In moments we feel wonder, admiration or an almost foreign feeling of pure connectedness when we take a second to stop and look, we are experiencing “awe”. It’s the feeling we get in the presence of something greater than ourselves as it challenges us to reconstruct our understanding of the world. 

Take having the privilege to witness the birth of a child for the very first time, or simply listening to a song you had no idea would be your favorite from there on out. It’s often we come across experiences that should make us feel that warm, yet strangely daring feeling of “awe.” But it’s also likely for us to pass it right by, as our minds are almost always focused on themselves instead of what we can see around us. 

According to the Greater Good Science Center, awe isn’t only found in “rare and intense events,” such as watching the sunrise at the top of a mountain, or watching your favorite football team win the Super Bowl. In fact, awe is something we most likely come across everyday. It’s the decision you make to open your eyes for just a second and look.

As a concept, awe has been around for centuries, “surfacing in discussions of religion and philosophy” among political historians Edmund Burke and Immanual Kant, says the Association for Psychological Science. 

While awe is an amazing sense of content or happiness, it would be faulty to confuse it with an overwhelming positive emotion. Unlike joy or cheerfulness, awe is a complex emotion, one that can be, “intensely pleasurable or imbued with dread,” according to the Greater Good.

From nature’s capacity for destruction, our perception of a leader’s coercive power, or experiencing  peace with others and Earth; in seeking awe, you’ll always find yourself asking the bold question of existence and materiality. 

Although this concept seems like it may be decieving, Summer Allen on “Eight Reasons Why Awe Makes Your Life Better,” suggests that seeking awe improves a variety of domains in one’s life, including mood, health, and creativity.

What this does is it allows you to detach from materialism, as you may find yourself in the moment more generous, humble, present, and equally in tune with both your critical and creative sides. 

Psychologists Libing Jiang and Dongmei Mei claim that this is because people who experience awe tend to appreciate their sense of individuality as less individual and more, “interrelated to the larger existence.” Essentially, this experience lifts people up from their mundane concerns which have accumulated over time in their day-to-day lives, such as learning the value of money and overworking themselves to get it. 

When we are in the presence of something indescribably vast, we feel almost “insignificant,” but so do our worries, says Sharham Heshmant in Psychology Today. In experiencing awe, you elevate above your anxieties and worries regarding your tiresome tasks or uninteresting responsibilities and view them from above. 

In a 2018 study, researchers Craig Anderson and Maria Monroy found that awe might actually be one crucial element to nature’s restorative abilities. 

Anderson and Monroy examined military veterans and undergraduate student’s response to interacting with nature after reasonably stressful events. They found that the more they spent time participating in outdoor activities, the more their stress levels decayed and their well-being improved, which can all be attributed to awe.

On some levels, experiencing awe might also have mind-boggling impacts on the immune system, according to researchers Jennifer Stellar and John Henderson. 

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a cytokine that acts as a marker for inflammation in the body and, if too much, can lead to chronic diseases. In one study done by Stellar and Henderson, researchers found that participants who had a somewhat higher inclination to experiencing awe had lower levels of IL-6.

Those who claimed to not have experienced awe as frequently also had lower levels of IL-6. But they also claimed to not have engaged or dwelled too long in negative emotions when unpleasant events occurred. 

While cytokines are necessary for fighting infection or disease, Stellar and Henderson say that wallowing in negative emotions can produce too much, leading to poor health such as heart disease and type-2 diabetes. 

This goes to show that everyone – despite how frequent you think awe encounters you – can reap the health benefits of having the courage to turn around a bad day, looking forward to those particularly “awe” inducing ones. 

You might assume these kinds of eye-opening, out of this world events happen sporadically, as if they are determined by a greater force. That might be true, but the fact is that “awe” is all around us at all times, and it doesn’t require privilege or money to experience it. 

What awe does ask of you is to simply slow down, appreciate what you can see, feel or hear, as this can help you create space for things you don’t normally pay attention to in your everyday tasks. 

According to Teja Pattabhirman in, “Six Ways to Incorporate Awe Into Your Daily Life,” slowing down is key to discovering things that bring you awe. If you’re watering your plants, think about how you’re providing a vital component for those living things. Taking a walk outside? Try to walk extra slow and see what things you come across you might’ve walked right by before.

In seeking awe, it’s all about slowing down and setting your intentions in what’s in front of you at that moment. As you actively put your body and mind at ease and into the present, you’ll find that appreciating the smallest details in where you are, what you see, or who you’re with can teach you a lot about yourself and your role in this world.