Scientists Have Identified '8 Wonders Of Life' — And Their Health Effects Are Powerful

Did you know that feeling awe can not only change the way you see the world, it can actually improve your health?

That’s what Dacher Keltner determined after spending over 20 years studying the emotion.

The professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley andthe director of the Greater Good Science Center recently chatted with us — Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, hosts of HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast — about how he became one of the world’s foremost awe researchers and what he’s learned while examining its effects on our minds, bodies and outlooks.

Listen to our full chat with Keltner here:

“Awe is particularly hard to describe with language,” Keltner told us. “In fact, a lot of people are like, ‘it’s ineffable. It’s beyond words. You can’t put rational, symbolic thought to it.’ And I disagree.”

The psychologist, who served as the scientific adviser on the Pixar film “Inside Out,” defines the emotion as “the feeling we have when we encounter vast mysteries.”

“The core meaning of awe as you’re feeling it come over you, is being connected to something larger than yourself,” Keltner said. “You go to a concert, you’re with a big, throbbing, massive people and you’re dancing and sweating and then the music makes you suddenly feel awestruck and you’re like, ‘God, I’m part of this — whatever this is in this moment of musical reverence that is bigger than me.’ How important that is for human beings to be connected to things larger than ourselves.”

Music is one of the “eight wonders of life” that Keltner identified while studying awe around the world.

“We got these stories of awe from 26 different countries, in people’s own words — Mexico, India, Brazil, Poland, really different countries,” he