AWE Isn't Woo. It's Neurochemistry!

Why your brain chills out when you stop being the center of the universe

I’ve always loved the ocean. Maybe it’s because I’m a water sign. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Florida. Either way, something very specific happens to my brain when I’m near water, and with this cold weather, I can’t stop thinking about the trip we have planned to Aruba this summer.

It’s one of my favorite places on the planet. There’s a moment there that never fails. I step into that clear water, and I float. I let myself be held and, without trying, without intention-setting, affirmations, or any spiritual BS, the noise in my brain goes quiet.

The roommates living rent-free in my head go find someone else to harass!

Silence. AHHHHHHH.

I don’t feel euphoric. I feel regulated.

It’s like my brain remembers something ancient and practical. Oh. Right. This is bigger than you. You can unclench your butthole now. 💩

That feeling, the quiet, the widening, the relief from being the center of my own stupid mental universe isn’t magick.

It’s awe.

And it’s doing very specific, very measurable things to your brain.

Awe Turns Down the “Me Channel”

When you experience awe, activity decreases in the brain’s Default Mode Network — the system responsible for self-referential thinking, rumination, and the endless narration of me, my past, my future, my problems, me me me me me.

It’s the mental equivalent of choppy water. Awe doesn’t eliminate the waves, it drops you below the surface, where things are quieter.

That’s why we often feel a sense of relief before it feels like anything else.

The “Small Self” Effect

Neuroscientists call this the small self effect. When we encounter something vast, like an endless horizon, deep grief, birth, art, or wild nature, our sense of self loosens.

You don’t disappear, instead you sort of decenter.

It’s the difference between clinging to the pool wall and trusting the water to hold you.  Once the grip loosens, the nervous system follows.

Your Stress Chemistry Shifts

Awe is associated with:

• decreased cortisol

• increased parasympathetic nervous system activity

• improved vagal tone (emotional regulation, resilience)

• 
  

In plain terms: Your body gets the message that it’s safe enough to float instead of bracing for impact.

Not because everything is solved, but because you’ve stopped fighting the current.

Time Gets Spacious

People consistently report that awe makes time feel slower, wider, and more generous. Anxiety thrives on time scarcity. You know, that feeling that it’s always running out, or that you’re feeling behind, or you’re already too late.

Awe changes the tempo.

It’s like switching from frantic paddling to steady swimming. The clock doesn’t stop. But. It stops chasing you.

Awe Makes Us Kinder (Without Trying)

Research shows awe increases prosocial behavior: generosity, cooperation, and willingness to help.

Not because we decide to be better people. Because we’re less guarded.

When you’re not busy protecting yourself from the world, connection becomes effortless, like drifting instead of swimming upstream.

Why This Matters as We Age

As we get older, our brains become incredibly efficient and very good at staying in familiar patterns. That’s why career changes, new movement practices, or divorces feel harder now than they would have at twenty-five.

Awe reintroduces neuroplasticity.

It creates softness where rigidity has taken hold. It reminds the brain: There may be more here than the story you’ve been telling yourself.

Awe isn’t reserved for mountaintops or once-in-a-lifetime moments. It can be more internal.

Sometimes it’s:

• standing in grief and realizing it didn’t drown you

• watching your body change and discovering it still knows how to move

• floating in clear water and remembering you don’t have to clench your butthole all the time 😂

Awe doesn’t demand transcendence. It doesn’t ask you to be positive, grateful, enlightened, or to practice self-care. It just offers a moment of being held by something larger. Long enough for your nervous system to remember how to soften. A reminder that you’re not alone, even in a vast universe.

And maybe that’s why the ocean keeps calling me back. Not because it fixes anything.

But because it reminds me I don’t have to fight every wave.