study.
Actually, they describe theiremotions as my heart was
pounding in my chest. I feltvery hot, whereas an American
comparison group were like, Iwas humiliated, and I was
thinking this, you know, it wasall very mental, yes,

Jean Gomes (48:29):
interpret it, yeah, immediately, yeah. And yeah.

And the good thing about the sort of hats way
of doing it is that you havethat thing. You see the line you
are, and then you leave it inthe moment you go back, you go
back to your fire. And, having anice, yeah, you don't carry it
with you as an option. You'renot, you're not, yeah, you're
not replaying it over and over.
It's just like that was afeeling that was perfectly
normal. I'm

Jean Gomes (48:50):
interested in the kind of relationship there with
rumination. And, you know, a lotof people are suffering from
this sense of, you know, likethese ideas or thoughts or
feelings keep on going throughthe head and they can't deal
with it. Does inter receptionplay any part in helping us to
rethink that?

Yeah, I think rumination is, is the classic of
just being in your head and thebody's not even involved. And
like this is, this is one of myI have two toxic stress
strategies. One is hiding undera blanket and hoping all goes
away, going to sleep, which Ithink is like a bankrupt body
budget situation. It's justlike, I can't cope, shut down.
The other one is just, you know,is rumination. And, you know,

(49:31):
this is not a new suggestion,because it's one. It's common
thing in sort of anxiety therapyand thing, but really just
deliberately going, okay, theclassic one is Name five things
you can see, five things you canhear, five things you can but
also five things that you canfeel in your own body. And I
tried this myself the other daywhen I was out on a dog walk.

(49:52):
And actually, from feeling verymuch behind my eyes and tents
and like my head was going bythe end of it, I was like. Okay,
I can hear the bird song, I canfeel my feet, I can feel my
breathing, and suddenly it putsyou back in your body, or in
your whole, your whole being,without wanting to sound too out
there, you know, you're a whole,one whole person. You're not a

(50:13):
head that's going bonkers and abody that you're just dragging
around you sort of, it puts youback, you know, who you are
again. And, yeah, there'ssomething really kind of
powerful about that, that, yeah,it just makes the world make a
bit more sense.

Jean Gomes (50:28):
Because one of the challenges, actually, that a lot
of us feel is not whole. We feelthe opposite to that. And I'm
just wondering, what otherbecause you've just given us a
really nice little practicaltechnique, is there other other
things that we can be doing toget better connection with with
interoception. Well, I

mean, I hate to harp back to my previous
book, but movement, you know,you can't move your body without
changing the signals. So thesesignals are, you know, they're
fluid, they're dynamic, they'rechanging all the time. And the
easiest way to change them, Imean, obviously you can change
your breathing, but you can alsomove your body. And so this is
sort of what led me intointerception, because there's

(51:06):
all the fascinating researchthat if you increase the
strength and flexibility of yourbody, that changes the sort of
underlying interceptive signalsthat sort of builds to the self
of who you are and what you canaccomplish in the world. So you
feel stronger, you feel moreagile, and also, even if you're
if you're, if you're feeling lowenergy, it might be that you're
a bit lethargic. You've justbeen sitting around all day and,

(51:27):
you know, been stuck in anairless room, doing meetings,
even just a quick walk aroundthe block. You know that that
sets, you know, it changes thesignals that are going in, and
so that changes the way youfeel. So that's one of the
easiest ways to do it.

