Personal development

How to experience more wow

Ready to amplify your life with more 'wow' moments? Let's delve into the art of creating unforgettable experiences, transforming ordinary into extraordinary, and embracing the magic of everyday life. Prepare to be amazed!

Awe might seem an unobtainable luxury to many but, with the right approach, you can enjoy it daily – no mountain required

Awe can seem mind-bending in part because it is

It forces us to adjust our mental structures to assimilate new information
In around a quarter of awe experiences, people also report feeling a layer of fear
Threat-based awe might be more prominent outside the Western European and North American populations that have been the source of many awe studies
One study found that awe experiences are more prevalent in hierarchical cultures
There appears to be a physical connection between awe and health, happiness, and good health

Learn more

Our notions about awe – what the emotion is like and what experiences are likely to inspire it – have changed over time

Nowadays, awe has mostly positive connotations, particularly in the Western world, but this wasn’t always the case
The American environmental historian William Cronon articulates this change in his essay ‘The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature’ (1995): Go back 250 years in American and European history, and you do not find nearly so many people wandering around remote corners of the planet looking for what today we would call ‘the wilderness experience’.
Whereas people today seek solace and awe on mountains and in canyons, this would probably have seemed strange to people in the 18th century or earlier, at which time Cronon says we were much more likely to associate being in wilderness with ‘bewilderment’ or ‘terror’ (and thus closer to the historic darker notions of awe).

Links & books

A 2018 white paper for the Greater Good Science Center delves into dozens of studies about the science of awe.

It includes a discussion about how to define awe, who is most (and least) likely to experience awe, why a feeling such as awe might have evolved, what experiences tend to elicit awe, and what’s known about the physical and psychological effects of awe
The ultimate awe experience might come from seeing Earth from space.

What to do

Awe is different for everyone, and some days you might just not be feeling it. The nice thing is, once you start thinking about awe, you might begin to notice all the places it shows up in your everyday life.

Seven ways to seek out more awe
Witness other people’s moral beauty and courage
Move in unison with others
Get out in nature
Listen to music
Go for a walk
Take a deep breath and pay attention to the sound and feeling of your breath
Be open to inspiration