Feelings list

Words for feelings, grouped into the twelve families they belong to. Next to each word is the emotion grid with its place lit: how much energy the feeling has, and how pleasant it is. On the right is the closest of the 49 feelings in the Mental app.

Happy

Pleasant, usually with some energy behind it.

Calm

Pleasant or neutral, with little energy.

Loving

Warmth toward someone, or from them.

Excited

Energy pointed at something you want or want to know.

Surprised

Caught off guard, pleasantly or not.

Sad

Unpleasant, with energy running low.

If you’re struggling, support is here. In the US, call or text 988. Elsewhere, find a local line at findahelpline.com.

Afraid

Unpleasant energy about what might happen.

Angry

Unpleasant energy aimed at something that seems wrong.

Disgusted

Pulling away from something that seems wrong or unclean.

Ashamed

Unpleasant feelings about how you look to yourself or others.

If you’re struggling, support is here. In the US, call or text 988. Elsewhere, find a local line at findahelpline.com.

Tired

Low energy, pleasant or not.

Neutral and mixed

In the middle, or two feelings at once.

Words that are easy to mix up

Some words sit close together and still point at different things. These six pairs are original definitions and fictional everyday examples, not fixed categories.

Disappointed / discouraged

Disappointed points to an outcome that fell short; discouraged points to losing confidence about what comes next. One setback can bring both.

Disappointed

Let down because something turned out less well than you hoped or expected.

“I saved Saturday for the picnic, and it was cancelled.”

Compare with discouraged

Discouraged

Less hopeful or willing to keep trying because progress seems difficult or unlikely.

“After three unanswered applications, starting another feels pointless.”

Compare with disappointed

Frustrated / resentful

Frustrated emphasizes a blocked goal. Resentful emphasizes a sense of unfairness. A broken printer can frustrate you; always being left to fix it may leave you resentful.

Frustrated

Annoyed or agitated because something is getting in the way of what you are trying to do.

“The form keeps clearing itself when I press submit.”

Compare with resentful

Resentful

Holding onto anger or bitterness about something that feels unfair, imposed, or unacknowledged.

“I covered the late shift again, and nobody even asked me.”

Compare with frustrated

Nervous / apprehensive

Nervous often emphasizes feeling unsettled or keyed up. Apprehensive puts more emphasis on anticipating what might go wrong. Ordinary speech allows plenty of overlap.

Nervous

Uneasy, tense, or jittery in a situation where the outcome matters or feels uncertain.

“It’s my turn to speak, and I keep fiddling with my pen.”

Compare with apprehensive

Apprehensive

Uneasy about something ahead because you suspect it may be difficult or go badly.

“Before tomorrow’s conversation, I’m worried we’ll argue again.”

Compare with nervous

Lonely / isolated

Lonely names a felt lack of connection; isolated can describe separation or limited contact. Being alone need not feel lonely, and company does not always bring connection.

Lonely

Missing the closeness, companionship, or sense of being understood that you want.

“Everyone at the party is friendly, but I wish someone here knew me well.”

Compare with isolated

Isolated

Feeling cut off from people or participation; the word can also describe the circumstance of having little contact.

“Working alone this week, I feel outside the conversations the team is having.”

Compare with lonely

Content / relieved

Content is about enoughness in the present. Relieved is about a burden easing or a feared outcome not happening. Relief need not mean that everything now feels good.

Content

Quietly satisfied with how things are, without needing this moment to become something more.

“There’s nothing special planned tonight, and tea and a book are enough.”

Compare with relieved

Relieved

Feeling tension ease because a worry, pressure, or difficulty has lifted or become smaller.

“My lost keys were at reception; I can stop retracing my steps.”

Compare with content

Embarrassed / guilty

Embarrassed emphasizes exposure or how you came across; guilty emphasizes an action you believe was wrong. Feeling guilty is not, by itself, proof that you did wrong.

Embarrassed

Uncomfortably self-conscious after attention lands on a mistake, awkward moment, or something you would rather keep private.

“I waved enthusiastically at someone who was waving to the person behind me.”

Compare with guilty

Guilty

Troubled by the belief that something you did, or failed to do, went against your values or hurt someone.

“I promised to call, forgot, and now I’m bothered that I let my friend down.”

Compare with embarrassed

How each word was placed

All 257 words sit on the grid the emotion grid uses: seven steps of energy from bottom to top, seven of pleasantness from left to right. The small square beside a word is that grid with the word’s cell lit, or two cells for a word that is two feelings at once.

50 words are part of one of Mental’s 49 phrases, so they take that phrase’s cell: calm sits on Calm, easy. 201 more start from published ratings of how pleasant and how arousing English words are, collected from about 20 to 35 people per word (Warriner and colleagues, 2013; the Glasgow Norms, 2019, where the first has no rating). Each rating is compared with every word in the same study and turned into one of the seven steps. For 32 -ed forms that neither study rated, we used the base word: irritate for irritated. The remaining 6 have no rating in either study.

A rating describes the word, not your moment, and two axes cannot tell fear from anger, or disgust from either: all three are unpleasant and charged. So each family keeps its words in plausible cells. Sadness stays low in energy, fear never lands on the app’s anger cells, and excitement leaves peak pleasure to happiness. 32 of the 99 rated words moved to the nearest cell their family allows, and 69 more were placed by hand where that still read wrong.

An editor then read every word against the phrase beside it and moved 22 whose phrase named a different feeling: guilty had sat beside A bit bothered, and compassionate beside Happy, warm.

The last family, Neutral and mixed, holds the middle of the grid and words that are two feelings at once. 17 of its 19 words were placed by hand. A mixed word such as bittersweet lights two cells, the pleasanter one first, and names both phrases. All 108 words placed by hand carry a written reason in the data behind this page.

Treat a place as a starting point. If a neighbouring cell fits your moment better, that cell is the better answer.

  • Printable feelings listPDF, US Letter, black on white. Every word by family, with its closest of the 49 feelings.

From a word to a check-in

Each closest feeling is a link: it opens the emotion grid with that cell chosen, ready to keep as a check-in. If you would rather start from how the moment feels than from a word, two questions lead you to a cell. For a one-page chart of the 49 feelings, print the feelings chart.

Two words can both be true at once; mixed emotions shows how to keep them both. To turn a word into a short daily record, use the mood check-in guide. In Mental, the 49 feelings are the check-in itself.

Sources

Ratings: Warriner, Kuperman and Brysbaert (2013), Norms of valence, arousal, and dominance for 13,915 English lemmas; Scott and colleagues (2019), The Glasgow Norms, used under CC BY 4.0. The two axes follow James A. Russell’s 1980 paper “A Circumplex Model of Affect”. The families, the placements by hand, the definitions and the examples are Mental’s own editorial work. This list describes moments; it is not a test or a diagnosis.