Jean Gomes (51:40):
Yeah, excellent. I mean, if you were, if you were
locked away in a endlessmeeting, and you were starting
to feel that, you know,disconnection with your body,
what would you might, might youdo in the moment? Do you think,
um, I think

turning your attention to what's going on. I
mean, sometimes it might beimportant to not be thinking
about your work what's going onin your own body, and to pay
attention to what's going on inthe room. But if you feel
yourself zoning out, then youknow any way of just feeling
more present in your body, witha fidgeter, tap your feet. You
know whatever, whatever gets youfeeling a bit more alive and
vital and in your own body, andnot in your own head, will

(52:16):
probably help you get throughthat experience. I mean, part of
the problem with modern life, Ithink, especially in the
workplace, is it's sodistracting and it's so mental.
We're sitting down, we're notmoving. You've got the screen in
front of you, and there's beensome it was sort of study, not
study in a lab, but done by anex Microsoft professional who

(52:38):
decided to just look, I wonderwhat happens if you measure how
people are breathing whenthey're sitting at a deck, check
desk, checking their emails, andthey sort of forgot they were
breathing, and they slowed downbreathing, and they held their
breath, and they weren'tbreathing effectively. And so
that's that's something that weprobably all do. Checking your
emails are probably not doingsome good breathing. So just
even connecting with yourbreathing helps you get back

(53:00):
into your body, and sort ofsends a little bit of oxygen to
your brain as well, which, yeah,she's gonna email apnea. Yes,
exactly, exactly. And I don'tknow whether that's ever been
followed up in a proper study,but we do know that the way you
breathe really affectsalertness. It affects how you
says there's a sort ofconnection between the top of

(53:21):
the nose and the way that yourbrain waves are working. So the
sort of breathing into your noseentrains the kind of rhythm of
your brain waves and so how yourbreathing really matters. So
even if you can't do anythingelse you're stuck, what you can
do is you can very subtly takecontrol of your breathing.

I love this conversation so much because,
you know, one of the ambitionsof the show is to create, help
people, create more humanleadership, and that's
predicated on developingawareness. And we have an
awareness crisis, right? Andthere's lots of layers to that,
right? What am I feeling? Whatare the frames I'm holding up to
the world? But this part of theconversation is largely missing,
like, what am I physicallysensing, and how is that

(54:00):
affecting my whole livedexperience, my leadership, my
impact, and all of that kind ofstuff. And during a break when
we were talking, you mentioned,as we're drawing attention to
this important topic, we'regetting worse at it, likely
because the outer world iscoming at us so fast and we're
so connected to it on ourdevices that we're actually not
paying attention as much. Sowhat are some watch outs?

(54:23):
Besides maybe the obvious, like,put the phone, put

the phone down. Yeah. I mean, it's hard,
isn't it? So I think it's becomea thing that you're in a waiting
room, you've got some time,first thing you do is check your
phone. So, yeah, the world iscoming at us. I mean, I think
that because we are in asituation that's never been
quite so, so much informationcoming out as now you've got the
24 hour news. You know, peopleturning off the news because

(54:47):
they're feeling overwhelmed fromit. You know you've got
notifications coming at you onyour wrist, and it's just, it's
a lot. And you can either yourattention is really important
interception. So you can eitherput your attention on the
outside world, or you can. Biton the inside world is, you
know, you have to flick back andforth between the two, but you
can't feel and pay attention toboth at once. So if there's all

(55:08):
this stuff on the outside, we'regoing to be, by default, numb to
the inside. So there's reallyinteresting research on modern
hunter gatherers in Africa, theHadza people, and this was Lisa
Feldman Barrett's work again,asking them to describe their
their emotions or what they'refeeling in certain stressful

(55:28):
situations and other situations,and they tended to describe it
in terms of physical sensation.
So my heart was beating reallyfast. I felt really hot. I
couldn't breathe, whatever,compared to an American
comparison group who would talkabout feeling overwhelmed and,
you know, just awful, and I wasanxious and I was they described
it in very cognitive terms. Andso the benefit of having in a in

(55:51):
the physical term is that, likethe potty training example, you
feel that it serves its purpose,you go back to baseline,
whereas, if we've got this kindof constant mental stress going
on that we don't really feeldeal with, it just can continue
for longer. So I think it'sprobably safe to say, although
without a time machine, we can'tbe sure, that this time, we are

(56:11):
probably less tuned into ourbodies than ever before.

