Design awe walks that amplify the psychological return of outdoor movement
Walking with intentional attention to vast, novel, or beautiful elements generates awe — which compounds the mood benefits of movement.
Key takeaways
- What it is: Walking with intentional attention to vast, novel, or beautiful elements generates awe — which compounds the mood benefits of movement.
- Why it works: Awe experiences — encounters with vastness that challenge current mental schemas — are associated with reduced self-referential thinking and decreased default mode network activity (the same network associated with rumination and depression). During awe, attention shifts outward rather than inward, providing natural relief from self-focused worry. Combining physical movement with deliberate awe-seeking creates a joint effect: the physiological benefits of exercise plus the psychological benefits of perspective-expanding experience.
- Evidence: Backed by randomized trials / meta-analyses.
- Avoid: Walking outdoors while absorbed in a podcast or phone, which replaces the attention-outward mechanism with attention-inward media consumption — and loses the awe-seeking benefit entirely.
Why it works
Awe experiences — encounters with vastness that challenge current mental schemas — are associated with reduced self-referential thinking and decreased default mode network activity (the same network associated with rumination and depression). During awe, attention shifts outward rather than inward, providing natural relief from self-focused worry. Combining physical movement with deliberate awe-seeking creates a joint effect: the physiological benefits of exercise plus the psychological benefits of perspective-expanding experience.
How to do it
- 1Before the walk, set an intention: "I will look for something vast, beautiful, or surprising."
- 2Slow down for moments that could be awe-inducing — a view, a large tree, shifting cloud patterns.
- 3Leave headphones out for at least part of the walk to allow environmental sounds to register.
What the evidence says
RCT / meta-analysisResearch from Dacher Keltner’s lab found that awe walks — brief outdoor walks with instructions to seek awe — produced greater increases in positive emotion and prosocial behavior than control walks over eight weeks.
Honest caveat: The awe walk protocol used explicit instructions that may not transfer to unstructured outdoor walking; participants were older adults (60+), limiting generalization.
- — Sturm et al. (2022), "Big Smile, Small Self: Awe Walks Promote Prosocial Positive Emotions," Emotion
Common mistake
Walking outdoors while absorbed in a podcast or phone, which replaces the attention-outward mechanism with attention-inward media consumption — and loses the awe-seeking benefit entirely.
IX Coach prompts awe walk intentions before outdoor sessions and collects brief post-walk mood ratings, building the connection between awe attention and measurable mood benefit.
Practice this with IX Coach →