Take a weekly awe walk
Walk with the explicit intention of seeking something vast or wondrous — shifting your attention outward rather than inward.
Key takeaways
- What it is: Walk with the explicit intention of seeking something vast or wondrous — shifting your attention outward rather than inward.
- Why it works: A standard walk engages the default mode network’s self-referential processing: people use walks to think about themselves, plan, and ruminate. An awe walk — one taken with an explicit attitude of curiosity and openness to wonder — shifts attention away from the self-narrative toward the external world, producing the "small self" effect: a temporary quieting of the ego that is reliably associated with increased positive affect.
- Evidence: Backed by randomized trials / meta-analyses.
- Avoid: Taking the walk but listening to a podcast or music — this keeps attention inward and negates the attention-outward mechanism.
Why it works
A standard walk engages the default mode network’s self-referential processing: people use walks to think about themselves, plan, and ruminate. An awe walk — one taken with an explicit attitude of curiosity and openness to wonder — shifts attention away from the self-narrative toward the external world, producing the "small self" effect: a temporary quieting of the ego that is reliably associated with increased positive affect.
How to do it
- 1Schedule a 20-minute walk with one intention: to notice something vast, beautiful, or hard to explain.
- 2Leave earphones behind.
- 3When you notice something that produces even a mild sense of wonder, stop and attend to it fully for at least 30 seconds.
- 4Afterward, spend two minutes writing one sentence about what you noticed.
What the evidence says
RCT / meta-analysisSturm et al. (2020) found that eight weeks of weekly awe walks produced greater well-being, more prosocial emotions, and reduced self-focused attention compared to standard walks, in older adults — a randomized controlled design.
Honest caveat: The study was in older adults; generalizability to other age groups and the precise dose required are not yet established.
- — Sturm et al. (2020), "Big smile, small self: Awe walks promote prosocial positive emotions in older adults," Emotion
Common mistake
Taking the walk but listening to a podcast or music — this keeps attention inward and negates the attention-outward mechanism.
IX Coach schedules your weekly awe walk and sends a single orienting prompt beforehand — one sense or direction to attend to — so the walk has structure without losing openness.
Practice this with IX Coach →