Feeling awe might save you

And the science behind it

There's growing evidence that awe could make us healthier.

My beautiful Lake Michigan.

Lucky for me, there's quite a bit I'm in awe of.

1. Mastery. People who have command of an art or a skill I don't have. Virtuosos. The Bulgarian Women's choir's perfect, tight harmonies make the hairs on my arms stand up. Ski jumpers. The author George Saunders. Even competitors on those glass blowing or pottery reality shows. I love watching them build beautiful things I could not. I would love to claim mastery over something, but I think it takes dedicating your life to one thing, and I am interested in too many things. Or not good enough! Maybe both. I'm not sure.

2. Open water. The view across Lake Michigan, where I live, all chop on a windy day. A million different blues. I think of the sturgeon and walleye with miles of current to explore, the fact that no one can believe we have a body of water this big in Chicago. I think of the view of the Atlantic from the Brittany shore, where I traveled a couple of years ago, which filled me with something like the opposite of speech. How deep? How far? How many species? How many millions of years?

   

   My little boy. Born blue, resuscitated. A week in the NICU. A miracle. I can’t believe he’s 11 already.

3. Birth. For a process in which so many things have to go right, how is it that we have billions of people on the planet? Of course, sometimes it doesn't go right. It happened to me once. But when it does, it's—I don't mind using the word—a miracle.

Those are just a few. What about you?

But what is awe?

It's not fear. It's not joy. It's distinct. Researchers from UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center (I love the whole idea of that place) provide this helpful definition.

"In a landmark 2003 paper, psychologists Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt ...suggested that awe experiences can be characterized by two phenomena: “perceived vastness” and a “need for accommodation.”

• “Perceived vastness” can come from observing something literally physically large...or from a more...perceptual sense of vastness—such as being in the presence of someone with immense prestige...

• An experience evokes a “need for accommodation” when it violates our normal understanding of the world. When a stimulus exceeds our expectations in some way, it can provoke an attempt to change the mental structures that we use to understand the world. This need for cognitive realignment is an essential part of the awe experience...

What happens when we experience awe?

First, there's what happens between you and the world. Again, from the good people at the Greater Good Science Center:

"Since Keltner and Haidt’s 2003 paper, studies have shown that awe is often accompanied by feelings of self-diminishment and increased connectedness with other people. Experiencing awe often puts people in a self-transcendent state where they focus less on themselves and feel more like a part of a larger whole."

Next, there's what happens inside us. In Psychology Today, Karolyn Gazella writes :

"Research demonstrates that repeated exposure to awe positively affects our stress response, inflammation, hormonal activity, and brain function. Appreciating awe on a consistent basis can also help ease symptoms of depression."

How does it do that?

Researchers from UC Berkeley's Department of Psychology, writing in Perspectives on Psychological Science, identify five pathways through which awe improves health:

• It changes your brain: "The physiological profile of awe documented thus far—elevated vagal tone, reduced sympathetic activation, increased oxytocin, and reduced inflammation—is associated with enhanced mental health.” [Note: "vagal tone" refers to the vagus nerve, an essential part of your nervous system that plays a role in a huge range of functions, including heart rate.]

• It transforms your sense of self: "An amplified focus on the self has been found to be associated with a variety of mental-health struggles...and social problems, such as aggression, racism, bullying, and everyday incivility...Awe, by contrast, reduces the focus on the self.”

• It makes you more likely to be generous: "Empirical studies have found that transient experiences of awe in the lab and in naturalistic contexts leads to cooperation, sacrifice, and sharing."

• It makes you feel a part of something. "In studies of awe of different kinds—whether experienced via a written online narrative, via an in-lab induction, or in vivo—awe led people to feel common humanity with others...integrated within stronger social networks...and overall more connected to the social and natural world."

• It gives you a sense of meaning: "The search for meaning evoked by awe is likely to lead to greater mental and physical health."

What if we aimed for awe every day?

First, this is on my "to read" list. Next is this one, helpfully reviewed in this Harvard Business Review piece by Eben Harrell on the power of every day awe:

"In The Power of Awe: Overcome Burnout and Anxiety, Ease Chronic Pain, Find Clarity and Purpose—in Less Than 1 Minute Per Day, the coach and mentor Jake Eagle and Michael Amster, a physician, draw on Keltner’s work to introduce a technique, similar to Carson’s, for “microdosing” on awe. For those looking for an even quicker fix, scientists at Google and Berkeley have created the Art Emotions Map website, featuring pictures of famous artworks that elicit certain feelings, including awe (example: Vesuvius in Eruption, by Joseph Mallord William Turner). At Mapping Emotion, a site created by a different former Berkeley researcher, Alan Cowen, you can watch GIFs proven to evoke the same response (such as one of skydivers falling in unison)."

This idea of "microdosing" awe seems a little counterintuitive, of taking a bite-sized morsel of the enormous to keep the high going day by day. But what if that's all the time we have? What if we can’t get to Sequoia National Park or listen to a virtuosic musical performance? We can look for every day awe on these websites, sure. But perhaps we can also reframe small moments. Is the spider web on my back door a terrifying menace or an awe-inspiring feat of tiny engineering? Is the site of my son's sleeping head, peeking from the covers, just proof that he's not sneaking some games on his computer or that he simply exists as a little blond miracle?

Share with me

Let me hear from you. What evokes awe in you? I want to add to my list of “to try” awe experiences. Thank you!