Original article:  http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/12/26/1321664111.full.pdf
Data:  http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2013/12/26/1321664111.DCSupplemental/pnas.201321664SI.pdf

Ok, so we know that emotions are produced in the body, as a result of our thinking brain stimulating hormone production. So it's not surprising that the body has a measurable response. 

What I like about this study is this image of the self-reported sensations that participants experienced in response to the stimuli. Also, they looked at so called 'non-basic' emotions, such as anxiety, love, pride and shame. Love looks like the warmest place to be! And just look at the burning cheek areas of shame and it's deactivated legs, also shared strongly in sadness, depression and anxiety. Such familiar feelings for all of us at some level.

There were 5 experimental conditions and 701 participants were asked to colour two silhouettes of human bodies depending on increases and decreases in their internal bodily activation response to emotional words, stories, movies, or facial expressions. 

The researchers state that "Different emotions were consistently associated with statistically separable bodily sensation maps across experiments." The body mapping results showed concordance across participants from Western Europe and East Asia, suggesting cultural universality of these very human emotional experiences - no surprise there!

All the emotions triggered sensations in the head, which suggests physiological changes such as activation of facial musculature, skin temperature and tear secretion, as well as the changes experienced in the mind. There also appears to be an upward energy to approach-oriented emotions (ie. anger, happiness), and a decrease in activation in the lower limbs is seen in the avoidance-oriented ones (ie. depression, shame). 

It's interesting to speculate how we may perceive emotions in those with whom we are interacting, through facial expression, limb activation, temperature for instance, and how we tend to respond. In their discussion, the researchers wondered whether emotional perception and emotional contagion (when we inadvertently pick up another's feeling state as if it were our own) may involve automatic activation of the body's sensory response to emotion, which is then evaluated cognitively. They considered the idea that sensations may underlie our conscious emotional experience, looking for an answer to the chicken and egg question about whether the sensations cause the emotion or vice versa, and was unable to draw any firm conclusions. 

However, it's clear that somatic sensation and embodied experience are both critical in emotional processing, and this points to the effectiveness of body-centred interventions for regulating affect.

From the website of Andrew Cook, a cranio sacral therapist. I love this accessible description. Thanks, Andrew!

EMBODIMENT

This is a big topic, and one that is not so easy to translate into a medicalised model of the human body. It is about the relationship between what we call consciousness - something very difficult to define - and the physical body and our physical senses. Put simply, if the more embodied we become, then the following experiences become more regular features of our waking experience:

• our sense of connection through the body (so that it is experienced as continuous, strong and self-aligned) is increased
• our waking awarenes of the body's presence always occupies a proportion of our awareness - even when we are thinking or fully engaged with the outside world
• our ability to be in the present moment with our body and throughts and emotions is increased
• we have a strong sense of self and a strong sense of our own physical presence - which in turn is an important aspect of self-confidence
• body movement is fluid (as opposed to stiff or disjointed)
• we are aware of the environment we live in and how it affects us, and at the same time have an inner resilience which allows us to not be overwhelmed by this increased awareness
• the senses are brighter and more alert, and at the same time there is a greater sense of peace
• we inhabit the observer part of ourselves, and so are less driven by strong emotopns and thoughts
• we have a more direct and conscious connection to instincts, and are able to choose to use this information as and when appropriate

It takes a long time to arrive at all of this (and it's a lifes work), but even a small step along this route can yield big rewards. There is no chartable path along which any typical person or any individual person will progress in embodyment - there are so many variables, and it depends to some extent on where you started from, where you are now, and what your current goals are.