Emotions in the Body

Researchers have mapped out emotions, and these body emotion maps are the same across cultures

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN LATE FOR A MEETING AND THEN FELT SHAME AS YOU WALKED IN THE DOOR AS YOU FELT THAT FLUSH OF EMBARRASSMENT CREEP UP INTO YOUR FACE?

Or someone said something that made your blood boil and you felt warmth into your upper body? Or you felt the full-body head over heels energetic rush of love? Then you were having a felt-sense emotional reaction in your body.

Finnish researchers have found that we tend to feel emotions in particular parts of the body — and these emotion maps are the same across East Asia and Western Europe.

Becoming more aware of your felt-sense reactions to the world around you gives you more information about your feelings. This is useful whether you want to identify how you’re feeling in the middle of a conflict or whether you just want to amp up the good feelings in your body to feel even better. It’s also useful to listen to your what your body’s intuition is telling you about picking a partner.

Here are some of the more common emotions that the researchers were able to locate in the body. Do any of them surprise you?