Have you ever been standing on the beach looking out at the vast ocean and suddenly felt very small? Were your arms covered in goosebumps? Did time seem as though it had slowed down a bit? Maybe something similar happened the last time you looked up at the stars or went to a concert or an art museum. Perhaps you experienced the same disorienting feeling while watching your son take his first steps.
If this sounds familiar, you’ve experienced awe. Like all human emotions, awe is tricky to define. But in 2003, scientists took a stab at nailing down the two key features of the feeling—a sense of physical or cognitive vastness and the momentary inability to process it. The researchers also whittled the experience of awe down to five triggers: threat, beauty, exceptional ability, virtue, and the supernatural.
They hypothesized that awe, perhaps in the form of the veneration humans feel listening to a commanding leader, evolved as a way to achieve cohesion and order in early human societies. Other scientists think awe developed as a way for early man to find safe refuges, like high vantage points that offer a stunning view—as well as a perch to watch for predators.
While modern humans no longer need to be on guard against hungry wolves, awe still provides us with a slew of benefits, according to scientists who study the emotion. Research has shown that people who often experience awe had lower levels of cytokines, the proteins that cause inflammation. Other studies have reported that awe can make us feel less stressed, less lonely, and even less materialistic. Frequent doses of awe seem to lead to a greater satisfaction with life overall.
Perhaps the most surprising finding of this research is that most of us don’t need to book a plane ticket to track down moments of awe. For instance, one study found that, on average, people experience awe twice a week during the course of their everyday lives. Best of all, actively seeking it out doesn’t seem to dampen its physical and mental benefits.
In a landmark 2022 study, researchers found that healthy older adults who took a weekly 15-minute “awe walk” for eight weeks reported feeling more joy, compassion, and gratitude, and less daily distress. Participants who walked regularly but without a focus on awe did not experience the same benefits.
According to lead author Virginia Sturm, PhD—a neuroscientist at the University of California San Francisco who studies brain health and emotions—the notable benefits of this free and easy intervention came as a “complete surprise” to the research team. “And this is not specific to older adults at all,” she said. “We’d expect these results across populations.”
Here’s how it worked: Participants in the awe group were briefly introduced to the concept of awe and instructed how to cultivate it as they walked, looking for sights like the intricate patterns of leaves and sensations like the feeling of sun on their skin or the smell of a flowering tree. Neither group was instructed where to walk, and participants exercised in rural, suburban, and urban settings.
In questionnaires after each walk, participants in both groups reflected on the emotions they experienced during the session. Those in the control group reported more inwardly focused thoughts like worrying about upcoming travel. People looking for awe, on the other hand, tended to convey outwardly focused sentiments, like excitement about seeing a grandchild or the appreciation of a beautiful day.
Similarly, in the selfies that participants were asked to take during their walks, the awe group wore increasingly big smiles as the weeks went on and made themselves smaller subjects in their photos, focusing instead on the world around them.
This transformed sense of a “small self,” may be a product of neurological activity triggered by awe, according to Sturm. While scientists still aren’t completely sure what happens in the brain during a particularly awe-inspiring moment, they do know that the emotion “turns off the system in the brain that is active during rumination and worrying,” she says. “It also activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which makes you feel good and relaxed.”
Sturm says that virtually anyone anywhere can find awe—no gym shoes required.
“It doesn’t have to be a walk. You can find awe sitting at your desk or petting your dog,” she says. “Shift your attention outward, then use your senses, appreciating the details and the wonder of the world that’s around us all the time.”
And don’t worry if it takes a little time. “It’s a practice,” says Sturm. “Once you start doing it, it gets easier.”
And while it might seem like the world would become less awe-inspiring the more you look at it, the opposite is true. In Sturm’s study, the awe-walkers reported feeling more of the emotion with each passing week. How awesome is that?
February / March 2026
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Featuring:
➡ Archaeologists Found a Skeleton Wearing a Silver Amulet. The Discovery Is Rewriting the History of Christianity.
➡ The Stray Dogs of Chernobyl Are Rapidly Mutating. Scientists Are Still Trying to Figure Out What It Means.
➡ New Evidence Could Upend What We Know About the Charles Lindbergh Baby Murder
➡ Police Found Mysterious Notes in a Dead Man's Pocket. They Turned Out to Be Codes That Not Even the FBI Can Break.
December 2025 / January 2026
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Featuring:
➡ An Angel of Death Preyed on Hospital Patients for Years.
➡ How America's Most Advanced Lab Brought the Killer to Justice.
➡ A 3,000-Ton Locomotive Was Loose, Unstoppable, and Filled With Toxic Cargo
➡ An Underwater Cave Promised Adventure and Glory. No One Expected It to Become a Tomb.
