Think about the last time you felt this. A sky full of stars. It was a piece of music that went somewhere deep and unexpected. A stranger stops to help a stranger, and something knocks in your chest in response. If you’ve ever wondered how to feel awe more often, you’re not alone.
This feeling is awe-inspiring. And most of us live far less than we could.
In a life full of notifications and rushes, we have largely forgotten how to pause for wonder. But science has spent two decades studying what happens when we do, and the results are impressive. Awe is not just a pleasant emotions come across It is one of the most powerful tools for sensing healthier, kinder and more complete.
Here’s what it is, why it’s important, and six easy ways to experience it more.
“The world is still strange. You just have to remember how to look at it.”
What awe really is (and why we’ve forgotten it) ✨
Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something immense that exceeds your normal understanding of the world. That’s how a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley Dacher Keltnerone of the world’s leading researchers on this topic, defines it.
Huge doesn’t necessarily mean Grand Canyon. It can be physical, like standing on the shore of the ocean, but it can also be deeply human, like witnessing an act of extraordinary courage or kindness. A child’s hand. Sequoia. The choir sounds at full voice. Any one of them can stop us in our tracks.
What surprises most people is how often fear is actually accessible. Keltner Studiescollected from tens of thousands of accounts in 26 countries, found that people reported feeling the thrill an average of two to three times a week. The problem is that trepidation is common. The thing is, our rushed, screen-filled lives teach us to rush past it without stopping to really feel it.
Why Awe is good for you
For a long time, awe was considered a pleasant but insignificant feeling, a splash of wonder in an ordinary day. Research has shown that this belief was wrong. Trembling turns out to be something closer to necessity.
A The 2023 study is published in Scientific Reports tracked 269 adults for 22 days and found that on days when people felt more awe, they reported about 20 percent less stress, fewer physical symptoms, and better overall well-being. A parallel study of 145 healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic found the same pattern.
The physical effects follow. A 2015 training of 94 master’s students found that those who reported more frequent fears had significantly lower levels of interleukin-6, a marker of inflammation in the body. Awe was the strongest predictor of all the positive emotions studied.
Awe also does something extraordinary to our sense of time. In a A 2012 study was published in Psychological Sciencepeople who had just experienced awe reported feeling that time had passed, making them less impatient, more generous, and more satisfied with their lives.
Brain scans offer one explanation as to why. Awe reduces activity in the brain’s default mode network, a system associated with self-focused thinking and mental chatter. It moves us from thinking about ourselves to feeling part of something bigger, a shift researchers call the “small self effect.” Research consistently shows that people who experience awe are more generous, more humble, and more connected to others.
Less stress
Days of greater awe are associated with ~20% less stress and physical complaints (Scientific Reports, 2023)
Soothes the body
Associated with lower blood pressure and lower inflammatory markers (IL-6) in the body
Quiet mental chatter
Reduces activity in the brain’s default mode network, making it easier to think and focus on yourself
Makes us kinder
Shrinks the ego with the “small self” effect, shifting the focus from me to us and increasing generosity
Expands time
People feel less rushed and more patient after awe, even if nothing has changed in their schedule
Improves mood and connection
Associated with greater well-being, stronger social connections, and a strong sense of meaning and purpose
6 ways to feel more awe 🌌
1. Look for everyday moral beauty
Here’s the discovery that surprises people the most: The single most common source of awe in everyday life across cultures and continents isn’t nature, music, or grand architecture. This is someone else’s good. Keltner calls this moral beauty, and it describes the awe we feel when we witness someone’s courage, kindness, generosity, or strength.
A stranger helps someone who has fallen. A friend who stays when they can leave. The neighbor calmly takes care of someone else’s child. Moments like this are everywhere, and they’re consistently more awe-inspiring than most people expect.
Spend one week actively noticing them, even small ones, and write down one each night. You’re not looking for grand gestures. You train your attention on the beauty that already was.
2. A step in the immensity of nature
Nature has been a reliable source of awe for as long as humans have existed, and researchers consistently rank it among the most powerful triggers. Time spent in nature is associated with lower blood pressure, lower cortisol, and a little self-disruption that makes us feel connected rather than isolated.
The main thing is to know that you don’t need a mountain. A city park, a walk by the river, ten minutes sitting under a big tree, or the wide open sky from your backyard can all provide the same essential ingredient: a moment of scale that reminds you that the world is bigger than your mailbox. If possible, put down your phone and take five minutes to look at something bigger than yourself.
3. Let the music move you
Music is one of the most reliably available sources of awe and one of the most underutilized. The particular sensation it can cause, sometimes called a frisson, is a physical sign that something extraordinary is happening, as it causes shivers or shivers to run through the body. Listening together, whether at a concert, church service, or on a living room playlist with a loved one, amplifies the effect.
The key is to listen, not turn on music in the background while doing seventeen other things. Trembling requires attention, and attention is the thing we pay the least attention to in music. Pick one piece that has touched you before, sit with it fully and let it completely take over you.
4. Look for collective moments
There is something that happens when people move, sing, or experience something together; it just doesn’t happen alone. Researchers call this collective effervescence, and it describes the electricity of a shared experience.
That’s why a concert is different from listening at home, why participating in a hymn or chant can create a feeling that’s really hard to explain, and why the energy of the crowd changes what the event does to you.
Shared awe shifts the brain’s focus from individual concerns to collective belonging. Look for one shared experience this month, a concert, worship, social event, or activity, and notice the difference between experiencing it alone and in a crowd.
5. Slow down for art and design
Art and architecture have always been deliberate attempts to evoke awe, and they have often succeeded. The problem is that we tend to move quickly through them, marking the room rather than stopping.
A museum, a cathedral, a beautifully designed building, and a ceramic piece made entirely by hand: these objects carry the effort and vision of another person, and when we pay real attention to them, they can make us pause.
A brain study shows that awe reduces activity in the self-focus network. When faced with something huge or confusing enough, we forget ourselves for a moment. Visit one place this month with the express intention of experiencing it rather than going through it, and spend at least five minutes on one thing.
6. Practice shuddering
Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco studied what happens when you take a regular walk, but add one special ingredient: an intentional focus on novelty and surprise, moving through your surroundings as if you were seeing them for the first time. People who took these awe-inspiring walks reported significantly more joy and less distress than those who took regular walks, and their photos showed that they were looking outward rather than inward.
An awe-inspiring walk is not a longer walk or a better route. This is the same walk through different eyes. Leave your headphones on, move a little slower than usual, and look for that one thing you’ve never noticed before. A detail of a building, the way light falls on something ordinary, a plant growing through a crack. Treat it like a little discovery.
A miracle is closer than you think ✨
The awe never went away. He was present in the morning sky you passed on your way to work, in the song you almost missed, and in the neighbor who quietly helped someone without telling you about it. We stopped noticing it, not because it disappeared, but because we got used to staying busy.
The world continues to amaze. Science simply allows us to take it seriously, treat wonder not as a luxury, but as something close to a necessity. Look up more often. The rest try to follow.