Makes sense. I remember in your book from the
way we're working isn't working,which was published 12 years
ago. You cited some researchabout, I think, from Harvard
psychologist who said we're themost over informed, under
reflective civilization inhistory, and it's only gotten
exponentially worse since then.
Yeah, well,

Jean Gomes (56:33):
I mean, if I think about the moments in the week
which I most regret is when Ifall down the the the Doom
scrolling thing, and you know,something lures

you in, somebody sends

Jean Gomes (56:48):
you something, and it's really interesting. And
then, you know, you have onemoment of gratification, then
half an hour has passed, and theguilt and shame that comes along
with the fact that you've wastedall that time, thankfully, it's
not too much, but I can feellike the gravitational pull into
that and how disconnected youfeel as a result your own body

(57:08):
budget, yeah, yeah.

So, and there's been studies done on
that the people you know havefallen into the scroll hole. And
when the searchers brought themback outfit and said, What were
you reading about, how did itmake you feel? They're like, I
don't know, complete numbness.
It's like, yeah, you just yeah,you're not even. And they

Jean Gomes (57:24):
also think, they think they've been there for
five minutes, but they've beenthere for half an hour, or an
hour or something. No idea.

Yeah, that's really strong. I think the
younger generation, I mean,possibly, because I have a
teenager, I see this all thetime. If there's any second
where I he's not doingsomething, and I probably do
this a bit as well. First thingyou do, reach for the phone.
Player, game scroll. No. It'slike we don't ever take the time
to reflect and sit back and go.
How am I feeling? What do Ineed? Because that's always
there as a kind of like, tideyou over until the next thing

(57:52):
you have to respond to.

Jean Gomes (58:00):
So in, you know, this book, which is absolutely
brilliant and loved it, wasthere anything that really
surprised you when you when youlook back at it,

I think the the amount of importance of
connections between people andhow that affects how you feel on
the inside. So there's been somereally interesting research
about effective touch. So thisis like stroking, gentle
stroking, which doesn't soundlike it's, yeah, in the wrong in

(58:33):
the wrong situation. A bitcreepy, but, you know,

Jean Gomes (58:36):
I'm being very anxious. Now, that's

where your predictions come in. Like, what
is it? Who's doing it, and whyare they doing it? But that
seems like something touch,seems like something that's
exteroceptive. It's external.
But we have these specificpathways in the skin that head
to the insula, so they, youknow, accounted as is
interoceptive, because it'stelling you something about the
homeostatic situation thatyou're in and how well you're
you're coping. And so there's wehave these connections between

(59:02):
our skin and the brain, and theyexist. They only respond to
slow, gentle stroking at aparticular human body
temperature at three to 10centimetres per second. But you
have to worry about because itturns out we're all just
hardwired to know how to do it,you know. Oh, they're there, you
know, that's how we do it. Andthese fire when we're being

(59:22):
gently stroked by another humanbeing, and they give us feelings
of safety and warmth. And justthat action can downgrade this
pain so you can cope with morepain, you feel more supported,
you feel loved, you feel warm,you know that that sort of thing

(59:46):
can that can really helpeverything from addictions to
pain to fatigue, so that theneed for other people to help us
feel things, I think was really,really surprising to me and. Um,
and also in terms of loneliness,you know, we have this, this big
loneliness crisis, how much weneed other people to to help us,
even for our energy levels aswell just the presence of

(01:00:09):
someone who cares about us, oreven a dog, it turns out, in the
room, if you like, dogs, canhelp people to exercise for
longer before feeling exhausted,to dig deeper into their
reserves to cope with more pain.
Dogs, weirdly, in the painexperiment, were more reassuring

(01:00:29):
and more supportive than afriend, possibly for the reason
that if there's a friend thereand you're in pain, you want to
reassure them that they're okaybecause they're worried about
you, whereas a dog, if they'rejust there to support you in you
don't have to reassure them, butthe but, yeah, but are. But this
comes back to the predictiveelement of it. If you are aware
that you've got backup, then youcan dig deeper into your own