➡ Your Consciousness Can Predict the Future, Some Scientists Say
October / November 2025
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Featuring:
➡ Inside the Secret Island Where Death Is Optional
➡ A Legendary Ship Sank Without Warning. Fifty Years Later, Science Could Finally Solve the Mystery of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
➡ This Tech Rebel Threw Away $900 Million in a Municipal Dump. Can Robots Find His Lost Fortune?
➡ Sex Workers, LSD, and Mind Control: What Happened in the CIA's Lab of Nightmares at 225 Chestnut Street
August / September 2025
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Featuring:
➡ The Worst Air Disaster in American History Happened in Broad Daylight. Will More Mistakes Keep Happening?
➡ NASA Has a Plan to Save Earth from Planet-Destroying Asteroids. It Sounds Even Wilder than Science Fiction.
➡ A Naval Officer Says Underwater UFOs Are Legitimate Threats. The Evidence Is Hard to Ignore.
➡ When You Die, a Psychedelic Molecule Shapes Your Final Moments of Consciousness, a New Theory Reveals.
June/July 2025
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Featuring:
➡ This Undersea Explorer Found America's Greatest Sunken Treasure. Then Things Got Really Weird.
➡ Is Bigfoot Hiding in the Swamps of Florida? This Group Says It Has Proof.
➡ Scientists May Have Gotten the Global-Warming Timeline Seriously Wrong.
➡ A Third State Now Exists Between Life and Death, Some Scientists Now Believe
April/May 2025
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Featuring:
➡ Scientists Successfully Revive a Dead Brain, Redefining the Boundary Between Life and Death
➡ Fingerprints Keep Leading to Wrongful Convictions. Why Do Courts Still Rely on Them?
➡ For 80 Years, the North Sea Held a Deadly Killer. Now Scientists Are Racing to Defuse the Threat.
➡ They Built the Quietest Room in the World. Why Is Everyone So Afraid to Step Inside It?
February/March 2025
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Featuring:
➡ This Guy Says He Knows the Truth About UFOs. Should We Believe Him?
➡ Scientists Are Now One Step Away From Solving Nuclear Fusion—And Unlocking Unlimited Energy.
➡ A Million-Dollar Heist Rocked the Art World— Then Amateur Sleuths Cracked the Case
➡ A New Era of Missile Warfare Has Begun—and the U.S. Isn’t Ready
December/January 2025
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Featuring:
➡ A Clue Hidden in a 400-Year-Old Map Might Have Just Solved One of America's Greatest Mysteries
➡ Inside the Deranged Plot to Smuggle Cocaine With an Armed Soviet-Era Submarine
➡ This Brilliant Engineer Helped Build the B2 Bomber—Then He Sold America's Stealth Secrets to China
➡ Your Consciousness Can Connect With the Whole Universe
October/November 2024
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Featuring:
➡Untold Secrets Reveal How the Castle Bravo Test Became America’s Worst Nuclear Disaster
➡ This Body Was Found Preserved on a Block of Ice in a Colorado Shed. It Had Been There for 30 Years.
➡ It Was Supposed to Be America's Greatest Victory in Space—Then It Became NASA’s Worst Nightmare
➡ The Sidewinder Missile Ruled the Air—Then the Soviets Stole the Design
August/September 2024
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Featuring:
➡This Man Knows the Truth About Amelia Earhart. Why Doesn't Anyone Believe Him?
➡ The Army's Machine Gun Is No Match for Cheap Chinese Body Armor. So It's Making a New One.
➡ Russia Built a Stunning Rival to the Supersonic Concorde—and Then It Fell From the Sky
➡ A Navy Admiral Says Underwater UFOs Are a Threat—and the Pentagon is Withholding Secrets
June / July 2024
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Featuring:
➡4 Black Eggs Have Surfaced From the Depths of the Ocean— and the Mysterious Creatures Inside Are Baffling Science
➡ A $2 Million Treasure Appeared in a Kentucky Cornfield. No One Knows Where It Came From.
➡ A Million-Dollar Heist Rocked the Art World— Then Amateur Sleuths Cracked the Case
➡ A New Era of Missile Warfare Has Begun—and the U.S. Isn’t Ready
April May / 2024
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Featuring:
➡The Man Who Knows Too Much About Area 51
➡ How the FBI Took Down the Internet's Most Dangerous Website
➡ A Staggering New Clue Emerges in the D.B. Cooper Hijacking Mystery
➡ The Wildest Prison Break in U.S. History
➡ The Secret to a Perfect Lawn Lies in One of These 10 Electric Lawnmowers
February / March 2024
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Featuring:
➡The Incredible Mystery of NASA’s Missing Moondust
➡ Inside the Final Fiery Minutes of the East Palestine Train Wreck
➡ Scientists Believe They’ve Unlocked Consciousness—and It Connects to the Entire Universe
➡ Why This Unstoppable Stealth Bomber Will Rule the Skies
➡ America Is Developing a New Nuclear Bomb—But Can’t Test Whether It Works
➡ The 8 Best, Expert-Recommended Solar-Powered Generators
Special Issue: Nukes
➡ How Deadly Nuclear Waste Is Menacing This St. Louis Neighborhood
➡ The Terrifying History of Russia's Nuclear Submarine Graveyard
➡ Strange Mutations in Stray Dogs Near Chernobyl Suggest They Are Rapidly Evolving
➡ America Dumped 56 Million Gallons of Radioactive Material Along the Columbia River—Then It Started to Leak
December 2023 / January 2024
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Featuring:
➡ A New Clue In Amelia Earhart's Disappearance Emerges From the Ocean
➡ How an Alleged Water Bandit Stole $25 Million in Water from Thirsty California Farms
➡ A Coal Mine Exploded and 300 Miners Died. What Went Wrong?
