What Awe in Nature Does for Us

Outside Podcast

Sports, Wilderness

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2019

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A large and growing body of research has found that time outdoors makes us happier and healthier, but there’s relatively limited science explaining why. According to findings published last summer in the journal Emotion, a big part of the answer may be awe. Studies conducted by psychologists at the University of California at Berkeley showed that feeling awe during a nature experience has a singular ability to lower stress and improve our overall well-being. Even more compelling, the research suggests that we don’t need to climb a mountain or run a river to get the healing power of awe—the simplest moments outside are all it takes. For this final episode in our Nature Cure series, we talk to the scientist who led the Berkeley study, as well as a man who says awe saved his life.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Adidas, the new Terrics Freehiker.
0:06.0	A shoe built to go from Trail to City and back again.
0:10.0	Kind of like Maya French.
0:12.0	My name is Maya French.
0:14.0	I am a young entrepreneur
0:17.0	under the age of 30 who's a trailblazer in the natural food industry.
0:21.0	Maya is the co-founder of a post workout drink called
0:24.0	Koya, it's plant-based and dairy-free, but through the process of making that
0:28.7	drink she's been on a journey from City Kid to discoveringing the Outdoors.
0:33.0	So I grew up in the south side of Chicago, which was a Kaunkeet jungle.
0:38.0	I lived in a food desert where the nearest grocery store was probably a mile or two out, definitely not walking distance.
0:46.4	In Chicago, Maya was overweight, eating junk food, and not doing anything active.
0:51.2	But when she found out she was lactose intolerant, she completely changed
0:54.7	her diet and started exercising. She lost 25 pounds in a year. But you're very limited when you live in
1:00.9	Chicago, so I was basically just going to the gym and
1:05.1	you know doing activities indoors. Then after Koya got off the ground she moved to
1:10.3	LA to grow the business and discovered hiking.
1:13.5	I learned about Griffith Park and Santa Monica Mountains and just seeing the different terrains.
1:20.7	I really felt like that was my calling to really be outdoors and tie that into my lifestyle and brand.
1:29.0	And also being an African American female from Chicago, you really don't see us often in the wild.
1:36.5	When Maya started, she didn't know what she was doing in the outdoors.
1:39.9	Now, she's a role model for people who want to feel just at home on a hike is in the city.
	...

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