There is little doubt that strong emotions can provoke specific sensations in the rest of the body, not just mind (whatever that is…)
Emotions coordinate our behavior and physiological states during survival-salient events and pleasurable interactions. Even though we are often consciously aware of our current emotional state, such as anger or happiness, the mechanisms giving rise to these subjective sensations have remained unresolved…Emotions are often felt in the body, and somatosensory feedback has been proposed to trigger conscious emotional experiences.
[emphasis mine]
-Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States
When you hear bad news, you might feel your ‘heart drop’ or have to deal with ‘heart ache.’ There’s more to these metaphors than simply describing intense emotions – they point to the fascinating way our bodies experience these feelings, both emotionally and physically. But surely that doesn't make sense – we all know that the heart is simply a symbol for love and pain, and that all the "feeling" is done by our brains. So how exactly do intense emotions trigger specific sensations in our chest?
[once again, emphasis mine]
We often speak of a "heart ache", or a "broken heart", but what is the opposite (if indeed it is an opposite)?
i.e., What is an idiom or phrase that describes that expansive or compressing feeling we feel in our chest…that feeling in our chest when we contemplate one we love, or something extremely cute?
For me it happened when I saw my daughter in her quinceañera gown for the first time, or I see my puppy and her kitty sister hugging each other in the cold weather…
Best Answer
It tugs on the heartstrings:
Like "heartache" and "broken hearts" it doesn't have to refer to a physical sensation, but it can.