Interoception and self-sensing for managing in stress and performance

Numerous strands of research converge on an important role of self-sensing – in some form – for the regulation of stress and coping during high performance. Relevant concepts may include mindfulness, interoception, self-awareness, subjective affect/mood, and emotional awareness, but this list is not exhaustive. In this symposium we pay particular attention to concepts of: (i) subjective readiness (e.g., for exercise, for military role performance); (ii) interoception (e.g., for injury prevention and/or management); and (iii) emotional awareness (e.g., in relation to resilience during emergency services work). Overall, we will use diverse methodologies to build a case that these interior sensing capabilities are highly promising in managing performers under stress – easily reconciled with existing models of stress and performance - and that their measurement is possible, but that it may not readily align to prevailing practices: either in published sport psychometrics literature, and also in practice. We will overview research demonstrating a new opportunity to measure-and-monitor subjective readiness: as an acute state of preparation to perform any imminent task or role. Second we will explore the possible differences between individuals in perceiving readiness, with evidence suggesting individual ‘profiles’ – gathered over time - differ from the model based on a large sample. From there, we explore the roles of interoception in injury management for long-distance ‘endurance’ athletes, and the role of ‘emotional awareness’ in enabling resilience for emergency-services personnel. Finally, while we recognise the substantial body of research on mindfulness that is pertinent to self-sensing, we explore other avenues of responding to the likelihood that – like other skills – self-sensing capabilities can be developed over time. We will draw from established research in performing arts – particularly actor training – to characterise avenues for interventions that deliberately develop self-sensing, for the promotion of performance excellence, even under stress.