Improving Mental Health and Well-Being Via Awe Walks

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.

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