How feeling awe in nature can spur mental well-being and personal growth

You might enjoy ski­ing or hik­ing. But do you feel at home in the moun­tains? Do you feel con­nect­ed to the wilder­ness? Accord­ing to a new study, that sense of being “home” in nature could be linked to your life sat­is­fac­tion and per­son­al growth, at least for young peo­ple. Anoth­er new study of old­er peo­ple finds that a con­nec­tion to nature seems to make them hap­pi­er and more will­ing to help others.

In the first study, a team of researchers in Nor­way fol­lowed a group of col­lege stu­dents who were train­ing to lead wilder­ness expe­di­tions in one of two set­tings: either in a for­est in the mid­dle of a storm or across a high-alti­tude plateau. The stu­dents agreed to com­plete a pre- and post-adven­ture ques­tion­naire, which assessed their life sat­is­fac­tion and per­son­al growth.

A por­tion of these stu­dents also answered prompts every evening of their five-day excur­sion. They were asked to describe a strong expe­ri­ence with nature that day, try­ing to cap­ture how it made them feel. The researchers divid­ed emo­tion­al states into “hedo­nic” feelings—that is, ones of plea­sure and enjoyment—as well as “eudai­mon­ic” feelings—those of engage­ment and purpose.

Then, they answered ques­tions prob­ing eight “aes­thet­ic” aspects of the experience:

• I expe­ri­enced beau­ti­ful scenery
• I was aware of small details in nature
• I appre­ci­at­ed vari­ety in nature
• I felt every­thing was con­nect­ed in nature
• I felt at home in nature
• I felt nature evokes wonder
• I felt beau­ty in nature evoked wonder
• I felt nature evoked awe and respect

In ana­lyz­ing their respons­es, the researchers found that peo­ple who felt at home in nature had high­er life sat­is­fac­tion and per­son­al growth. This feel­ing was also the most emo­tion­al aspect of the nature experience—but the results var­ied depend­ing on the set­ting of the nat­ur­al expe­ri­ence. In the cold plateau envi­ron­ment, peo­ple who felt at home in nature showed the most sat­is­fac­tion and growth—and also both hedo­nic and eudai­mon­ic feel­ings. In the stormy moun­tain envi­ron­ment, those at home in nature report­ed a sense of growth, but not sat­is­fac­tion with their lives, and only hedo­nic feelings.

The researchers attribute these dif­fer­ences to the fact that in the stormy for­est set­ting, stu­dents had to work hard in order to stay warm and dry, explain­ing that “when they suc­ceed­ed in this, they felt con­nect­ed to nature, which is a hedo­nic feel­ing.” The expe­ri­ence was broad­er for the stu­dents on the plateau: In addi­tion to keep­ing warm and dry, they skied for long dis­tances. The phys­i­cal exer­tion and dis­tance cov­ered allowed them to feel “con­nect­ed to nature in more com­plex ways, both hedo­nic and eudaimonic.”

What aspect of their expe­ri­ences made stu­dents feel at home in nature? By exam­in­ing their dai­ly expe­ri­ence nar­ra­tives, researchers found that “won­der” was key to feel­ing at home in wilder­ness. Won­der can be under­stood in two dimen­sions: a feel­ing of sur­prise and fas­ci­na­tion evoked by an ele­ment of nature, and a feel­ing evok­ing reflec­tion on what we per­ceive, moti­vat­ing a fur­ther search for insight. Many of the stu­dents who felt at home in nature cit­ed at least one of these dimen­sions in their expe­ri­ence narratives.

Those results were rein­forced by a new study from two Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia cam­pus­es of the impact of “awe walks” on 60 old­er adults. Par­tic­i­pants, aged 60–90, were asked to take a week­ly 15-minute out­door walk. Half were asked to “ori­ent their walks to expe­ri­ence awe”; the oth­er half were giv­en no spe­cial instruc­tions. Researchers also asked them to take a pho­to of them­selves on this walk every week.

The researchers found that the par­tic­i­pants who went on these awe walks expressed greater feel­ings of social con­nec­tion and pos­i­tive emo­tions com­pared to their nor­mal walk­ing peers. In their self­ies, the awe walk­ers also includ­ed them­selves less and less in the pho­to, which the researchers inter­pret­ed as a sense that the self was just one small part of a big­ger pic­ture. Awe walk­ers even dis­played a greater smile inten­si­ty in the pho­tos over the span of the eight weeks.

Togeth­er, these out­comes sug­gest that when peo­ple expe­ri­ence awe, they feel simul­ta­ne­ous­ly small­er and bet­ter. In tak­ing the focus off of them­selves, they seem to get happier—and they express a greater will­ing­ness to help others.

While we know that spend­ing time in nature can boost our well-being in mul­ti­ple ways, such as by increas­ing our cre­ativ­i­ty, atten­tion, and gen­eros­i­ty, these stud­ies offer insight as to what dimen­sion of our out­door expe­ri­ence actu­al­ly caus­es the ben­e­fits we reap, how won­der plays a role, and whether our feel­ing is root­ed in pass­ing feel­ings of plea­sure or deep­er ones of ful­fill­ment and con­nec­tion. These results sug­gest that it is worth­while to chal­lenge our­selves in nature, from a sim­ple walk to an out­door activ­i­ty we haven’t done before. If we can pro­voke a feel­ing of won­der with­in our­selves, then we’re on the right path.

– Teja Pat­tab­hi­ra­man is a senior at UC Berke­ley, where she stud­ies Pub­lic Health and Neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy to devel­op her inter­ests in envi­ron­men­tal health, men­tal well­be­ing, and health equi­ty. Based at UC-Berke­ley, Greater Good high­lights ground break­ing sci­en­tif­ic research into the roots of com­pas­sion and altru­ism. Copy­right Greater Good.

To Learn More:

• Four ways hik­ing pro­motes cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al health
• Learn about cog­ni­tion and men­tal self-rota­tion with these quick brain teasers
• Awe­some: Brain scans shed light on the brain net­works sup­port­ing Awe
• New study rein­forces the impor­tance of walk­ing through forests for men­tal and gen­er­al health
• Solv­ing the Brain Fit­ness Puz­zle Is the Key to Self-Empow­ered Aging