Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Awe and Cytokines


These days it may feel more difficult than ever to take time out of our busy schedules to explore our world, whether that means hiking in nature, appreciating art in a museum, or traveling. In a series of studies our lab demonstrates these kinds of activities may be more important for physical health than past researchers realized. We find that people who report experiencing more awe, a positive emotion associated with feeling wonder and amazement, in their daily lives had lower levels of a key harmful health marker, pro-inflammatory cytokines. Inflammation is one way the immune system responds to injury, disease, or infection. In our studies we focus on a marker of inflammation, called pro-inflammatory cytokines, which act like messengers in the immune system coordinating immune responses and promoting inflammation. Although pro-inflammatory cytokines are important for fighting infection or disease, when they are chronically high they can lead to a variety of negative health outcomes such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Our data suggests that individuals who feel more awe have lower chronic levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Whether it is seeing the beauty in a blade of grass, watching an athlete achieve the unthinkable, or looking at vastness of the night’s sky, taking time to appreciate the awe-inspiring nature of our world has important implications not only for our mental health, but for our physical health.

Jennifer Stellar, Ph.D
University of Toronto

Full article available for download on:

CITATION:
Stellar, J. E., John-Henderson, N., Anderson, C. L., Gordon, A. M., McNeil, G. D., & Keltner, D.(2015, January 19). Positive Affect and Markers of Inflammation: Discrete Positive Emotions Predict Lower Levels of Inflammatory Cytokines. Emotion. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000033

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