Big smile, small self: Awe walks promote prosocial positive emotions in older adults.

Abstract

Aging into later life is often accompanied by social disconnection, anxiety, and sadness. Negative emotions are self-focused states with detrimental effects on aging and longevity. Awe-a positive emotion elicited when in the presence of vast things not immediately understood-reduces self-focus, promotes social connection, and fosters prosocial actions by encouraging a "small self." We investigated the emotional benefits of a novel "awe walk" intervention in healthy older adults. Sixty participants took weekly 15-min outdoor walks for 8 weeks; participants were randomly assigned to an awe walk group, which oriented them to experience awe during their walks, or to a control walk group. Participants took photographs of themselves during each walk and rated their emotional experience. Each day, they reported on their daily emotional experience outside of the walk context. Participants also completed preand postintervention measures of anxiety, depression, and life satisfaction. Compared with participants who took control walks, those who took awe walks experienced greater awe during their walks and exhibited an increasingly "small self" in their photographs over time. They reported greater joy and prosocial positive emotions during their walks and displayed increasing smile intensity over the study. Outside of the walk context, participants who took awe walks reported greater increases in daily prosocial positive emotions and greater decreases in daily distress over time. Postintervention anxiety, depression, and life satisfaction did not change from baseline in either group. These results suggest cultivating awe enhances positive emotions that foster social connection and diminishes negative emotions that hasten decline.

The Impact of Psycho-Social Interventions on the Wellbeing of Individuals With Acquired Brain Injury During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Evidence suggests that spending time in nature can promote overall self-reported wellbeing, for example, White et al (2019) found that people who spend at least two hours per week in nature are more likely to report higher wellbeing than those who do not spend any time in nature. Exposure to natural environments has also been found to increase positive and self-transcendent emotions such as awe (Sturm et al, 2020), peak experiences (Wulff and Maslow, 1965) and the perception feeling worthwhile (White et al, 2017).…”

The potential synergistic effects between psychedelic administration and nature contact for the improvement of mental health

“…The experience of awe has been linked to enhanced well-being ( Anderson et al, 2018b ; Dong and Ni, 2019 ; Rudd et al, 2012 ), life satisfaction ( Rudd et al, 2012 ), prosociality ( Bai et al., 2017 ; Piff et al, 2015 ; Sturm et al, 2020 ), and reduced negative affect ( Lopes et al, 2020 ), and mental distress ( Sturm et al, 2020 ), in addition to being associated with nature relatedness ( Bethelmy and Corraliza, 2019 ) and pro-environmental behaviour ( Wang and Liu, 2019 ; Zhao et al, 2018 ), all enduring effects associated with psychedelic use ( Gandy, 2019 ). Psychedelics have been found to elicit feelings of awe ( Griffiths et al, 2006 ; Hendricks, 2018 ; Noorani et al, 2018 ; Riba et al, 2001 ; Richards et al, 1977 ; Watts et al, 2017 ), and an enhancement of awe may persist beyond the acute experience ( Noorani et al, 2018 ).…”

“…It has been proposed that administering psychedelics in natural settings known to elicit awe may enhance treatment efficacy of psychedelic therapy if safety is ensured ( Hendricks, 2018 ). Experiences of awe in nature may be associated with perception of large natural objects such as mountains or vistas, events such as storms, or objects with infinite repetition, including waves and fractal patterns, such as trees, clouds, rain and birdsong – and a ‘smallness of self’ in this context ( Forsythe and Sheehy, 2011 ; Keltner and Haidt, 2003 ; Richards, 2001 ; Shiota et al, 2007 ; Sturm et al, 2020 ). Perception of fractal patterns is also commonly associated with the visual imagery elicited by psychedelics ( Klüver, 1966 ; Varley et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Awe walks are a simple intervention where people take a walk with the prior suggestion that they attend to details of the world around them and tap into their sense of wonder. A weekly 15 minute awe walk (over a time frame of 8 weeks) has been demonstrated to increase positive prosocial emotions and facilitate a reduction in mental distress in people’s day to day emotional state over time ( Sturm et al, 2020 ). Awe walks in natural settings post psychedelic experience may be beneficial, helping consolidate any feelings of awe which may persist beyond the psychedelic session ( Noorani et al, 2018 ).…”

Healing Anthropocene Syndrome: Planetary Health Requires Remediation of the Toxic Post-Truth Environment

“…"The blocking of one's capacity for wonder and the loss of the capacity to appreciate mystery can have serious effects upon our psychological health, not to mention the health of our whole planet" Rollo May, PhD. 1992 [124] Awe is a positive emotion that is typically provoked by grand stimuli (e.g., viewing scenes of the Earth from space, vast scenes of breathtaking nature, or childbirth can provoke awe); aweprovoking stimuli often present with an element of mystery and wonder; a scene or event that is not immediately understood [125,126]-perhaps indistinct with what philosophers refer to as the sublime (Figure 7) [127]. Awe has been connected to lower systemic inflammation, emotional well-being, increased life satisfaction, mindfulness, increased patience, decreased materialism, and pro-social and pro-environmental behaviors [128][129][130][131].…”