How a sense of awe can be good for your mental health

Words escape you. Your skin tingles. You are overwhelmed by how small and insignificant you really are, bursting with a feeling that is hard to define. This is awe.

Awe is a complex emotional state we experience when the enormity of what we see or feel transcends what we understand. It can be positive or negative.

Astronauts report this feeling when confronted with the vastness of space and Earth’s puny place within it. This experience – sometimes known as the “overview effect” – can change forever how people who’ve seen Earth from afar think about life here.

But you don’t have to travel to the moon and back to experience awe. Beautiful art, a walk in nature or dancing in a crowd can give you this overwhelming, transcendent feeling.

Neuroscience suggests experiences of awe can be good for your mental health – when they’re positive. So, when is awe good for us? And what exactly is going on in the brain?

Awe can be both positive and negative

Positive awe is what probably comes to mind when most people think of awe. If you’ve ever been moved by something immense and beautiful – such as a majestic mountain or sunset – you’ve likely experienced this sense of calm and wonder.

However, psychologists sometimes describe awe as an experience at the boundary of pleasure and fear. Both pleasure and fear can result in similar bodily arousal – racing heartbeat, goosebumps and chills – but the way we interpret this as an emotion will depend on the context. It can be the same when we experience something vast and overwhelming.

Negative awe may occur when we feel threatened or a lack of control, such as during an earthquake or terrorist attack.

Imagine standing in front of a tsunami and seeing it come towards you. You may feel powerless and filled with dread, while also overcome with a sense of insignificance in the face of nature’s majesty and power. This is the complexity of awe.

Trying to make sense of the unexpected

Our brains are constantly making predictions and integrating our experiences into what we already know.

We tend to “filter out” sensory signals that match our expectations, to instead focus on being ready to respond to information that is surprising.

New information is processed by parts of the brain that help to fit it within our pre-existing understanding of the world, knowledge frameworks known as schemata (or schemas).

According to schema theory, we either assimilate this new information into an existing schema, or have to change the schema to fit the new knowledge.

Not all new experiences will evoke awe. It occurs when we experience both the inability to assimilate an experience into current knowledge and a sense of vastness.

For example, you might have a schema for “waterfall” – a mental framework of what you expect (rocks, water, beautiful). But confronted by the roar of Victoria Falls, its size and velocity, the way the sun hits the spray, you experience awe; it’s unlike any waterfall you have ever seen and is beyond your expectations.

What happens in the brain when we experience awe?

When we feel awe, activity decreases in the brain regions associated with internal or self-referential processing. This network is what drives our memory and understanding of our place in the world.

When activity in these regions decreases, there is a shift away from yourself towards processing external information. This may explain why you tend to “feel small” when you experience awe.

But positive and negative awe may have different effects on our nervous system.

Negative awe is associated with sympathetic nervous system activity, which drives our “fight or flight” response.

Positive awe, however, is associated with increased parasympathetic activity. This reduces heart rate and arousal, which is why we may feel calmer.

How awe can be good for us

If you’re someone who seeks out experiences bigger than yourself – hiking for breathtaking views, enjoying meditation, art or losing yourself in the roar of a crowd – you probably already know awe can make you feel fantastic.

Now, research is exploring why. Emerging evidence suggests awe may be good for mental health and wellbeing in five ways:

1. improving your nervous system’s ability to relax
2. diminishing self-focus
3. making us more likely to help other people
4. connecting us to others
5. increasing sense of meaning.

More work needs to be done before we can say whether awe results in long-lasting benefits. But purposefully seeking awe may help you feel less stressed, more satisfied and happier.

Finding awe in the everyday

What evokes awe will likely be different for different people. But we know some things are more likely to induce this complex feeling, such as experiences of art, music and natural environments that move us.

Many people also find awe in collective experiences, especially those involving shared music or movement, or religious rituals. These help us transcend ourselves and become part of something bigger. Contemplating inspiring and complex “big” intellectual ideas by learning something new may also have this effect.

So, can you actively cultivate awe? One way to start is by taking “awe walks”. These involve walking with the intention of noticing beauty, vastness and wonder. Connecting with your own sense of spirituality – even if you are not religious – can also evoke awe.

In many cases, the vast and overwhelming experience of awe can start with simple acts of noticing.