(01:00:52):
resources. And this kind ofescalation of these sensations
doesn't have to happen quite somuch because you're not on your
own. And so the idea thatinteroception isn't just about
getting know yourself on theinside, wisdom of your body from
within. It's about people aroundyou as well. I think

Scott Allender (01:01:07):
that's fascinating. Yeah? Well, that
it's instinctive too. Like yousaid, we just kind of know how
to do it to do Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Caroline Williams (01:01:14):
So there are some people, I think it's quite
fun that there are someresearchers working on machines
that you can structure, onwearables that sort of have this
kind of soft, fluffy brush, andthey stroke you at the right
pace. And yeah, people say it'slike having a lovely teddy bear,
and people find it reallycalming and relaxing. What

Jean Gomes (01:01:32):
do you think's next in this field? What are the
things that you're excited aboutthat you think are coming? So I

think the really exciting thing is that is
the treatments that kind of comethrough for for these common
body brain conditions that areso far really difficult to
tackle, so everything fromfatigue to IBS, anxiety, pain,
all these things eatingdisorders, which is, you know,
the most deadly mental healthissue. But So I talk in a book

(01:02:00):
about the emergence of somethingI called body mental health,
which is, look at you ratherthan going, Okay. How can we
therapy people out of this bygetting to think differently.
What can we do to change thesesignals in the back and forth?
Whether that's by one thing Itried, which is very much in the
research stages, is swallowing avibrating capsule so that you

(01:02:23):
can feel it vibrating in yourstomach. How does that affect
people's relationship with theirstomach sensations, whether it's
in eating disorders or whetherit's in IBS? How can you then
train people to be more or lesssensitive to what's going on on
their stomach in a way thatmight alleviate their symptoms?
Flotation therapy for anxiety,for addictions, for for eating
disorders, again, because thatby default, if you're floating

(01:02:46):
in the dark in a tank where yourbody is supported, it's at room
temperature, you can't fitanything or sense anything from
the outside world, you goinside. How does changing that,
boosting that interceptiveawareness, help people to get
back in touch with their bodies,and then have another way to to
regulate themselves so that theydon't have these sort of

(01:03:07):
maladaptive things going on,even maybe drugs to change heart
rate might be useful in somesituations. So there's also Hugo
crichley has some reallyinteresting research where
teaching treating people witharachnophobia pictures of
spiders coming up on the screen,if we timed the pictures to come
up on the screen as the heartwas contracting during a

(01:03:29):
treatment. So exposure treatmentthat was more effective than
just the than the standardexposure treatment. So you can
get there faster, becauseyou're, you're sort of giving
your brain the signals when it'sgoing to react most, and so
you're you'll feel fasttracking. So all there's all
these kinds of things.

Could I get over my fear of heights? Because I
realised it's gotten worse as Iwent skiing the other day, and I
didn't want to go up the biggermountain because I didn't want
to get on the ski lift that wassteeper. Is there anything could
I fix that, potentially? Yeah.

I mean, I In theory, yes, anything because
that that fear reaction is avisceral reaction. So changing a
relationship with that visceralreaction could, in theory, yeah,
do a lot more because, becauseclearly, going up on there and
going, don't worry, it's fine.
Don't worry, it's fine, isn'tgoing to help. So maybe changing
that. So

we're going to get up the show this afternoon, and
we just lean over a bit.

Yes, yes.
Lean against the wind,

I already feel myself activate, and I'm aware
of it. My heart Yeah. My heartrhythms changed, yeah.