➡ China Just Built a Terrifying New Aircraft Carrier and May Soon Dominate the Seas
October / November 2023
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Featuring:
➡ How Rats Took Over Our Cities—And Why We Can't Stop Them
➡ This Language Is on the Verge of Extinction. Can It Be Saved?
➡ America's Deadliest Warplane Returns in a New Doomsday Role
➡ This Amateur Diving Group Kept Solving Cold Cases. Then Its Own Skeletons Surfaced.
➡ The Scientific Breakthrough That Could Put an End to Gray Hair.
August/September 2023
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Featuring:
➡ Immortality Is in Reach. But It’s Not What We Imagined.
➡ Your Next iPhone (and Nuclear Subs) Will Be Powered By Space Metal
➡Scientists Now Think We Can Build a Warp Drive
➡ China and Russia Have Cracked the Stealth Code. Can the U.S. Regain Air Dominance?
June/July 2023
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Featuring:
➡ The CIA’s Secret Plan to Build a Laser Beam Powered by the Human Mind
➡ The 747 Ruled the Skies—Then One Slammed Into a Mountain
➡The Race to Contain AI Before Singularity
➡ These Florida Homes Aren’t Just Hurricane-Proof—They’re Blueprints for the Future
April/May 2023
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Featuring:
➡ AI Is on the Cusp of Taking Control—This Is How It May All Go Wrong
➡ There’s No Weapon Russia Fears More Than the HIMARS Rocket Launcher
➡The Nuclear-Submarine Arms Race Is Getting Intense, and the U.S. Just Took a Massive Leap Forward
➡ Iran Is Becoming a Drone Superpower—By Stealing American Technology
February/March 2023
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Featuring:
➡ The Greatest Treasure Hunt in American History Ended—and Then Things Got Weird
➡ These Are the High-Powered Weapons Ukraine Needs to Send Russia Running
➡ The Secret War to Take Out Iran’s Fleet of F-14 Jets
➡ Russia Is Trying to Intimidate the U.S. with Hypersonic Missiles and Big, Scary Nukes—And It's More Than a Threat
December 2022/January 2023
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Featuring:
➡ Is Death Real?
➡ China and Russia Are Dominating the Hypersonic Arms Race—And It’s Not Even Close
➡ When the South Fork Dam Broke, a Pennsylvania City Washed Away. Which Town Is Next?
➡ The Navy’s New $13 Billion Aircraft Carrier Is Already Obsolete. This Weapon Can Save It.
October/November 2022
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Featuring:
➡ Can America's M1 Abrams Still Compete With China's and Russia's Latest Battle Tanks?
➡ Inside the Final Minutes of the Concorde Disaster—and How It Doomed Supersonic Travel for Decades
➡ How the Massive Cargo Ship Felicity Ace Sank, Taking $400 Million Worth of Exotic Supercars With It
➡ I Turned My Old Gas-Guzzler Into a Zippy EV for $15,000
August/September 2022
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Featuring:
➡ Cosmic Secrets of the 17 Most Powerful Mega-Telescopes on Earth—and Beyond
➡ Can the Air Force's Secret, Hypersonic Jet Reclaim the Skies From Russia and China?
➡ For 50 Years, the Zodiac Killer's 340 Cipher Stumped the FBI—Then Three Amateurs Cracked the Code
➡ America's Most Fearsome Howitzer Has Entered the War in Ukraine
June/July 2022
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Featuring:
➡ Every Single Drone Fighting in the Skies Over Ukraine
➡ How to Buy a New Car in 2022 Without Getting Fleeced
➡ This Megastructure Could Keep Us Alive Forever
➡ The Race to Revolutionize EV Batteries
Ashley Stimpson is a freelance journalist who writes most often about science, conservation, and the outdoors. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, WIRED, Nat Geo, Atlas Obscura, and elsewhere. She lives in Columbia, Maryland, with her partner, their greyhound, and a very bad cat.
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