Awe and Well-Being, Made Practical
How does experiencing awe improve well-being and what practices cultivate it?
Awe — the emotion triggered by encountering something vast that challenges your current mental frameworks — reliably reduces self-focused thinking, lowers inflammatory markers in some studies, increases prosocial behavior, and expands the perceived sense of time available. Dacher Keltner’s research shows awe is more accessible than people think and can be deliberately cultivated without waiting for once-in-a-decade peak experiences.
Awe has been called the emotion that makes you feel small in the best possible way. Dacher Keltner and Jonathan Haidt’s foundational work identified its two hallmarks: perceived vastness (something much larger than the self) and the need to accommodate (the experience defies your existing mental models). What followed from their research was surprising: awe reliably quiets the self-narrative, extends perceived time, and increases generosity. It is also measurable, inducible in labs, and accessible in ordinary life far more often than people use it. Below are the practices with the mechanisms and the honest evidence.
Practices
- Take a weekly awe walk
- Use documentary and large-scale art to trigger awe
- Write from a small-self perspective after awe
- Attend to moral beauty as an everyday awe source
- Use awe to expand perceived time
- Build a personal catalog of micro-awe triggers
- Use awe to reconnect with something larger than yourself
Take a weekly awe walk
Walk with the explicit intention of seeking something vast or wondrous — shifting your attention outward rather than inward.
Use documentary and large-scale art to trigger awe
Watch content that conveys genuine vastness — deep space, ecosystems, historical scale — with full attention rather than as background.
Write from a small-self perspective after awe
After an awe experience, write briefly from the perspective of someone whose personal concerns feel appropriately small.
Attend to moral beauty as an everyday awe source
Notice and dwell on acts of extraordinary virtue, skill, or dedication — a common awe trigger that most people overlook.
Use awe to expand perceived time
Deliberately induce awe when you feel time-pressured or rushed — awe reliably slows perceived time and reduces the feeling of scarcity.
Build a personal catalog of micro-awe triggers
Identify the small, reliable stimuli in your everyday environment that reliably produce a mild sense of wonder — and use them deliberately.
Use awe to reconnect with something larger than yourself
When awe makes the self feel small, follow the natural impulse toward belonging — toward community, nature, or humanity at large.
Practice this with IX Coach
Reading about a practice changes nothing on its own. IX Coach turns these into a guided, adaptive routine — discerning where you are in real time and walking the practice with you, session after session.
IX Coach: 7 days free, then $40/month (about $1.30/day).