And so one of the things is, so exposure
therapy, if you can get people,you know, this is already a
thing, or do exist, if you getpeople in that situation where
they feel these heightenedemotions, and they stay there
for a while, and nothing happensthat can help to you know, you
get through that. And thenequally, the other side of it
is, can you get people soflotation therapy, you are more

(01:04:46):
sensitive to your heartbeat, butyou're physiologically in a in a
very relaxed state. So they cando this outside of a fluctuation
tank, you know, after yoga orwhatever lion corpse pose, let
your body really, really calmdown, feel your heart if. You
can become more tuned into yourheart when it's calm and safe.
And I find it really like justcomforting, like an internal

(01:05:08):
hug. If you can get thatsensation, then you feel your
heart in safety as well as interror, then that can give you a
safe home to come back to. Soyou know, you have a range of
sensations to do with your heartthat isn't just, ah, you know.
So, so it's like experiencing itat that end and at that end, and
ideally, having access to it inin between as

well. What have you changed in your life as a result
of what you've learned from thisprocess? I

have spent a lot more time in flotation tanks
than ever I possibly can.
Absolutely love that if I'mfeeling really awful. But, I
mean, it's not as accessible asit might be. I think I've just
become much more aware. So now,so once I've done, when I did
several flotation tank sessionsas part of my research for this,
I found what, you know, I cameto look at my heartbeat happy

(01:05:58):
place, you know, like, I know, Ican just feel it. So I've got in
the habit of, as I drop off tosleep, I just tune into my
heart, and I find that justcalms me right down and sends me
off to sleep. But I also noticehow things make me feel, how
people make me feel, how, youknow, stupid things, trying on
something, a new outfit. Do Ifeel like good in it? Does it
make me feel? Does it make mefeel? Yeah, I'm a bit
embarrassed, you know, justnoticing that you have this,

(01:06:19):
this thing. But I think onething I really want to say,
Arjun, I think is important forpeople to know, is there's a lot
of talk in the wellness spaceabout the wisdom of the body and
tuning into and I watched applecider vinegar recently, which
kind of set my teeth on edge,because there was a lot of talk
about there. I learned to listento my body and the wisdom of our
body from within. It's alsoimportant to realise that

(01:06:42):
sometimes what's coming fromwithin might not be in your best
interests and might be wrong,just as your eyes can deceive
you, so can your internalsenses. So this curiosity is a
really important piece, becauseyou don't want to be saying,
well, my body feels fine, so Idon't need that treatment the
doctor's giving me. I push awayWestern medicine? No, it's about
having it as a factor that youconsider in your life. Yeah, it

(01:07:05):
doesn't take over, but it'sthere. And I think a lot of
people meet as including me,before didn't ever factor it in,
and now I am doing it's anotherit's another aspect to life.
And would you say there's adifference between how men and
women react to their internalsignals. So there is some

(01:07:26):
research into this, and I thinkwomen, I think I'm right in
saying this, and women are lessinterceptively aware. So there's
a researcher called Jenny Murphywho's doing research on this,
and I think it very muchdepends, yeah, so I yeah, get
Jenny Murphy on. She'll tell youall about it, but she's doing

(01:07:47):
research. And she's also doingresearch, because the other
thing about intraceptive signalsis they change as your body
changes, so changes in life,like puberty and menopause, and,
you know, all these thingsaffect these signals. And so
I've always been fascinated as awoman as like, Why do hormones
make you tearful and raging?
What is, what's going on that,you know, that's a change in the

(01:08:08):
intercept signals, but whatthat's going on, I'm not really
sure. And so Jenny Murphy isdoing a research into that to
see what the gender differencesare all about and what's behind
them. So I think that's reallyfascinating place. Do

you know, if people who are maybe more in
tune with their interoceptivesignals are more likely to act
on gut instinct?

