by Dr. Dacher Keltner, author of “Awe: The New Science Of Everyday Wonder And How It Can Transform Your Life”. He is a professor of psychology at the University of California.
Dr. Keltner has spent the last two decades studying “AWE”, which he says is distinct from joy or fear, and how experiencing it can positively affect our bodies, our relationships with others and how we see and interact with the world around us.
“It’s amazing! It tells us so much about the evolution of the human nervous system,” he says. “A region of the brain is deactivated when we experience awe—the default mode network. That is where all the self-representational processes take place. For example, in thinking about myself, my time, my goals, my striving, my checklist. That all quiets down during awe.” Awe slows our heart rate, helps with digestion and
opens up our bodies to things bigger than us. Awe also cools down the inflammation process by strengthening the immune system.
So how do we experience more awe? Simply decide to consciously experience awe. It can be as simple as taking an “awe walk.” On your walk, go some place where you feel child-like and look around. Look at small things and look at big things and just follow a sense of mystery and wonder. Other sources of awe include witnessing kindness, goodness or generosity. An awe walk could include listening to music, seeing art and contemplating big ideas. It can be as simple as pausing and noticing the world around us—from a newly blossomed flower to something as big as a sunset stretched across the sky. It could be as great as taking a vacation to the Grand Canyon or Denali.
This technique caused peaceful feelings with less pain and distress. They also documented what Keltner calls “the disappearance of the self.” “Each week we had study participants take a picture of themselves. What we found was, those in the study who were going on the awe walk started to move off to the side of their photos. They kind of disappear! What that tells us is their consciousness is not thinking so much about themselves. They’re more interested in the vaster scene that they’re part of and losing track of themselves. That’s important to expand our attention to things outside of ourselves. Extroverts know this.
Ultimately, the more awe and wonder people experience, the better off they are. Awe creates an amazing cascade of physiology that we can find any time and it is very good for us. Awe can act as an antidote to our problems and issues. Over eight weeks of a study the ‘awe walk’ group learned to feel more and more awe. As we search for awe, we find more of it.
In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy has an expression of awe when she sees the Emerald City. Taylor Swift has built an empire with her expressions of awe—so you know this is a big deal. What will you do and where will you go to experience awe for yourself?
11/17/24