Dr. Dacher Keltner is one of the world’s foremost emotion scientists. He is a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and the director of the Greater Good Science Center. He has over 200 scientific publications and six books, including Born to Be Good, The Compassionate Instinct, The Power Paradox, and Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.
He also hosts the podcast The Science of Happiness. This podcast is about “…the benefits of spending time outside.…it impacts sleep, cognition, memory, your nervous system, and your relationships. 80% of Americans live in urban areas—how do you derive these benefits?”
A snippet: "Scientific evidence that spending time in nature has profound impacts on your physical, mental, and emotional well-being... We’re talking about the massive psychological and physiological benefits of being in nature. Nature impacts your mood. It has a whole long list of positive benefits for your nervous system, and even changes how you are with other people. In fact, as you'll hear today’s guest say, “nature is healthcare.”
If you don’t have 35 minutes to listen to his interview,
here are the parts that strike me, in case you want to skim my gold nuggets.
(What's gold to me may be different than what's gold to you!)
1. Awe makes us more altruistic.
When we feel awe, we’re more likely to help each other, share resources, help our species survive.
Awe = feeling overcome by something larger than oneself.
What’s the connection between nature and awe?
A survey in 26 different countries, including those with the most populated world cities, reported that nature is #2 most common source of AWE. Mountains, storms on the plains, desert, the landscape doesn't matter. (#1 is moral beauty, the inspiring people who contribute amazing acts of righteousness in the world.)
2. Ecological belonging (sense of feeling peacefully at home, such as indigenous people’s understanding that we are enwebbed in the larger ecosystem) is engendered by awe. Nature helps us into a parasympathetic nervous system state, which calms and opens us. We see things more clearly. We remember better. Humans (including strangers, teams, or coworkers) sharing wonder and awe in nature together helps them bond.
So, there you have it. What I am really doing in guiding forest bathing and nature therapy sessions, is cultivating awe. Now that you know, will it still work?
Yes, if you want to find awe and experience a relaxed belonging, you will.
However, we have to make time for it. Not just think about it, but put it in your schedule and honor it's important place in your daily living. For example:
Walk or sit outside during your lunchbreaks
Meet a friend for coffee at a park bench
Plan a hike for the weekend
3. When we make green spaces in our communities and create time to connect with them, we feel better, and we respect nature more. I think the solution to helping leaders protect green spaces, is to help people fall in love with nature. We can motivate each other with the incredible benefits I list on my website.
4. Attention is a limited commodity- how will you spend yours????The main point here is the same as my forest bathing practice:Every day, stroll outside and PAUSE to gaze, touch, smell, contemplate something in nature. Intentionally look at the sky, trees, flowers, rain, squirrels, for 30 seconds or 3 minutes. Regular attentiveness to nature will help you heal.
Want to hear my honest, biggest challenge??? When I go outside to walk in nature, I want to keep expanding my network of nature-loving professionals and organizations, so I'm often making phone calls and talking while walking. While I think this is better than sitting at a computer indoors, I'm not paying full attention to nature.
So, sometimes I need to schedule time completely off my phone to invest ALL MY SENSES into the vibrant, amazing, inspiring life around me. :)
And you?
🌷 I'D LOVE TO INCLUDE ANY OF YOUR QUESTIONS. PLEASE WRITE ME. :)
© Shannon Gorres, 2025. Written by a human, not AI or chatGPT. Please contact me to request permission before sharing. I will give you permission to share sections of it when you include "by Shannon Gorres, www.DivineNatureTherapy.com"
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