There is a particular feeling that arises when you stand at the edge of an ocean, hear a symphony swell, or watch a child take their first steps. Time seems to slow. Your sense of self softens. Your problems, just moments ago so urgent, briefly recede into the background. This feeling has a name: awe. And over the last two decades, researchers have begun to map the healing power of awe, discovering that this often-overlooked emotion may be one of the most powerful and underutilized tools we have for healing the mind.
While much of mental health discourse focuses on managing what's wrong—reducing anxiety, treating depression, soothing trauma—the science of awe invites us to consider something different: cultivating what's profoundly right. Awe doesn't require a mountaintop or a religious experience. It can be found in the geometry of a leaf, the kindness of a stranger, or the night sky from your backyard. This article explores what awe actually does to the brain and body, why modern life starves us of it, and how to deliberately weave more wonder into ordinary days.
Key Takeaways
- Awe is a self-transcendent emotion triggered by perceived vastness that exceeds your current understanding of the world.
- It produces measurable health benefits, including lower inflammation, reduced default mode network activity, and increased parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) tone.
- Moral beauty—witnessing human goodness—is the most common source of awe globally, not grand natural vistas, making awe far more accessible than most people assume.
- Modern life suppresses awe through smartphone scrolling, hedonic adaptation, indoor living, and protective cynicism.
- Awe walks, beginner's mind, and mindful music listening are evidence-based practices that reliably cultivate wonder.
- Awe complements clinical treatment but does not replace it for serious mental health conditions.
What Exactly Is Awe?
Awe is the emotion we experience in the presence of something vast that challenges how we understand the world. It requires two ingredients: perceived vastness (physical, conceptual, or moral) and a need for accommodation—a mental updating because what you're encountering doesn't fit your existing frameworks. Unlike happiness, awe pulls attention outward and softens the boundaries of self.
Psychologist Dacher Keltner, who has spent more than two decades studying awe at the University of California, Berkeley, defines it as "the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world" [Keltner, 2023].
Importantly, awe is distinct from happiness, joy, or even gratitude. While gratitude focuses inward on what we have received, awe pulls our attention outward and dissolves the boundaries of self. The American Psychological Association classifies awe as a self-transcendent emotion—a category that also includes elevation, inspiration, and reverence—because it shifts our perspective from the personal to the universal [APA, 2022].
What are the eight wonders of life?
In a landmark study analyzing thousands of awe narratives from 26 countries, Keltner and colleagues identified eight common sources of awe across cultures [Keltner & Stellar, 2017]:
- Moral beauty — witnessing others' courage, kindness, or virtue
- Collective effervescence — moving in sync with others (dance, sports, worship)
- Nature — landscapes, animals, weather, the cosmos
- Music — particularly live performance
- Visual design — art, architecture, craftsmanship
- Spirituality and religion
- Life and death — birth, death, illness, recovery
- Epiphany — sudden understanding of a profound idea
Notably, the most frequently reported source globally was moral beauty—the goodness of other people—not grand natural vistas as many assume. This means awe is far more accessible than we tend to believe.
How is awe different from other emotions?
Awe is unique because it simultaneously expands our sense of meaning and shrinks our sense of self. Joy makes us feel uplifted, contentment makes us feel settled, and gratitude makes us feel given to—but awe makes us feel small in the very best way, part of something incomprehensibly larger than our individual story.
How Awe Heals the Brain and Body
Awe heals by quieting overactive self-referential brain circuits, reducing inflammation, and activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Research from UC Berkeley, Stanford, and the NIH demonstrates that even brief awe experiences can lower stress markers and improve mood for days afterward.
1. Awe Reduces Inflammation
In a study published in the journal Emotion, researchers found that positive emotions—and awe in particular—were associated with lower levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin-6 (IL-6), even more strongly than other positive emotions like joy or contentment [Stellar et al., 2015]. Chronic inflammation has been linked by the NIH to depression, anxiety, autoimmune disease, and cardiovascular illness, making this finding especially relevant for mental health [NIH, 2023].
2. Awe Quiets the Default Mode Network
The brain's default mode network (DMN) is the constellation of regions that activates during self-referential thinking, rumination, and mind-wandering. Overactivity in the DMN is associated with depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Neuroimaging studies suggest that awe-inducing experiences—including viewing vast natural scenes and certain psychedelic-assisted therapies—are associated with reduced DMN activity, producing what researchers call "ego dissolution" or the "small self" effect [Chirico & Gaggioli, 2021].
This temporary loosening of the self may explain why awe makes our personal problems feel more manageable. When you feel small in the best possible way—part of something larger—your worries proportionally shrink.
