Improving Mental Health and Well-Being Via Awe Walks

March 7, 2022 updated by: University of California, San Francisco

Effects of Awe on Mental Health and Well-Being

Awe is a powerful positive emotion that offsets negative emotion and fosters prosocial behavior. This study examined the effects of awe on health and well-being in healthy older adults. Half of the participants took a weekly "awe walk" while the other half took a weekly walk with no further instructions.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Awe fosters well-being and positive emotions that promote social relationships. Awe shifts attention from ourselves to the outside world and is associated with diminished self-focused attention. We aimed to increase awe in healthy older adults to test whether greater awe experience would lead to gains in other types of positive emotional experience and reductions in negative emotional experience.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

60

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • California
      • San Francisco, California, United States, 94158
        • UCSF Memory and Aging Center

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

40 years to 90 years (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Stable medical condition for 3 months prior to screening
  • Reliant informant with frequent contact with participant who is available to provide observations of participant
  • Fluent in English or Spanish
  • Age: 40 and above
  • Able to complete baseline assessments
  • Education or work history sufficient to exclude mental retardation
  • Physically acceptable for this study as confirmed by medical history, physical exam, neurological exam and clinical tests

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Major memory concerns/diagnosed memory condition
  • Korsakoff encephalopathy
  • Active substance abuse
  • Brain tumor
  • Active neoplastic disease (skin tumors other than melanoma are not exclusionary)
  • Parkinson's disease
  • Multiple sclerosis (untreated)
  • Sleep apnea
  • History of clinically significant stroke
  • Current evidence or history in the past 2 years of epilepsy, focal brain lesion, cancer, steroid use, or DSM-IV criteria for any major psychiatric disorder including psychosis, major depression, bipolar disorder, alcohol or substance abuse
  • Blindness, deafness, language difficulties or any other disability which may prevent the participant from participating or cooperating in the protocol

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Awe Walk Condition
Participants were instructed to take at least one (~15 minute) walk per week for 8 consecutive weeks. Participants were told to seek the experience of feeling awe. Participants were told to keep a fairly light to moderate pace and were encouraged to walk alone and without interruption from a mobile device.
Behavioral: Awe Walk
To examine the effect of weekly awe walks in cognitively healthy older adults.
Active Comparator: Control Walk Condition
Participants were instructed to take at least one (~15 minute) walk per week for 8 consecutive weeks. Participants were told to keep a fairly light to moderate pace and were encouraged to walk alone and without interruption from a mobile device.
Behavioral: Control Walk
To examine the effect of weekly walks in cognitively healthy older adults.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Daily awe experience questionnaire
Time Frame: 8 weeks
Increase in awe experience
8 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Daily compassion experience questionnaire
Time Frame: 8 weeks
Increase in daily compassion experience
8 weeks
Daily negative emotional experience questionnaire
Time Frame: 8 weeks
Decrease in daily negative emotional experience
8 weeks
Generalized Anxiety Disorder- 7 Item Scale
Time Frame: 8 weeks
Decrease in anxiety
8 weeks
Satisfaction With Life Scale
Time Frame: 8 weeks
Increase in well-being
8 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of California, San Francisco

Collaborators

University of California, Berkeley

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Virginia E Sturm, PhD, University of California, San Francisco

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Helpful Links

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

December 5, 2016

Primary Completion (Actual)

December 10, 2017

Study Completion (Actual)

May 26, 2018

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 16, 2018

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 25, 2018

First Posted (Actual)

June 8, 2018

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

March 22, 2022

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 7, 2022

Last Verified

March 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 16-20001

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

Undecided

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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