The hidden benefits of AWE.

Have you ever experienced a moment of pure wonder and amazement? Something so captivating, it left you feeling small and insignificant yet at the same time, grateful and connected to the world around you? This is the emotion of awe, and it’s a lot more complex and impactful than many of us realize.

So, what is awe? Awe is a complex emotion that includes feelings of reverence, wonder, and amazement in response to something that is perceived to be vast, grand, and beyond comprehension. It’s that feeling you get when you stand at the edge of a cliff and look out at the vast ocean, or when you gaze up at the stars in a clear night sky.

Awe is experienced by everyone differently, but it typically involves a sense of expansion or elevation. People often describe feeling small or humbled in the face of awe-inspiring experiences. Awe is a unique emotion that is distinct from other emotions such as fear or joy, and it can be experienced in a variety of contexts such as nature, art, spirituality, and more.

Awe is an altered state of consciousness in which you transcend your "SELF" and the boundaries between the self and the other have faded. - Yaden et al. 2017

The research surrounding awe is relatively new, but it has already shown some surprising benefits. A study published in the journal Emotion found that awe can improve well-being, increase prosocial behavior, and enhance cognitive function.

Awe enhances your well-being and life satisfaction

One of the key findings of this study is that awe can have increases your well-being and life satisfaction whilst decreasing stress levels. People who experience awe tend to have a more positive outlook on life and a greater sense of purpose. They also tend to be more empathetic, experience more humility and gratitude and more likely to help others, which is why the researchers believe that awe can increase prosocial behavior. 

Experiencing awe helps de-activating your auto-pilot mode, this is the mode that disconnects and at the same time distracts you from the world around you. Awe can quiet your mind that's telling you to work harder and helps you realize your already there or might give you the inspiration for another perspective. As awe stimulates the vagus nerve (the nerve that activates the rest and digest part of your nervous system), which not only calms the body but also helps healing and reduce inflammation.

Another interesting discovery of the study is that awe can improve cognitive function. The researchers found that awe can boost working memory and help people to better focus their attention. This is likely due to the fact that awe has a profound impact on how people perceive the world around them. When people experience awe, they tend to be more curious and present and less focused on their thoughts and worries, which can improve cognitive function.

Awe as an evolutionary advantage

Evolutionarily speaking, increased curiosity and learning as a result from experiencing awe is extremely advantageous. Awe makes the feeling of the unknown and uncertainty more approachable, which give you more of a hunger to search for information and therefore allows you to progress in learning about the world. What's so special about awe is that it triggers "systematic curiosity" instead of   "impulsive curiosity". This obviously has massive survival advantages - those who approach uncertainty with curiosity AND ability to think critically and plan prior to exploration are more likely to survive than those who go in blindly. 

The science of this mystical emotion "awe" is profound and is shaping our lives in many ways. From increasing well-being and prosocial behavior, to enhancing cognition, awe is a force to be reckoned with. Especially the potential role of awe in cognitive advancement of us humans is shocking and can bring a new meaning to this famous quote from Albert Einstein

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.” - A. Einstein

So, if you believe that it is just our high level thinking that separates us from the animal kingdom - you might have to scratch behind your ears - and "consider what allowed this separation is the capacity to be rapt in awe when faced with the limitations of our understanding" (Richesin and Baldwin 2022).

By embracing awe, you can improve your overall well-being and enhance your relationships with others and the world around you. "It's hard to think of a single thing you can do for your mind and body that's better than a little dose of awe", says Keltner. 

Resources:

Richesin M. and Balwin D. How Awe shaped us: an evolutionary perspective. 2022. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/17540739221136893 

Chen S.K., Mongrain M. et al. Awe and the interconnected self. 2021. 

Gottlieb S., Keltner D., Lombrozo T. Awe as a scientific emotion. 2018. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/cogs.12648

Yaden D. B., Haidt J., et al. The varieties of self-transcendent experience. 2017. https://doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000102