Well, yeah, there's a really interesting guy
I met doing this called ChrisWhite, who used to be a hostage
negotiator, so he worked withthe Metropolitan Police for many
years. He used to be flown allover the world and parachuted
in, probably, literally, I don'tknow, into crisis situations to
try and sort things out. And youmight think that that's a skill

(01:08:50):
where you need to be cold,rational thinker. You don't let
emotions get in the way. Youjust, you know, think about do
the job. But when Sara Garfinkeltested his introductive
awareness. He was off the chart.
So average person is sort oflike 60% score on this test, he
was 100% and when I spoke tohim, he said, I can feel my
heartbeat and just sitting herenow, he said, I'm not always

(01:09:12):
aware it's there. If I need it,it's always there. And he says
that he uses that as a source ofinformation. So in a hostage
negotiation situation, he willnotice very subtle changes in
his heart rate blood pressure,and use them as signals to know
when to intervene. So as if youtime it wrong, you've got
somebody who's really hat up. Ifyou time it wrong, they're going

(01:09:34):
to shut down and they you know,the whole thing fails. But if
you time it right, and you cantell you have this gut instinct
about which way this is going togo. Then you can, you can get
in, you can make a rapport withsomebody. And you know this is
relationship building again. Youcan, you can get things done.
And so he then very stronglybelieves that his strong,

(01:09:55):
interceptive abilities make himmuch better. At what he does
that makes sense to me.
Interestingly, though, he said,Well, never try and go for
dinner with a bunch of hostagenegotiators, because we cannot
make a decision about where toeat, because they're also
supposed to be, you know, and ineveryday life, he's probably,
you know, he's over sensitive.
He thinks, if anything, but inthat role, you need that. And

(01:10:17):
also, there's been some researchwith trading, financial traders
on the floor who are not quitelike the hostage negotiator.
They're like 80% on the on thetest, at way above average, and
they use their gut feelings toinform trades. So you know these
trades are happening, you knowlightning speed, and you have to

(01:10:37):
make these decisions. Andsometimes there's not time to
think, Okay, that was going up,that was going down. It's just
like, Okay, that's good, that'sbad. Okay, boom, boom, boom,
boom. And the people who werebetter at interceptive
sensations, or more accurate ormore aware were much better, no
more successful on the tradingfloor, and they stayed in the

(01:10:57):
job for longer, which is a highstress job. So there's, there
is, there are advantages to tobeing highly tuned in

Sara Deschamps (01:11:08):
evolving leader.
Friends. If you're curious toget more insights directly from
our hosts, consider orderingJean's book leading in a non
linear world, which contains awealth of research backed
insights on how to see and solveour greatest challenges, as well
as Scott's book The Enneagram ofemotional intelligence, which
can help you unlock the power ofself awareness sustainably in

(01:11:29):
every dimension of your life.

So let's come back to decision making and
stressful situations and itsimpact. Because you did some
research around Dutch policeofficers. I thought was
fascinating. Yeah, so this is areally interesting one. So

one. So there's some research in Holland
with Dutch police officers. Soone of the problems with police
officers is it's a veryobviously stressful environment,
and what you're asking people todo is to go against all their
instincts. So when you feel thefight or flight response kicking
in. You know, you're goingagainst that you approach the
danger. And so it's a verystressful thing to do for

(01:12:06):
people, and it's all very wellsaying to people, well, we need
to work on well being for ourofficers, and they should all go
and do mindfulness, but that's avery different thing. Being able
to regulate yourself when you'realready calm is different to
being able to regulate yourstress response when you're up
against a rioting mob. So whatthis research tried to do, it's
called the decisions understress training dust. They

(01:12:29):
worked at this virtual realitytraining game where you they
were in the officers are in animmersive game in a darkened car
park, and they've got a fake gunwith them, and their job is to
shoot the zombies. That's thezombies gonna come out of
nowhere. You need to shoot them.
And they're plugged into thegame with their heart rate

(01:12:52):
monitor, and it's measuringheart rate variability, which is
a measure of your body's abilityto cope with stress and regulate
stress. So if your heart ratevariability is high, you're
regulating stress very well. Ifit's if it's low, then you're in
fight or flight. And so this waslike a biofeedback game. So if
they were regulating theirstress well and their heart rate

