The wonder stuff: what I learned about happiness from a month of ‘awe walks’

am in the middle of a cloud, halfway up a steep pike, and on a mission to get some awe. I am here thanks to a new study, which found that by paying close attention to our surroundings as we walk, we can get our happy chemicals pumping and enhance overall wellbeing. That sounded pretty good, so I find myself in the middle of nowhere on an oddly misty, humid day.

Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, thinks I am in the right place. “It’s hard to think of a single thing that you can do for your mind and body that’s better than a little dose of awe,” he says. It was Keltner and a team of researchers who published a paper that found that awe can reduce stress, help inflammation, increase creativity and sociability and make you happy. “To me, that all says we urgently need to find awe.”

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Experiencing awe, Keltner says, has a host of beneficial outcomes. It helps deactivate the default mode network, the part of your brain that ticks along when you are distracted from the world around you. Keltner says this network is effectively your ego. “It’s telling you to work harder. Awe quiets that,” he says. He adds that awe stimulates the vagus nerve, which calms the body and increases openness. “There’s suggestive evidence that awe activates oxytocin release, which makes you feel more cooperative and connected. Some kinds of awe deactivate the amygdala, which is a threat-related region of the brain.”

The idea behind an awe walk, then, is that combining the known benefits of exercise with a top-up of awe will make you even happier. I don’t doubt the study’s findings, but I can imagine this research hitting social media and morphing into self-help pseudoscience that is leapt on by Insta-narcissists. I can just imagine the posts: “Look at the majesty of these nitrous oxide canisters! #Awe #Awewalk #Awesome!” But I shove this thought to the side and bravely promise to take a walk every day for a month to put the theory to the test.

Breathtaking views at the River Mawddach estuary, near Barmouth in Wales.

10 awe-inspiring walks around the UK

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Luckily, there are plenty of opportunities for awe where I live, on the doorstep of the Pennines. The only problem is that you have to drag yourself up steep pikes along boggy moorland to get to any of it. On my first attempt, my enthusiasm works against me and I bite off far more than I can chew.

For some inexplicable reason, I have decided to tackle Alphin, the tallest baby mountain in Saddleworth. (It is actually a hill.) The day is hot, but thick with the kind of grey mist depicted in schlocky fantasy novels. It is so eerie I half expect to be confronted by an aged sage warning me, through riddles, that I will meet a dragon on the hillside. (That would really be the time to hit the share button: #awewalk #Dragonawe #AWWWWWESOOOOOME.)

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Disappointingly, there is no sign of an old man, or anyone – I am alone, damp, tired and fed up. It doesn’t help that, for the past few months, I have moved only as much as a sloth that has let itself go. I have barely started before my lungs and legs feel as if they are cooking in acid.

Three hours later, I finally reach the summit – of sorts. Summits are on mountains; you need oxygen, a massive wallet and no sense to reach most of them. I am just an idiot on top of a hill.

The view from the top of Alphin pike

‘I did it! Get in!’ The view from the top of Alphin pike. Photograph: Danny Lavelle

I have to admit, though: I am made up to reach it. “I did it! Get in!” I boom. I look around, embarrassed. But I am alone. And how often can you truly say that? So I take advantage and let out all my bottled-up frustrations, bugbears and gripes, like a sweary jukebox stuck on shuffle. I even throw a few Manchester United chants in for good measure. It feels great!

On the way down, I get lost and end up at Indian’s Head, so named because the jagged rocks looking over Chew valley and the reservoir are supposed to resemble a feathered headdress. However, the vista from Indian’s Head is also awe-inspiring. Trippy purple heather caresses weathered boulders, while wisps of cloud float through the valley. I feel the awe. I am one with nature and nature is one with me: #aweonthehill #AWECLOUDS. It is true, however, that coming down almost kills my awe – I end up shuffling down the hill on my backside – but still.