Eli5: why does your chest feel heavy when you’re sad

Question

When you think about bitter memories or if you’re sad you often feel a “sunken” feeling in your chest. Why is that?

In: 1

Answer 1

Many emotions produce physical sensations. Emotions developed before intellect, so animals couldn’t really think a out what they felt. Instead, emotions had to speak to the lower levels of functioning, such as instincts which make animals avoid unpleasant experiences and seek pleasant ones. This connection is still very strong in humans, even though we can also reason about our experiences.