(01:13:12):
variability was high, the gamewould get lighter and it was
easier to shot the shoot thezombies, if they found
themselves getting stressed andgetting into fight or flight
mode, it got darker, it gotharder to shoot the zombies. So
it was like a feedback. What youwant to be is unstressed,
regulating yourself and stillbeing able to shoot the zombies.
And it's, I think it's justreally fascinating, because it

(01:13:33):
seemed to it really helped theofficers to learn to regulate
their stress in a stressfulenvironment, or a very good
mimic of a stressfulenvironment, so that they could
then take that back into theirjob. And the officers loved it.
And I think it's also really,possibly really good for for
young males. You know, we've gotthis mental health crisis with
young males, if they could learnto regulate themselves in an

(01:13:56):
enjoyable, realistic situationthat might be really, might be
something really worth having.
So, yeah, but you're alsolearning it sort of implicitly,
without realising what's goingon. Is

there any kind of commercially available
biofeedback techniques like thatthat you can get hold of? Do you

think Not yet? Not yet. I did try and ask
the researcher if I could borrowa version of this to try on my
teenage son and get him to roadtest it. But no, not yet, but it
is still very much in research.
But there are people, say, SaraGarfinkel, they're working on an
app to be available that whatthat can help you train heart
rate detection. So things arestarting to get to that stage.

(01:14:36):
We're not quite there yet, but Ithink in the next few years
we're going to see, we're goingto see this really become a big
thing. Yeah, well, this

is all part of flagging that because, yeah, I
think, you know, you're one ofthe voices at the the forefront
of something that's going tobecome very big and significant.
You know, can we build this fora long time? So it's great that
your, your your public. So whatelse are you going to be up to
in terms of taking your work inthis book out into the world?
Well,

I will talk about it to anyone who will
listen, and even if they don't,I'm just going to talk to it
anyway. So I've been saying thatall year, and actually, I'm
hoping that people get it forhow important it is and what a
shift it is in the way we think.
Because as soon as you getpeople thinking about it like,
well, of course, I of course,your body is important. It's
just like part of the issue isthe name introception, once you

(01:15:26):
get past that. But then, not solong ago, microbiome was a term
that you only heard about if youwere a science journalist or a
science doing research, andthat's come into more sort of
public sphere, and everyone'stalking about and understands
what it means now. So I'm hopingthat's where we're going to go
with interception, because itreally is important, I think,
for for kind of regulating, justsurviving in a world that's

(01:15:47):
increasingly feeling a bitbonkers, I think you need to get
back to being full humans,rather than a brain on legs,
like it's kind of reallyimportant for us, absolutely.
Well, I also think,

you know, you're, you know, you benefit from from
this as an individual. But youknow, for what we can help our
children to to learn this froman early age, might help them to
overcome a number of, you know,fairly significant milestones,
yes,

and so there have been some studies with
children teaching parents how torespond to their children and
just simple things, like namingtheir emotions. Like, it looks
like you're frustrated rightnow, I can see that you're
angry, you know, just helpingthem to name their emotions, and
then they make that connectionin their body that's been shown
to help with behaviour and withpreventing mental health issues

(01:16:31):
from coming along later. Becauseif they know what they're
feeling, it's not going to be ahorrible surprise when they get
to be teenagers and they'rebeing a lot. How to make sense
of that and name it and get knowthat it will pass. That's a
really important thing, and ithelped the parents as well. The
parents felt they had a betterrelationship with the children.
The children felt better. Theyweren't acting out so much.

(01:16:52):
Everyone benefits. So yeah,given

we're in the kind of Age of anxiety, this would be a
very powerful thing foreverybody to learn. So it's
timely. Caroline, thank you.
Thank you very much.
Conversation.

Yes, definitely order your copy right away. This
is, this is a great book. It'stimely and it's accessible,
which is what I really lovedabout it as well. So thank you
for writing it.

Thank you very much. Thank you for coming
in. Thank you for having me. You

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