Sunset Rewires the Brain: Why an Evening Sky Lowers Stress and Boosts Immunity

Scientists say that watching a sunset triggers a distinct emotional state — awe — which benefits not only our mood but our physical health as well. According to Michelle Shiota, a professor of social psychology at Arizona State University, this emotion arises when we encounter something so vast or beautiful that it exceeds our usual way of perceiving the world — whether it's a sunset, a work of art, an extraordinary act of kindness, or the birth of a child.

According to the researcher, the key effect of awe is a sense of one's own smallness. "We suddenly realise that our everyday worries aren't so important on the scale of the bigger world, and that does wonders for our mental health," Shiota explains.

Many people tend to stay locked inside their own thoughts, which often creates a vicious cycle of negative feelings. A striking experience — a beautiful sunset, for instance — literally redirects our attention outward: the brain stops fixating on personal anxieties and turns instead to whatever is happening right here, right now. That shift breaks the loop of negative thinking.

Research shows that people who regularly experience such moments are more likely to help others, more willing to volunteer, and more likely to feel that their lives are filled with deeper meaning. And the effect isn't a one-off: one study found that during the COVID-19 pandemic, people who experienced awe more often coped better with both acute and chronic stress.

Another experiment involved older adults who were asked, during fifteen-minute walks, to deliberately look for moments that inspired wonder — the play of autumn light through leaves, unusual shadows between trees, or a child's smile. Eight weeks later, their descriptions of the walks differed noticeably from those of a control group that hadn't been given the task.

Participants were also asked to take regular selfies. It turned out that those who deliberately sought out reasons for wonder gradually began to smile more often in their photos and take up progressively less space in the frame, leaving more room for the surrounding scenery. This doesn't indicate lower self-esteem — rather, these people were simply, for a while, no longer placing themselves at the centre of their own world.

There's a physiological effect too. Researcher Jennifer Stellar studied around two hundred people, comparing their emotional states with their cytokine levels — markers of inflammation in the body. Those who experienced positive emotions more often had consistently lower levels of these markers, and the strongest effect came specifically from feelings of awe. This matters because chronically elevated cytokine levels are linked to a higher risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and depression.

The role of evening light in sleep deserves special mention too. The soft reds, oranges and golds of a setting sun activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for relaxing the body, and lower cortisol — the primary stress hormone. As a result, the body naturally starts preparing for sleep. Some scientists believe that human circadian rhythms historically evolved through daily contact with both sunrise and sunset.

A sunset doesn't solve any problems on its own — but for a few minutes, it changes the scale at which we perceive them. And sometimes that's all it takes.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by flowee.cz