Signal or State?

For some of us the boundary between physiological states and emotional signals is naturally porous, and it can be genuinely hard to tell which one is speaking. This is often a feature of how our nervous system developed rather than a lack of insight. Here is a structured way of thinking about the difference:

• Check for body-pattern consistency, as when the feeling matches a familiar bodily pattern, then it’s most likely physiological.

  Physiological states tend to follow recognisable patterns.

  • Illness patterns - heaviness, slowed thinking, temperature changes, aches.

  • Hunger patterns - irritability, urgency, narrowing.

  • Fatigue patterns - flatness, reduced tolerance, fog.

  • Hormonal patterns - cycles or fluctuations.

• Look for object-directedness, as when the feeling has an object, even a subtle one, it’s more likely emotional

  • I feel uneasy with that person

  • I feel sad about that conversation

  • I feel tense thinking about tomorrow

• Use the ‘body correction test’. Ask yourself if I rest, eat, hydrate, slow down, or regulate my system does the feeling shift?

  • If it changes quickly, its most likely physiological

  • If it persists and still points to something, it’s most likely emotional

  • If it softens but doesn’t vanish, then it’s most likely a physiological state amplifying an emotional one.

• Track the time course, as physiological states usually come on gradually, last longer, don’t respond to psychological insight, whilst emotional states often shift with context, respond to reflection, change when the relational field changes.

Why do some people struggle to tell them apart? There are various reasons:

• High interoceptive sensitivity

  • Some people have a very finely tuned awareness of internal sensations. This can make physiological shifts feel emotional, because when the body’s signals are loud the brain tries to interpret them, sometimes as feelings.

• Early environments where bodily states weren’t named or regulated.

  • If growing up no-one helped you differentiate tiredness from sadness, hunger from irritability, overstimulation from anxiety, then the categories remain blurred and the body continues to speak in one undifferentiated language.

• Chronic stress or trauma

  • In this environment the nervous system becomes more reactive, has fewer quiet baseline moments, and blends physiological arousal with emotional meaning.

• Neurodiversity

  • For some neurodivergent people sensory load, overstimulation, fatigue, and hormonal shifts can mimic emotional states, as the system doesn’t cleanly separate body and feeling.

• Illness or inflammation

  • When you’re unwell the body communicates through fatigue, irritability, low mood, withdrawal. These are physiological, but often feel emotional because the brain uses the same pathways to interpret both.

A simple compassionate way to hold this:

Say to yourself My body is giving me information. I don’t need to decide right now whether this is physiological or emotional. I can just ask myself what I need in this moment.

This prevents you from overinterpreting a body state and also from dismissing an emotional signal. As well as respecting the fact that for some of us the two are intertwined.