3. Awe Activates the Parasympathetic Nervous System
While intense emotions often increase heart rate and sympathetic arousal, awe is unusual: it tends to slow the heart rate and increase parasympathetic activity, the "rest and digest" branch of the autonomic nervous system [Shiota et al., 2011]. This makes awe a natural complement to practices like deep breathing, meditation, and yoga for soothing an overactive stress response.
4. Awe Expands Time Perception
Stanford researchers found that experiencing awe makes people feel they have more time available, decreases impatience, and increases willingness to volunteer their time for others [Rudd, Vohs, & Aaker, 2012]. In a culture where 60% of American adults report feeling time-pressured according to the CDC's quality of life surveys, this is no small thing [CDC, 2022].
5. Awe Reduces Symptoms of Depression and PTSD
A study from UC Berkeley followed military veterans and at-risk youth on whitewater rafting trips. Researchers found that the amount of awe participants experienced during the trip predicted a 29% reduction in PTSD symptoms and a 21% decrease in general stress one week later—effects that surpassed those of other positive emotions felt during the trip [Anderson, Monroy, & Keltner, 2018].
Why Modern Life Starves Us of Wonder
Modern life starves us of wonder because attention is fragmented by screens, environments are overly familiar, and time is structured around productivity rather than presence. The slow, expansive attention required for awe has become an endangered resource.
Why does familiarity dull our sense of wonder?
Neuroscientists describe a phenomenon called hedonic adaptation—our tendency to quickly normalize repeated stimuli. When we walk the same route to work, scroll the same apps, and inhabit the same rooms, the brain stops bothering to notice. Mayo Clinic researchers note that this same neurological efficiency that helps us function can also dull our perceptual aliveness over time [Mayo Clinic, 2023].
How do smartphones suppress awe?
The average American adult spends roughly 4 hours and 37 minutes per day on a smartphone, with much of that time devoted to short-form content optimized for quick dopamine hits rather than depth or meaning. Research from the American Psychological Association has linked heavy social media use to increased rates of anxiety, depression, and a sense of meaninglessness in young adults [APA, 2023]. The quick, fragmented attention demanded by these platforms is essentially the opposite of the slow, expansive attention that awe requires.
Indoor, Sedentary, Disconnected
The EPA estimates that the average American now spends approximately 90% of their time indoors [EPA, 2021]. Combined with declining attendance at concerts, religious services, and community events post-pandemic, many people have lost reliable access to the natural settings and collective experiences that historically produced awe.
Cynicism as Self-Protection
In an information environment saturated with bad news, many of us have developed a protective cynicism that filters out wonder. Mental Health America notes that chronic exposure to distressing news can blunt emotional responsiveness in general—a kind of psychological numbing that protects us from despair but also walls us off from joy and awe [MHA, 2023].
The Difference Between Awe and Other Positive Emotions
Awe differs from related positive emotions in that it shifts focus away from the self rather than toward it. Where happiness, gratitude, and contentment center personal experience, awe relocates us inside something larger—an effect researchers have linked to deeper, more durable wellbeing.
Awe vs. Happiness
Happiness tends to be about me—my comfort, my pleasure, my satisfaction. Awe tends to be about not-me—what exists beyond my ego. Research shows that pursuing happiness directly can paradoxically reduce it, while pursuing meaning and self-transcendent experiences like awe tends to produce more stable wellbeing [APA, 2022].
Awe vs. Gratitude
Gratitude is fundamentally about receiving—acknowledging what we've been given. Awe is about witnessing—encountering something beyond ourselves. Both are powerful, and they complement each other. While gratitude works best as a deliberate, reflective practice, awe often arrives spontaneously when we slow down enough to notice. If you are interested in the neuroscience side of thankfulness, see how gratitude rewires the brain for better mental health.
Awe vs. Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of nonjudgmental attention to the present. Awe is what happens when that attention encounters vastness. You could say mindfulness opens the door, and awe is what walks through it. In this sense, an established mindfulness practice may make us more available to awe in everyday life.
Cultivating Awe in Everyday Life
You can cultivate awe by deliberately slowing down, seeking novelty in familiar surroundings, and engaging with vast or beautiful things without distraction. Research shows that even brief, structured awe practices—like a fifteen-minute weekly walk—produce measurable improvements in mood and prosocial behavior.
1. Take an "Awe Walk"
In a clinical trial published in Emotion, researchers asked older adults to take a weekly 15-minute walk for eight weeks. One group was instructed to walk as usual; the other was instructed to take "awe walks"—deliberately seeking out vastness, novelty, and beauty during their stroll. The awe-walk group reported significantly increased prosocial emotions, decreased distress, and even showed broader smiles in selfies taken during the walks [Sturm et al., 2020].
