Track body sensation (the felt sense)

Follow raw physical sensation with curiosity — tingling, warmth, pressure — rather than the storyline.

Why it works

Attending to bodily sensation directly (the "felt sense") engages interoception and pulls processing out of looping narrative. Naming and observing sensations also recruits prefrontal regulation and dampens the threat response, while giving the system a way to register that a sensation can shift and pass rather than being permanent.

How to do it

1. Drop attention into the body and notice raw sensation: temperature, pressure, movement, texture.
2. Describe it neutrally ("a tight band across the chest") without interpreting or fixing it.
3. Stay with it gently and watch whether it shifts, moves, or eases on its own.
4. If it intensifies past tolerance, pendulate back to a neutral or pleasant sensation.

Evidence

Interoception and affect labeling have solid research support — naming felt states reduces amygdala reactivity and supports regulation. The "felt sense" framing comes from Gendlin’s Focusing and SE practice. A neuroimaging study directly shows that putting feelings into words dampens amygdala activity, and reviews of interoception link accurate body-sensing to emotion regulation. (observational)

For some highly activated people, turning attention inward can briefly raise distress; titrate and use the resource. The underlying interoception research is solid; the specific SE protocol is less studied.

Sources

• Lieberman et al. (2007), "Putting Feelings Into Words" (affect labeling reduces amygdala activity), Psychological Science
• Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting Feelings Into Words: Affect Labeling Disrupts Amygdala Activity in Response to Affective Stimuli. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421-428.
• Critchley, H. D., & Garfinkel, S. N. (2017). Interoception and emotion. Current Opinion in Psychology, 17, 7-14.

Common mistake

Slipping back into the story or analysis ("why do I feel this, what does it mean") instead of staying with the raw sensation — which keeps you in the head and out of the body the practice works on.