[Science Solitaire] Oh, we need ‘awe’!

What if you intentionally cultivated “awe” in your calendared days and nights? What would it do to you?

My team and I have weekly one-hour awe-inducing sessions called “Brain Rain” that we invented which started over 10 years ago.  Each of us take weekly turns to share with the rest what fascinates us (does not matter what it is) and why.  These sessions were not originally intended to induce awe but as I look back, a vast majority of those Brain Rain sessions did just that for us. They were originally intended so that we get to know each other better and we could do that when we take the time to share and listen to what each other is all about through our seething interests. After every session we have had, conversations about it usually get so lively and strangely, we all feel a sense of connection with each other even if the topic of the Brain Rain was something alien to all, except the one who presented it.

Last week, our colleague shared her fascination with “artistic swimming” (formerly called “synchronized swimming”) which included various clips that made us all feel that humans, despite their more famous land-based accomplishments, are exceptional aquatic mammals! They looked like kaleidoscope images except that the elements are dancing humans on water!

That made me think about “awe” as one emotion and how least scientifically studied its role is relative to other positive emotions such as “joy/happiness.” But in the studies I have found, “awe” seemed to have a very profound role in our well-being. “Awe” is being overwhelmed by the immensity of something – nature, ideas, masterful works – anything that makes you feel “little” and “expansive” at the same time, which deepens your sense of humility. 

In one study, researchers found that when we experience positive emotions including “awe”, we feel that we have more time and people who feel that are more willing to help another. Also, those who felt awe chose experiences over material choices which gives us lasting value. But isn’t it really what we make of time and not time per se that makes for the meaning in our lives? Then, this lodges “feeling awed” in the central circuit we should all be looped to.

In a 2021 study, feelings of awe can regulate depression which makes for a promising tool for intervention in those who suffer from it. This is proof that aside from medication which experts found to be helpful, what we cultivate from our own well of emotions can also help us heal ourselves.

Being awed also leads us to humility. In fact, a 2018 study found that people who we more “awed” were humbler. And “humble” here is not simply about not touting one’s own assets although it included that. “Humble” means that they were rated by their own friends as “humble.” These people also felt more humility in the two weeks that followed an experience of “awe.” In addition, they had a more balanced view of their own pluses and minuses in character and recognized that other “external forces” such as “other people” deserve credit for their own personal achievements. When I read those findings, I had a cartoony image in my head of having a ready dose of “awe” in interviews and meetings when egos have tendencies to reign supreme.

I am serious about that. Maybe in conference rooms in all companies and halls of government offices, especially Heads of State (instead of their own portraits), including the UN Hall of General Assembly, we should ALWAYS have prints of the latest snapshot of the universe from the James Webb telescope, videos of underwater life, up-close and initiate shots of intricate bodies and behavior of different animals, the magnificence of flora, and what humans can incredibly do alone or together to change the world. Nature experiences have been proven indeed to elicit a sense of “awe” and, as it looks like it, part of our own self-help redemption. That is why it is shattering to our own mental health if nature will be reduced to merely being a backdrop of human folly.

But “awe” does not have to be an experience of the vastness of nature and the universe. You don’t have to wait to experience the sea, mountain or forest or get on Elon Musk’s space ships to be awed. You can be awed by knowing about the extraordinary feats many human beings in all dimensions of life. That is why to me and my team, Brain Rain, has become central to our culture and a palpable mean of the often-summoned HR phrase: “employee engagement.”

In our language, “awe” is “mangha.” Based in studies so far, to have “mangha” as a stream in life’s watershed of emotions, makes you a better human. – Rappler.com

Maria Isabel Garcia is a science writer. She has written two books, “Science Solitaire” and “Twenty One Grams of Spirit and Seven Ounces of Desire.” You can reach her at sciencesolitaire@gmail.com.