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Experiencing awe quite literally improves your health

Dwight Widaman
awe

The cologne Cathedral. Photo: wikimedia.

The world needs more “awe,” says Twitter account Culture Critic (@Culture–crit). The account regularly posts messages about culture, past and present, and how much we have seemingly lost to “progress.” It also defends tradition as a good thing for humanity, saying, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.”

It recently posted the benefits of finding yourself in “awe” with a beautiful photo of European architecture. The account’s followers then posted their own awe-inspiring photos.

The post generated significant conversation.

Here’s what it stated:

Awe, which has only been studied properly in the last two decades, has been shown to:

• Reduce stress

• Trigger the release of oxytocin

• Lower levels of inflammatory cytokines

Being made to feel small (experiencing “self-diminishment”) even quells our negative self-talk, by deactivating the part of the cortex involved with how we perceive ourselves. Through awe we become less attuned to ourselves and more attuned to the wider world. Dacher Keltner at UC Berkeley said: “We are at this cultural moment of narcissism and self-shame and criticism and entitlement; awe gets us out of that.”

Reminder that experiencing awe quite literally improves your health.

Awe, which has only been studied properly in the last two decades, has been shown to:
• Reduce stress
• Trigger the release of oxytocin
• Lower levels of inflammatory cytokines

Being made to feel small (experiencing “self-diminishment”) even quells our negative self-talk, by deactivating the part of the cortex involved with how we perceive ourselves.

Through awe we become less attuned to ourselves and more attuned to the wider world. Dacher Keltner at UC Berkeley said: “We are at this cultural moment of narcissism and self-shame and criticism and entitlement; awe gets us out of that.”

Neuroscientists define awe it as the emotional response to something vast that defies (and changes) our existing frame of reference of something.

READ: What’s happening to the great Cathedrals of Europe?

What’s one way to experience it? Travel to your nearest cathedral and gaze upwards.

Gothic architecture was built for this very purpose – through maximum height and maximum light. Achieving this at vast scale was a critical breakthrough by medieval engineers, who pioneered the flying buttresses, the pointed arch, and various other innovations which made taller and thinner walls possible.

Those builders also believed that light itself was divine, and that when it poured in through the great windows it elevated one’s consciousness to the heavens.

As English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge said: “The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable.”

Neuroscientists define awe it as the emotional response to something vast that defies (and changes) our existing frame of reference of something. What’s one way to experience it? Travel to your nearest cathedral and gaze upwards. Gothic architecture was built for this very purpose – through maximum height and maximum light. Achieving this at vast scale was a critical breakthrough by medieval engineers, who pioneered the flying buttresses, the pointed arch, and various other innovations which made taller and thinner walls possible.

Those builders also believed that light itself was divine, and that when it poured in through the great windows it elevated one’s consciousness to the heavens. As English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge said: “The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable.”

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If you are on Twitter (X), follow Culture Critic for more inspiring photos and discussion, and a look at what our society is at risk of losing.

–Dwight Widaman | MV

Lead photo: Wyatt Wellman (avatar name) Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0

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