Welcome to the first installment of Well’s series dedicated
to walking tips and inspiration.
This time, we are exploring “awe walks,” outdoor rambles
intended to cultivate a sense of amazement. To help, I enlisted Dacher Keltner,
a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the
author of “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform
Your Life.”
اضافة اعلان
Awe, Keltner explained, is that complex emotion we
experience when encountering something so vast that our sense of self recedes.
It can be positive or negative (like the feelings that come from witnessing
violence or death), but the awe that feels good is the type found in moments of
wonder and humility.
Where we associate our sense of awe
Many people associate awe with places like the Grand Canyon,
Keltner said. But some feel it more frequently in response to commonplace
things like a nighttime sky blazing with stars, he said. In short: Awe is more
accessible than you might think.
And research suggests it’s good for your health, too. Awe
can help calm the nervous system, reduce inflammation and foster a sense of
community (even if you experience the emotion alone). People who took awe
walks, one study found, felt more upbeat and hopeful than walkers who did not.
These walks also have restorative benefits, said Keltner,
who has seen the positive effects firsthand. When his daughter was younger, she
had anxiety and became preoccupied with dying, he said. So, they began to take
nightly awe walks to a giant cedar tree in their neighborhood. Together, they
touched the tree’s bark and talked about the cycle of life. As the months
passed, this ritual connected them to nature and each other, Keltner said, as
his daughter went from being “freaked out about dying” to getting “a sense of
‘this is just part of life.’”
“An awe walk can be a healing ritual,” he said. “Twelve years
later, I still walk to touch that tree.”
Ready to try it? Here’s how:
Decide on a placeYou can pick somewhere you’ve never been, Keltner said,
adding that you’re more likely to feel awe in an environment where the sights
and sounds are unfamiliar — a local park or trail you’ve never visited, a new
neighborhood in your city or town, a body of water if you live near one. Or you
can travel to a familiar spot and imagine that you’re seeing it for the first
time, he said.
No matter where you go, the fleeting beauty of a dawn sky or
sunset has been shown to cultivate awe.
Once you’ve arrived at your spot, give yourself at least 20
minutes of uninterrupted time. If you can, turn off your phone. Then take a few
deep breaths “to shift out of our hyper task-focused mind,” Keltner said.
Breathe in for four counts, hold for four, breathe out for six. Do this for a
few minutes. Then start walking.
Pay attention to your senses
Heading outside hoping to be awed can seem daunting, but try
not to put too much pressure on yourself, Keltner said. Instead, he said, just
be open.
Take in the sights, sounds, and scents that usually escape
your awareness but have the potential to raise goose bumps. When something
catches your attention, “stop and pause and feel,” Keltner said.
Sense the wind on your face. Touch the petals of a flower.
Tune into the sounds of what Rachel Carson, the American marine biologist and
the author of “Silent Spring,” once called the “living music” of “insect
orchestras.”
Keltner often gives his students an assignment: to simply
notice the sky. His students examine the colors, clouds and how the vista can
change in an instant. “They’re blown away,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘I haven’t
looked at the sky in years.’”
Start small
When you are on your walk, get in the habit of pausing and
homing in on a detail — a ripple on a lake, an ant moving industriously through
the grass — then, slowly expand your field of vision. The shift in focus to
vastness can sometimes inspire awe, Keltner said.
Or pan from the ground to the sky. If you are in a city or
the suburbs, he said, fix your gaze on a window or doorway, and then move it
up. (Until I tried this exercise, I’d never noticed how many building rooftops
in my town had statues and carvings of animals, human faces and even
gargoyles.)
What Keltner calls “part to whole” focusing can apply to
people, too. If you’re in a crowd, start with one person and zoom out to take in
the whole system of human activity, he said. “Walk by a pickup basketball game,
and you’ve got enough humanity for a Shakespearean play,” he said.
I’m an early riser, so I’ve started taking awe walks at
dawn. I watch the sky change from violet to orange to fuchsia and have seen a
small colony of bees wake up and start to work.
I even discovered a
nest of baby robins, lodged snugly in a juniper bush two blocks from my house.
Now I walk there every morning and listen to their faint, reedy chirping.
Like Keltner’s strolls with his daughter to the cedar tree,
seeing the nest every day sustains me, somehow. I feel a twinge that the robins
will leave soon. Until I find another wondrous sight to delight me, I’ll keep
walking — phone stashed, eyes, and ears open.
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