To take an awe walk:
- Leave your phone in your pocket (or at home)
- Walk somewhere with at least some natural elements—a park, tree-lined street, or waterfront
- Approach your walk as if seeing things for the first time
- Pause to notice small details: bark texture, cloud formations, insect movements
- Look up at trees, buildings, or sky to engage your sense of vastness
2. Practice the "Beginner's Mind"
Borrowed from Zen Buddhism and increasingly integrated into clinical mindfulness programs, beginner's mind is the practice of approaching familiar things as if encountering them for the first time. Try eating a meal you've had hundreds of times as if you'd never tasted it before. Examine your own hand. Listen to a familiar song with full attention. The Cleveland Clinic recommends such practices as accessible entry points to mindfulness for those struggling with anxiety and rumination [Cleveland Clinic, 2023].
3. Seek Out Moral Beauty
Because the most common source of awe globally is the moral beauty of other people, you can cultivate awe by deliberately attending to acts of kindness, courage, and integrity—whether in your own life, in documentaries, in long-form journalism, or in biographies. Consider keeping a "moral beauty journal" where you record one example each day of human goodness you witnessed or heard about.
4. Engage with Music Mindfully
Music is one of the most reliable awe-elicitors humans have. But background listening rarely produces awe; focused listening does. Once a week, try sitting with no other task and listening to a piece of music from beginning to end—ideally something with dynamic range, like a classical symphony, a live recording, or an album you love. Live concerts, when accessible, are especially potent. Research suggests collective musical experiences activate brain regions associated with social bonding and meaning-making [NIH, 2022].
5. Look Up
The night sky is perhaps the most universally available source of awe. NASA estimates that there are 100 to 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone, and our galaxy is one of approximately two trillion in the observable universe. Spending even five minutes outside at night, looking at the moon or stars, can prompt a perspective shift. If you live in a light-polluted area, smartphone apps that map the night sky can still inspire wonder when you understand what's overhead.
6. Visit Spaces Designed for Awe
Cathedrals, museums, aquariums, planetariums, botanical gardens, and grand libraries are architecturally and curatorially designed to elicit awe. Visit them slowly. Sit on a bench. Let the space work on you rather than rushing through to check it off a list.
7. Befriend the Microscopic
Vastness isn't only about big things. A snowflake, a single hair under magnification, the structure of a flower's stamen—any glimpse into the complexity of small things can produce conceptual awe. High-quality nature documentaries from sources like the BBC or PBS often reveal microscopic worlds inaccessible to the naked eye.
8. Write About Awe Experiences
Journaling about moments of awe extends their psychological benefits. Research on expressive writing, much of it pioneered at the University of Texas, suggests that translating felt experience into language deepens its integration and meaning [APA, 2022]. After an awe-inducing moment—a sunset, a song, a conversation—take three to five minutes to write about it in detail.
Awe in Clinical and Therapeutic Settings
Clinicians are increasingly integrating awe-evoking experiences into trauma therapy, depression treatment, and recovery programs. From wilderness therapy for veterans to virtual reality nature scenes for hospitalized patients, awe is being studied as an active ingredient in healing.
The growing evidence base for awe is beginning to influence clinical practice. Some trauma therapists incorporate nature-based experiences, virtual reality awe simulations, or guided imagery designed to evoke vastness. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has explored nature-based programs—including wilderness therapy and adaptive outdoor recreation—for veterans with PTSD, with promising preliminary results [VA, 2022].
Psychedelic-assisted therapy, currently being studied for treatment-resistant depression and PTSD at institutions like Johns Hopkins, often produces what participants describe as awe-like experiences of unity, vastness, and self-transcendence. Researchers at Johns Hopkins have linked the intensity of these "mystical-type" experiences during sessions to therapeutic outcomes, suggesting that awe itself may be an active ingredient in healing [Johns Hopkins Medicine, 2023].
This doesn't mean everyone needs psychedelics to access awe's benefits. The same neurological territory—reduced default mode network activity, increased connectedness, expanded perspective—can be reached, in milder forms, through nature, meditation, music, and contemplative practice.
When Awe Isn't Enough — And When It Helps Most
Awe is not a replacement for clinical care, but it is a powerful complement to evidence-based treatment. It is most useful for rumination, burnout, loneliness, and grief—conditions where perspective and meaning are part of what's missing.
If you are struggling with significant depression, anxiety, trauma, or other mental health conditions, please reach out to a qualified clinician. NAMI's HelpLine (1-800-950-NAMI) and SAMHSA's National Helpline (1-800-662-HELP) are confidential, free resources available 24/7 [NAMI, 2023; SAMHSA, 2023].
