Defining Interoception and the Insula

You’re not a brain on legs. And if upgrading your mindset or sharpening your thinking hasn’t delivered the breakthrough you expected, it may be time to pay attention to the one stream of data AI can’t access: your body’s real-time signals.

In this episode, Michael and Megan sit down with science journalist Caroline Williams to unpack interoception—your internal sensory system. It’s the mechanism that helps you interpret what’s happening inside your body and quietly shapes your response. Together, they explore why modern life makes it so easy to override those signals and introduce simple shifts that make a big difference.

If you’ve felt stuck in your head, worn out from pushing through, or unsure how to care for yourself in a high-demand season, this conversation offers a different path—habits that are practical, sustainable, and refreshingly free.

Memorable Quotes

1. “Anything you do with your body is gonna affect the signals that are going from within your body to your brain. And that changes how your brain predicts what you are capable of and what's gonna happen next.”
2. “We can either be attending to the outside world or the internal world. You can't be doing it both at the same time. So if you are constantly out there, you can't be in here. And so you need to be able to have the ability to tune in, deal and then tune back out again.”
3. “[Our lives today] don't really match up with what we were designed for. So we have to then seek out the movement that we don't get in our everyday lives.”
4. “The relationship between moving and brain health isn't about how much time you spend exercising, it's about how much time you spend sedentary. So it's about breaking up the sedentary time.”
5. “One of these things that seem to be gathering momentum a little bit is the idea of movement snacks. So throughout the day, it's like the equivalent of food snacks. You can quite easily snack all day long without really noticing, and the calories add up, right? It's the same with exercise, with movement.”
6. “One of the easiest parts of lifestyle to protect your brain health and your capacity long-term is physical activity.”
7. “We must remember that making time to properly give ourselves a break is helping us to function better afterwards.”
8. “The way that embodied cognition works is that when you are moving forward through space, it gives the illusion of, of moving forward and making progress sort of mentally as well as physically.”
9. “Most of what we need to look after ourselves, we already have if we just make time for it.”

Key Takeaways

1. Your Inner Sense Offers Real Data. Interoception is how your brain interprets signals from inside your body to shape emotion, energy, and decision-making.
2. Modern Life Trains Us to Override the Body. When you’re always “out there” (screens, noise, urgency), you lose access to what’s happening “in here.”
3. Your Brain was Built to Move While Thinking. Cognitive strength isn’t separate from the body—it depends on the body being engaged.
4. Break Up Sedentary Time. Frequent movement throughout the day matters more than one intense workout. Try “movement snacks” instead of an all-or-nothing exercise plan.
5. Go For a Walk. Walking boosts creativity, lowers confrontation in hard conversations, and increases bonding through synchronization.
6. Rest Is a Skill, Not a Luxury. Waking rest and deep breathing can restore the nervous system when sleep alone isn’t enough.
7. Wearables? Maybe. Is your favorite wearable helping you tune into your inner sense, or outsourcing it? If the (sometimes contradictory) data increases anxiety or confusion, it may be time to return to lived experience as the primary guide.

Resources

• Inner Sense by Caroline Williams
• Move! by Caroline Williams
• www.carolinewilliams.net

Watch on YouTube at:  https://youtu.be/L7ksuXGCp3Q

This episode was produced by Sarah Vorhees Wendel of VW Sound