KEY DISCOVERIES
- The State-Trait Paradox: Scientists found that while people who struggle with “Negative Automatic Thoughts” (worry and rumination) often report high body awareness over time, these two systems actually competitively shut each other out in any given moment.
- The Anxiety Link: Data from 331 participants revealed that the perceived link between overthinking and body focus is almost entirely driven by trait anxiety, which acts as a common “engine” for both.
- State-Level Conflict: During focused tasks, attention to the “Mind” (thoughts) and the “Body” (sensations) were inversely correlated, meaning your brain struggles to process both internal streams simultaneously.
- Emotional Clarity Deficit: Both high interoceptive attention and negative thinking were found to reduce emotional clarity, making it harder for individuals to identify what they are actually feeling.
The Hidden War Inside Your Mind
If you have ever felt trapped in a loop of worry while simultaneously feeling hyper-aware of your heartbeat or breathing, you are not alone.
For years, many people struggling with anxiety have felt like their brains are stuck in “overdrive,” constantly scanning both their thoughts and their physical sensations for signs of trouble.
This can be exhausting and confusing. It often feels like a complex web of symptoms with no clear starting point.
In a 2026 study published in the journal Emotion, lead researcher Chris R. H. Brown from Bournemouth University and colleague Aleksandra M. Herman have simplified this understanding.
Their research provides a clearer view of why our internal focus feels so crowded.
By isolating how we “attend” to our bodies versus our thoughts, they have uncovered a fundamental competition for our brain’s limited resources.
The Competition for “Internal Space”
According to Chris R. H. Brown, your brain has a limited capacity for internal attention.
The team developed a novel “monotonous responding task” to see how attention shifts in real-time.
They used a three-dimensional probe to ask participants if they were focusing on the task, their mind, or their body.
The results were striking.
In any single moment, attention to bodily signals and internal thoughts competed with one another.
As one increased, the other typically decreased.
This means that when you are deeply lost in a “thought spiral,” you may actually become less aware of your physical reality in that exact second.
However, over a longer period, people who worry more also report spending more time “scanning” their bodies.
Why Worry and Body Scanning Are “Twins”
The researchers used a statistical method called Principal Components Analysis to boil down different types of thinking.
They found a clear distinction between “Controlled Thoughts” (like deliberate reflection) and “Negative Automatic Thoughts” (like worry and rumination).
Brown and Herman found that only the negative, automatic thoughts were a significant predictor of high interoceptive attention.
Interestingly, this relationship was almost entirely explained by trait anxiety.
This suggests that anxiety is the “Universal Factor” that biases your brain to look inward at both your fears and your physical sensations.
It creates a “vigilance” that keeps you trapped in your own internal world.
The “Emotional Clarity” Trap
One of the most important findings for those managing anxiety is how this internal focus affects emotional clarity.
The team found that both high body-focus and high negative thinking were linked to lower levels of emotional clarity.
This means the more you obsessively “check in” on your heart rate or “chew on” a worry, the less able you are to actually identify and label your emotions.
According to the study, this might happen because these negative thoughts occupy so much “attentional bandwidth” that you lack the resources to flexibly process what is happening to you.
Instead of gaining insight, the constant internal monitoring creates a “fog” that makes regulation harder.
How Your Brain Shifts Over Time
The study also tracked how our focus changes as we get bored or tired.
At the start of a task, people were mostly focused on the external world.
But as time went on, attention to the task dropped, and focus on both thoughts and the body increased.
Crucially, the competition between mind and body became stronger the longer the task lasted.
This explains why, after a long day of stress, you might find yourself vacillating wildly between “living in your head” and being “hyper-aware of every ache.”
Your brain is struggling to balance these two internal streams as its “external” battery runs low.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU
The core takeaway is that your brain has a limited “budget” for internal focus.
When anxiety is high, it spends that budget on a repetitive cycle of negative thoughts and body-scanning that actually makes it harder to understand your emotions.
1. Identify the Leverage Point
The Insight: The competition means you cannot easily focus on a deep worry and a physical sensation at the exact same time.
The Action:
When you catch yourself in a negative “thought spiral,” intentionally shift your focus to a specific, neutral physical sensation, such as the feeling of your feet on the floor or the texture of a nearby object.
Because these streams compete, anchoring in a physical sensation can “crowd out” the space available for the worry.
2. Optimize the “Environmental Engine”
The Insight: Boredom and repetitive tasks (the “monotonous responding”) naturally drive your attention inward toward worry and body-checking.
The Action:
If you are prone to rumination, avoid long periods of “unstructured” or low-demand tasks without a plan.
Use the “15-Minute Pivot”: every 15 minutes of repetitive work, engage in a quick “external” burst, such as a 30-second conversation or a high-focus visual puzzle, to reset your attentional balance.
3. The Lifestyle Intervention
The Insight: High internal focus actually decreases your ability to identify what you are feeling (Emotional Clarity).
The Action:
Instead of just “thinking” about your feelings, use a physical emotion wheel or a list of “feeling words.”
Externalizing the information helps bypass the crowded internal competition, allowing you to label your state without relying on your “overloaded” internal attention.
Your Personal Implementation Plan
The Conversation: Ask your therapist: “Since we know my internal attention is a limited resource, can we work on ‘Exteroceptive’ exercises to help me pull my focus back to the external world when I get stuck in a mind-body loop?”
The Shift:
Realize that “checking” your body isn’t giving you more information; it is likely a symptom of the same anxiety driving your worries.
Stop trying to “think your way out” of physical symptoms.
Citation
Brown, C. R. H., & Herman, A. M. (2026). Attending to body and mind: Does interoceptive attention compete with controlled and negative automatic thoughts? Emotion, 26(1), 37–51. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001560