That said, awe practices can be a powerful complement to therapy, medication, and other supports. They are particularly useful for:
- Rumination and overthinking — by quieting the default mode network
- Burnout — by restoring perspective and meaning
- Loneliness — by fostering a sense of connection to something larger
- Existential anxiety — by providing felt experiences of meaning; if these themes resonate, you may also benefit from learning to cope with existential anxiety more directly
- Grief — by offering moments of beauty that coexist with sorrow
- Recovery from trauma — by gently re-expanding a worldview narrowed by survival
The Small Self and the Larger We
The "small self" effect describes the consistent finding that after awe experiences, people feel physically smaller, less self-focused, more humble, and more connected to others. Far from being diminishing, this shrinking of the ego is psychologically restorative.
One of the most consistent findings in awe research is what Keltner calls the "small self" effect: after awe experiences, people report feeling smaller in physical stature, less self-focused, more humble, and more connected to others [Keltner & Stellar, 2017]. This might sound diminishing, but it's actually liberating. So much of our suffering comes from being trapped inside the small drama of self—our anxieties, comparisons, regrets. Awe offers a brief, restorative vacation from that drama.
In one study, participants who looked up at tall eucalyptus trees for just 60 seconds were subsequently more likely to help a stranger who dropped pens nearby than those who looked at a building for the same duration [Piff et al., 2015]. Awe doesn't just feel good; it makes us behave more generously and ethically. In an era of polarization and atomization, this prosocial dimension of awe may be especially valuable.
A Different Kind of Self-Care
Awe represents a fundamentally different model of self-care: not self-soothing but self-transcendence. Rather than turning inward for comfort, awe invites you to turn outward and upward—remembering that you are part of something extraordinary.
Much of what passes for self-care today is essentially self-soothing—warm baths, comfort food, scrolling, retail therapy. These have their place. But awe represents a fundamentally different model: self-care through self-transcendence. Rather than turning inward to comfort yourself, awe invites you to turn outward and upward—to remember that you are part of something extraordinary.
You don't need to travel to the Grand Canyon. You don't need a perfect meditation practice. You don't need to feel ready or rested or worthy. You just need to walk outside, look up, and let yourself be amazed for a moment. The maple tree on your block has been doing photosynthesis for decades. A stranger on the bus is carrying a story you'll never know. The same moonlight that fell on every human ancestor is falling on your face tonight.
The world has not run out of wonder. We've just stopped looking. The healing power of awe begins the moment we start looking again.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the healing power of awe?
The healing power of awe refers to the measurable psychological and physiological benefits of experiencing wonder. Research links awe to lower inflammation, reduced rumination, slower heart rate, expanded sense of time, and decreased symptoms of depression and PTSD. It is increasingly recognized as a self-transcendent emotion with real therapeutic value.
How long does an awe experience need to last to be beneficial?
Even brief awe experiences—as short as 60 seconds of gazing at tall trees or a vast landscape—have produced measurable changes in mood and prosocial behavior in laboratory studies. Longer experiences, such as a 15-minute weekly awe walk, show cumulative benefits over weeks. You do not need extended retreats or dramatic settings for awe to work on the nervous system.
Can awe replace therapy or medication for mental illness?
No. Awe is not a substitute for evidence-based treatment of depression, anxiety, PTSD, or other mental health conditions. It is, however, an excellent complement to therapy, medication, and other supports. If you are struggling, please contact a qualified clinician or call resources like NAMI (1-800-950-NAMI) or SAMHSA (1-800-662-HELP).
What is the easiest way to experience awe daily?
Take a short daily walk without your phone and deliberately seek out something vast, beautiful, or unfamiliar—the sky, a tree, an act of kindness, or the intricate design of something small. Approaching the familiar with a beginner's mind is one of the most accessible entry points. Mindful music listening also reliably elicits awe.
Why does awe make people feel small in a good way?
Awe shrinks self-focus by temporarily quieting the brain's default mode network, the region most active during self-referential thinking and rumination. This "small self" effect can feel liberating because it loosens our grip on personal worries and increases feelings of connection to something larger—nature, humanity, or meaning itself.
Is awe the same as a religious or spiritual experience?
Awe overlaps with spiritual experience but is not limited to it. Religious and spiritual contexts are powerful awe-elicitors, but awe also arises from secular sources—science, music, art, nature, and witnessing human goodness. The underlying neuroscience of awe appears similar regardless of whether the experience is interpreted in religious terms.
Can people with trauma or anxiety safely cultivate awe?
For most people, yes—gentle awe practices like nature walks or focused music listening are very safe. However, intense awe experiences (such as those induced by psychedelics) should only occur in clinical settings with trained professionals, especially for individuals with trauma histories or serious mental illness. Always consult your clinician about new practices if you are in active treatment.
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