Recently, I took a “Science of Happiness” course taught by Dacher Keltner, a professor of Psychology at Berkeley. He suggested in order to feel happier it can be beneficial to take what he called an “awe walk.”
When I consider how and where I walk I think of walking to work, for exercise, and to do errands. I had never thought of a walk as a prompt to experience awe.
To help facilitate experiencing wonder, Keltner suggests we do three things:
- We take our “awe walk” in a place of “physical vastness” and “novelty.” Meaning, we find a park or a forest and then take a path we have not walked before.
- We turn off our cell phone and don’t look at it.
- Along the way we take regular deep breaths where we “count to six as you inhale and six as you exhale.”
It sounds like a pretty simple way to feel a little better.
Maybe give it a try?
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On Emotions 