The Power of the Awe Walk: Connecting with Nature for Mental Wellness on World Environment Day

2023-06-05 09:46:49

Hoy, 5th Juneis he World Environment Day. To celebrate it, we invite you to learn a simple practice of welfare with many benefits for our mental health. In that eagerness to name everything, they call it the amazement walk o awe walk but, in reality, it is one of the many, healthy and ancestral customs of the human being abandoned, somehow, by the modern man. He awe walk It is part of our very essence and it is likely that you practice it yourself without the need for market the term. That’s how he explained it to me Odile, the youngest daughter of Feliz Rodríguez de la Fuentea few years ago: Every morning, “I go for a walk with my dogs, to fill myself with what surrounds me, to feel, smell, see, think and stop thinkingwhich is also necessary, since amaze me, That always! Every ride is different. who can’t Marvel before the flight of a partridge or when being wrapped in the clouds on a winter morning! There is so much happiness in these emotions! It is a luxury. Whoever does not access that gift lives deceived. We only have one life and it’s already hard enough to take away the good in it. We should not distract us from “living”.

What is the amazement walk

You can include your ability to be amazed in any walk, be it through a city or a forest, but nature will always bring you much more.

He awe walk is a term that we can find in the Collins defined as “hike performed while one focuses on the nature’s wonder to improve the mental health“. That is, it is walking through nature putting the focus of our attention in her. There are multitude of scientific studies that show the power of natural environments to generate our physical and mental well-being. Even physical exercise performed in natural settings is associated with a greater increase in positive emotionsdecrease in stressgreater attention, satisfaction, etc., than if it is carried out indoors (Physical activity, nature and mental well-being: a systematic review, 2022). That is nature heals us. The amazement walk goes a little further: it invites us to connect with her of intentional way to allow him to awaken in us the astonishment. A study published in the journal Emotion showed a few months ago how a regular dose of wonder can increase positive feelings like compassion and gratitude.

Benefits of practicing the awe walk or wonder walk

Open your attention to what is happening around you, explore, let the song of a bird surprise you, the beauty of the sky, the rays of the sun on your face, the aroma of earth, etc.

Without needing to name it, the work of many naturalists, biologists, gardenersect… reveal the keys to let us be amazed by nature– Of Rachel Carson in sense of wonder (1965) a Sue Stuart-Smith in the well landscaped mind (Discussion, 2021). This also proves it Dacher Keltnerprofessor of psychology at the University of California in his latest book Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. Through in-depth scientific, historical, and personal research, this expert advisor to the film Inside Out from Pixar, demonstrates how the astonishment can transform our brain and ours body. increase our creativityour concentrationour welfare and, above all, we connect between us and makes us more human. Wonder is a wonderful mystery. “At a time when the world is more divided than ever, threatened by so many crises, we need wonder more than ever,” explains the professor. “If we open our minds to wonder, our reasoning sharpens and we open up to great and new ideas. On a physical level, the response is reduced inflammatory of our system immunological and our body is strengthened. It is wonder that activates our inclination to share and create strong relationships, to take actions to care for the nature and society. Wonder transforms us, inspires us and invites us to create art, music or religion.”

How to include wonder in your walks or hikes

You can include your ability to amaze you on any walk, whether through a city or a forest, but nature will always bring you much more. Keep these details in mind to really enjoy it:

Switch off the mobile phone or, better, do not take it with you.
Before starting to walk Breathe deep. Inhale and exhale slowly several times, focusing your mind on the surroundings. Wake up one by one, everyone your senses: the life, the smell, the ears, the touch… Feel what surrounds you.
when you start to walk, try not to lose connection with your body and what it feels. Don’t worry if you lose it when worries, pending tasks come to your head. Nothing happens, re-center your attention con calm as many times as necessary. You’ll think about all that later.
Open your attention to what is happening around you, explore, let the song of a bird surprise you, the beauty of the sky, the rays of the sun on your face, the aroma of earth, etc. Let your attention wander from the huge to the small.
Flowing for all that wonder without trying to hold it back. The science of wonder : a sense overwhelming and self-transcending of awe and awe in which you feel part of something that is vaster, bigger than you and that transcends your understanding of the world. As they explain the psychology who studies the science of wonder, all of that makes you less focused on yourself and more focused on others, which takes away from your mind your worries and tribulations, your anxieties and frustrations.