Marvel day after day to hunt ruminations

When Yang Bai, a young Chinese psychologist, was stationed at the University of California in Berley, she conducted an apparently quite simple experience. She went with volunteers to two tourist places: Yosemite National Park, with its grandiose landscapes, and Fisherman’s Wharf, a lively district of San Francisco. To each, she stretched a sheet and a pencil, and asked two questions: “What did you feel?” “And” Can you draw you? »»

More specifically, the participants were invited to assess, from a standardized list, the emotions they had experienced during their visit: joy, pride, gratitude, serenity, wonder … and it is the latter which came out with the most force among visitors to the Yosemite park. A feeling of immensity, vastness, the impression of being overwhelmed – but in a positive way – by what surrounded them.

As for the sketches collected, they underlined a notable difference: the people who visited the Yosemite park emerged in the form of smaller silhouettes, less dominant than those of the volunteers who left in a walk in town.

In other words, the time spent in the wild seemed to resize the “me”, without lessening or devaluing it, but by placing it in a very wide.

Break the “self -referencing” loops

At first glance, this poetic, fleeting, difficult to provoke emotion, seems not very measurable – and therefore not very scientific. However, it is today the subject of much research. The wonder is defined by the psychologist Dacher Keltner, of the University of Berkeley, as “the feeling of being in the presence of something immense that goes beyond our understanding of the world”. Researcher Michiel Van Elk and his colleagues at the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands, used functional MRI to observe the effects of inspiring video extracts (like those in the film Planet Earth), compared to neutral or humorous scenes. Videos arousing wonder less activated the network of the default mode, a circuit of our brain associated with introspection and rumination, and more the regions involved in open attention. In other words, the wonder temporarily interrupts the self-referencing loop which brings us back to us constantly. By promoting attention turned outwards, it also reduces rumination, this flow of repetitive thoughts often linked to anxiety and depression.

On a body level, this emotion contributes to a state of physiological calm. According to Maria Monroy, of the University of Berkeley, it slows the heart rate, decreases inflammation, and increases the secretion of hormones such as oxytocin.

Small moments to glean every day

So, should you buy a ticket for Yosemite park to experience this feeling? No: such effects are not reserved for some rare experiences. They can arise in front of a sunset, observing fall leaves swirling in the wind, being transported by a piece of music or simply witness of a good gesture. Friend Gordon, psychologist at the University of Michigan, asked participants to record their daily experiences for two weeks. On average, one in three people experiences a moment of wonder every two to three days. And each of these moments is associated, in the following weeks, with an increase in well-being, generosity, vitality and curiosity. So, to re -enchant your gaze and abandon itself that life has easier to offer, let’s take the time of a few simple exercises that I offer you here.