SPIRITUALITY AND NEUROSCIENCE

The Neuroscience of Awe: How Wonder Heals the Brain and Awakens the Soul

Exploring how awe quiets the restless mind, reduces stress, and opens us to wonder

Created in Canva

When standing beneath a star-filled sky, don’t you feel your worries dissolve into silence? That moment right there is awe. It is a state where the brain softens its grip on the restless self, self-importance, and control. At the same time, stress loosens its hold while the soul remembers its place in all of creation.

Neuroscientists are now realizing what mystics and poets have known all along: that awe is more than a fleeting emotion. It is a transformative experience that heals, humbles, and awakens our souls to something greater.

Spirit of Wonder,
stir our hearts too deep to contain and
awaken our eyes to beauty too vast to measure
as you quiet the noise within us
so we may heal from the awe and
our soul and mind would be renewed.

May it be so.

Awe is the beginning of wisdom.
— Abraham Joshua Heschel