Awe as a Pathway to Mental and Physical Health

This theory-building paper (2022) puts forth the idea that awe is both measurable and the causal (at least psychological-level) mechanisms through which psychedelics (and music, nature, spiritual contemplation) improve mental health.

Abstract

“How do experiences in nature or in spiritual contemplation or in being moved by music or with psychedelics promote mental and physical health? Our proposal in this article is awe. To make this argument, we first review recent advances in the scientific study of awe, an emotion often considered ineffable and beyond measurement. Awe engages five processes—shifts in neurophysiology, a diminished focus on the self, increased prosocial relationality, greater social integration, and a heightened sense of meaning—that benefit well-being. We then apply this model to illuminate how experiences of awe that arise in nature, spirituality, music, collective movement, and psychedelics strengthen the mind and body.”

Authors: Maria Monroy & Dacher Keltner

Summary

In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There, we feel that nothing can befall us, and we become transparent eyeballs, seeing all and becoming part of God.

Experiences in nature, spiritual engagement, music, and dancing at festivals improve mental and physical health, and psychedelics may serve as a treatment for trauma and anxiety.

This review aims to make the case that awe, a complex emotion that is often considered ineffable and even beyond measurement, leads to shifts in health and well-being. It does so by synthesizing extant literatures and extending this reasoning to five domains that reliably bring people awe.

Corresponding Author:

The scientific study of awe shows that experiences of awe in nature, spirituality, music, collective movement, and psychedelics promote mental and physical health.

Awe as a Distinct Emotion

Emotions are brief states that involve distinct experiences, expressive behaviors, patterns of thought, and physiological patterning. Awe is one of many positive emotions that have become a vibrant empirical focus.

Awe arises in encounters with stimuli that are vast, beyond one’s current perceptual frame of reference, and requires that extant knowledge structures be accommodated to make sense of what is being perceived.

Awe is a distinct state in a complex space of eight to 10 positive emotions, and the degree to which threat imbues awe is more prominent in some cultures than others. Threat-based awe is not associated with improvements in well-being.

Awe is expressed in raised inner eyebrows, widened eyes, an open and slightly drop-jawed mouth, and vocalizations such as “wow” or “whoa”. It is recognized across 10 cultures and occurs in similar contexts in 144 cultures.

Awe is associated with increased goosetingles, increased vagal tone, reduced sympathetic arousal, increased oxytocin release, and reduced inflammation. Awe is also associated with reduced activation in the default-mode network, an area of the brain typically associated with self-reflective processes.

Pathways Through Which Awe Enhances Mental and Physical Health

Awe is distinct from fear, beauty, interest, and joy, and may enhance mental and physical health through emotion-specific influences on thought patterns, social behavior, and physiology.

Studies have shown that experiences of awe are associated with enhanced mental health, including optimism, sense of connection, well-being, and reduced anxiety, depression, social rejection, and cardiovascular problems and autoimmune disease.

Awe transforms the sense of self, which is another pathway through which experiences of awe benefit mental and physical health. Awe reduces the focus on the self, which is associated with a variety of mental-health struggles and social problems.

People who experience awe perceive themselves as smaller, which is corroborated by daily diary findings. This transformation of self-focus is thought to mediate the relationship between awe and daily stresses.

Empirical studies have found that people higher in dispositional awe are more prosocial and generous in economic games, and are more willing to volunteer their time to charity compared with another positive emotion. This prosocial relationality elevates well-being and might even boost life expectancy.

A sense of being integrated into strong social networks is one of the strongest predictors of mental and physical well-being, and awe leads people to feel common humanity with others, more connected to the social and natural world.

A sense of meaning is found in making sense of life events, finding connections between current events and the past, and one’s values and social relationships. This sense of meaning is likely to lead to greater mental and physical health.

Case Studies of the Sublime: How Awe Promotes Mental and Physical Health

Awe often arises in transcendent encounters, such as in nature, spiritual practice, or during a psychedelic experience. These experiences can often repair and enhance physical health and well-being.

Studies have found that experiences of awe reduce stress and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in veterans and at-risk youths, increase the sense of social integration, personal well-being, and sense of having ample time, and may repair the mind and body across five realms of transcendent experience.

Nature

Nature is one of the most common elicitors of awe, and experiences of awe promote positive mental and physical health outcomes. For example, awe experienced outdoors during a rafting trip reduces stress and PTSD symptoms, and improves well-being.

The benefits of nature immersion may be explained by the small self produced by nature, the sense of prosociality brought about through awe, or the shifts in neurophysiology brought about by experiences of awe in nature.

Mystical Encounters and Spirituality

Meta-analyses and specific empirical studies have shown that a sense of spirituality and religiosity benefits the mind and body, including stronger social connections, elevated well-being, reduced anxiety and depression, and reduced all-cause mortality.

The pathways to mysticism are likely to be many, including social integration, meaning making, and awe. Awe is central to the mystical experience that people often deem “spiritual”.

A sense of awe that arises during spiritual and religious engagement may benefit mental and physical health. This is because a sense of awe can improve a sense of self, reduce stress, and promote prosocial tendencies.

Collective Movement: Music, Dance, and Ceremony

Collective synchronous movements, such as rituals, religious ceremonies, singing in chants, prayers, celebrations, and appreciating music and dance, can induce awe, which can benefit health and well-being.

Awe has been found in the accounts of Irish celebrants after St. Patrick’s Day parades and of pilgrims to the Magh Mela Hindu festival in India.

Music is found to be one of the common elicitors of awe, and it has many benefits for physical health. For example, music therapy has beneficial effects on heart and respiration rate, weight gain, and days of hospitalization in premature infants.

In dance, people feel awe, a sense of merging with others, and a tolerance for pain. This leads to improvements in mental and physical health, and we suggest that awe is one account of dance’s many likely benefits.

Psychedelics are a wide array of compounds that alter serotonin levels in the brain. They have been found to be beneficial for treating anxiety, depression, substance abuse disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and PTSD.

Psychedelics reduce depression, anxiety, and addiction through experiences of awe. This is because psychedelics deactivate the DMN, the neurophysiological equivalent of “ego dissolution”, and reduce activation in threat-related regions of the brain – the amygdala.

The literature on psychedelics and nature immersion has most explicitly considered awe as a mediating process between transcendent domain and health and well-being benefits.

Implications and Future Scientific Inquiry

Recent advances in the science of awe reveal that it engages five processes that are beneficial for mental and physical health, and that experiences of awe have meaningful consequences on neurophysiology, the self, prosociality, social integration, and meaning.

Threat-based awe experiences may produce diverging effects on mental and physical health, and it is critical for future work to disentangle positive and threat-based awe experiences.

In this review, we have discussed how awe can be experienced in nature, spirituality, music, dance, and psychedelics, and how this awe can bring about mind-body benefits.