Awesome Is Good For Your Health

Awesome news: Awe is a good thing, and awesome experiences can be good for your health. That’s the verdict of researchers at the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. The Wall Street Journal reports on their research and other experiments suggesting that awesome experiences can improve academic performance, fight depression, and reduce inflammation. In one project, the Journal reports, researchers asked 119 undergraduates to rate how often they felt seven positive emotions including awe. The researchers found that those who reported feeling awe the most had the lowest levels of inflammation markers in their saliva. Other research conducted by Paul Piff, assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, Irvine, suggests that simply writing about a past awe experience increases kindness and compassion. The Journal reports that one study randomly divided 300 participants into three groups and watched one of three video clips, and then gave them a test to measure generosity involving giving away lottery tickets.  People in the group watched the most awesome group said they would give away approximately 25 percent more.