What was the last event, experience, interaction that made you feel quietly bigger than yourself? Was it live music that hits you in the chest or a sunset or view that held you still. A friend’s story that made you put your phone down and focus intensely on the here and now. These are examples of what researchers mean when they talk about the emotion of awe.
Most adults feel awe more than twice a week, often in ordinary places — usually without pausing to notice. The science behind how those moments can benefit your physical and mental well-being is worth slowing down for. In this article, we look at what awe actually is, what it does, and small ways to invite more of it into your life.
What Is Awe?
Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world. It reminds you that there are forces bigger than yourself. Your mind and your body notices these forces: that is awe.
Your breathing slows. The head-noise softens. You feel quietly tethered to something incredibly powerful.
The original academic definition was proposed by Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt in 2003 [1]. They called it the emotion we feel when we encounter vastness and need to update the picture of the world we carry around.
The Anatomy of Awe
Awe is more than a feeling you can name. It is a coordinated shift in physiology.
The 2023 review by Monroy and Keltner [2] lays out five shifts researchers have linked to awe:
1. The default mode network quiets:
This is the brain’s self-referential loop — the one that makes us worry, ruminate, and run the never-ending to-do lists. Awe quiets it for a moment, which is part of why the world can suddenly feel larger than your own thoughts again.
2. Vagal tone rises:
The vagus nerve, running from the brainstem down through the chest and gut, is the main parasympathetic brake on the stress response. When it is active, your heart rate drops, your breath deepens, your face relaxes. Researchers can measure this through heart rate variability, which rises during awe.
3. Markers of inflammation drop:
Awe appears to reduce circulating cytokines — the molecules behind chronic low-grade inflammation. That matters because chronic inflammation is tied to depression, autoimmune illness, and many of the conditions that wear people down over years. Patterns accumulate, meaning: small daily experiences add up.
4. Prosocial behavior increases:
People in moments of awe are more willing to help a stranger, share credit, and give to a cause. They’re less wrapped up in what they might get out of something. The kindness tends to feel less like a complicated decision or effort in those moments, and more like a reflex.
5. A stronger sense of meaning and belonging settles in:
Awe is one of the few emotions reliably tied to existential well-being — the sense that you are part of something that predates you and will continue after. People who feel awe more often report less existential isolation, even when other parts of their life are difficult.
Every one of those shifts is the opposite of what chronic stress does to the body.
The Impact of Awe on Well-Being
The documented effects of cultivating awe include:
- Reductions in perceived day-to-day stress
- Drops in depressive symptoms in some populations
- More generous, less materialistic decision-making
- A stronger sense of meaning — which buffers against demoralization
These are gentle, additive effects. They work well alongside psychotherapy, medication management when indicated, and the rest of mental health care.
How to Cultivate Awe Daily
Most pleasures lose their edge as we get used to them. Awe has the opposite pattern.
It keeps working as you practice it. The more you look for it, the more it shows up.
In 2022, researchers at UC San Francisco and Berkeley ran an 8-week awe walk trial with healthy older adults [3].
The walk group received a small weekly protocol — slowing down, syncing the breath, paying attention more widely. Week after week, the walk-walkers reported more awe and less daily distress. More prosocial emotion — compassion, amusement, willingness to help a stranger.
Here’s how you can start the practice of awe walk too:
| Find a route that surprises you | A trail you have not walked. A street you have not paid attention to. Even a familiar park visited from a different entrance. |
|---|---|
| Slow your breathing deliberately | A longer exhale than inhale, twenty cycles. This is how you can stimulate your vagus nerve and regulate your nervous system. |
| Widen your attention gradually | Look at a leaf, then the whole tree. Listen to one voice, then the entirety of sounds and noises. |
| Take your time | Most of the participants in the 2022 study took about half an hour. Don’t rush this experience. Stay patient and curious. |
If you find walking difficult, feel free to try:
- sitting in a chair and looking out a window,
- spending time in front of a single large painting,
- listening to music that brings back a good memory.
When to Reach Out for Mental Health Support
Awe, with all its beautiful benefits, is still not a solution to everything. It is one practice among several that strengthen well-being — and it works best alongside other resources.
If persistent low mood, ongoing anxiety, or insomnia are already part of your life, awe can help immensely, but it is not a replacement for clinical treatment.
That is when working with a mental health professional matters. Our providers work with adults across that spectrum — from building the skills that feed well-being to addressing the things an awe walk alone will not shift.
Click here to schedule a consultation with our clinicians.
References
[1] Keltner, D., & Haidt, J. (2003). Approaching awe, a moral, spiritual, and aesthetic emotion. Cognition & Emotion, 17(2), 297–314.
[2] Monroy, M., & Keltner, D. (2023). Awe as a pathway to mental and physical health. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 18(2), 309–320.
[3] Sturm, V. E., Datta, S., Roy, A. R. K., Sible, I. J., Kosik, E. L., Veziris, C. R., Chow, T. E., Morris, N. A., Neuhaus, J., Kramer, J. H., Miller, B. L., Holley, S. R., & Keltner, D. (2022). Big smile, small self: Awe walks promote prosocial positive emotions in older adults. Emotion, 22(5), 1044–1058.
