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Weekly awe walks eased pain
The weekly walk
Each walk lasted about half an hour, in a place that might surprise them and stir a little childlike wonder. They slowed down, deepened their breathing, and synced it to their steps.
The looking followed one pattern. They studied a tree and then the whole pattern of its leaves, and the light on the tree and then the patterns of light. They watched clouds and then the full pattern of the clouds. They listened to one child laugh at a playground and then to the whole symphony of laughter.
What changed
Over the eight weeks, awe rose. The walkers felt more kindness, and their photographs showed a wider awareness of what surrounded them. They also reported less physical pain, possibly through reduced inflammation.
Six years later, a follow-up found better brain health. Other work ties awe to reduced inflammation, higher vagal tone, and fewer long COVID symptoms, and in people with long COVID, a minute of awe a day reduced symptoms.
How could awe reduce inflammation?
In a 2015 study in the journal Emotion, Jennifer Stellar and colleagues measured positive emotions and levels of interleukin-6, a protein that signals inflammation in the body. Of the positive emotions they tracked, awe was the strongest predictor of lower interleukin-6. Chronically high levels of that protein are associated with conditions such as heart disease and depression. The study did not establish a mechanism, and the vagus nerve is one of the pathways researchers have proposed.
How do selfies reveal awe?
In a 2020 awe walk study in Emotion, led by Virginia Sturm at the University of California, San Francisco, older adults took a selfie on each walk. Over the weeks, the people in the photographs took up less of the frame and showed broader smiles. The researchers read the shrinking figure as a smaller sense of self and a wider view of the surroundings. A comparison group that walked without the awe instruction did not show the same change.
Why would slow breathing matter on a walk?
Slow breathing increases heart rate variability, a common measure of vagal tone. The heart speeds up slightly on each inhale and slows on each exhale, an effect called respiratory sinus arrhythmia that runs through the vagus nerve. Larger swings between those two states are generally read as a sign of flexible parasympathetic control. Heart rate variability is routinely tracked in studies of stress and recovery.
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