Emotions are not just mental experiences -- they produce distinct patterns of physical sensation throughout the body. A landmark study by Nummenmaa et al. (2014) mapped bodily sensations across 14 emotions and found remarkably consistent activation patterns across cultures. For example, anger tends to concentrate in the chest and hands, sadness in the chest and throat, and anxiety in the stomach and chest. By learning to notice where emotions show up in your body, you develop interoceptive awareness -- a skill strongly linked to better emotion regulation (Price & Hooven, 2018).