Noom Names Leading Awe Researcher Dacher Keltner as Advisor, Announces New National Awe Day
PRINCETON, N.J., Nov. 04, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Noom, the leading behavior change company, today announced that Dacher Keltner, PhD, one of the world’s leading researchers on the science of awe, has joined the company as an advisor to help make wonder an accessible, everyday wellness practice. Research suggests that experiences of awe can reduce daily distress, strengthen social connection, and support emotional wellbeing—important dimensions of whole-person health. The partnership extends Noom's behavior-change approach beyond nutrition and movement to another simple practice that may help people live healthier, more fulfilling lives.
Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley and founding director of the Greater Good Science Center, will help Noom translate awe research into repeatable practices. The partnership also includes National Awe Day, planned for May 18, 2027, with a public invitation to take a 15-minute Awe Walk. Keltner will make his first public appearance as a Noom advisor at the Eudēmonia Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida, on November 8.
“Awe is one of the most overlooked forces in human wellbeing,” said Keltner. “We tend to think of it as rare, reserved for a cathedral or a mountaintop. But moments of awe are available to all of us – in a walk through the park, a piece of music, a work of art, or a moment of moral beauty. The opportunity with Noom is to take the science out of the lab and turn it into an everyday practice that millions of people can actually use.”
Making Awe an Everyday Habit
National Awe Day, newly recognized by the National Day Council, will invite people everywhere to experience wonder through a simple, 15-minute Awe Walk: step outside, ideally somewhere unfamiliar; put away your phone; slow down; and turn your attention outward, noticing the extraordinary in the ordinary—from a single leaf to an entire tree, or one cloud to the vastness of the sky.
Held during Mental Health Awareness Month, the inaugural National Awe Day will also coincide with International Museum Day, creating opportunities for participation through parks, museums, schools, workplaces, and communities. All National Awe Day resources will be free, with no Noom account or app required.
“Lasting health is about more than weight, nutrition, or physical fitness. It's also about how we feel, how we connect with others, and how we experience the world,” said Geoff Cook, CEO of Noom. “Research suggests that awe can support emotional wellbeing, reduce stress, and strengthen social connection. Dacher has pioneered this science, and together we want to make awe something people can experience regularly, not just on rare, extraordinary occasions.”
As an advisor, Keltner will work with Noom’s product, content, research, and coaching teams to translate awe research into practical, research-informed experiences, including guided practices such as the Awe Walk and Mindful Art Break. He will also help shape the scientific foundation and public programming for National Awe Day.
At Eudēmonia on November 8, Keltner will deliver a talk titled “The Science of Awe: Finding Wonder in Everyday Life,” exploring how experiences of wonder—from nature and art to music and human connection—can become intentional practices supporting everyday wellbeing.
Building on Noom's Work in Art and Wellbeing
The partnership builds on Noom's existing work exploring how brief, intentional experiences of art and wonder can support emotional wellbeing.
Since launching in October 2025, Noom’s award-winning Mindful Art Break—a two-minute, in-app experience combining curated artwork with mindfulness prompts—has reached more than 350,000 members. About half of participating users return weekly, while 72% of surveyed users report feeling more focused and present after the experience.
Noom has also conducted exploratory research on how brief encounters with art relate to awe and stress, informing its work to make psychologically informed wellbeing practices accessible at scale.1
The Science of Awe
Research suggests that experiences of awe may support mental and physical wellbeing through pathways involving stress, social connection, meaning, and shifts in attention. In a randomized study of 60 healthy older adults, participants assigned to weekly 15-minute awe walks for eight weeks experienced greater increases in positive social emotions and greater decreases in daily distress than those taking ordinary walks. A separate 22-day study of more than 400 adults and healthcare professionals found that on days participants experienced more awe than usual, they also reported less stress and greater wellbeing, with exploratory evidence linking awe to fewer physical symptoms. A 2023 scientific review coauthored by Keltner described several proposed pathways from awe to mental and physical health, including greater social integration, meaning, and physiological changes.²
For Noom, these findings point to an opportunity to extend its behavior-change approach to another dimension of healthy living: helping people make small, repeatable practices that support emotional wellbeing part of their daily routines. National Awe Day extends that idea beyond the app: a free invitation to slow down, look outward, and rediscover wonder.
About Noom: Noom is the leading behavior change company, empowering everyone, everywhere to live better longer – every day. Noom pairs sustainable behavior change with prescription-grade catalysts to make lasting change feel easy. Noom Health partners with top health plans and employers to offer millions of Americans a suite of metabolic health solutions – including Noom Clinical (Noom Med, Noom SmartRx, and NoomRx programs), Noom Weight, Noom Diabetes, and Noom Diabetes Prevention Program. Noom is building the future of preventive care and longevity medicine, leading the convergence of wearable-monitored behavior change, clinical care, diagnostics, and pharmacy into an integrated, AI-enhanced system that drives individualized, meaningful health outcomes.
Noom has received multiple grants from the NIH for digital health research and innovation and has been recognized by the CDC for its groundbreaking diabetes prevention programs. Headquartered in Princeton, NJ and with additional offices in New York City, Noom has been honored as a TIME100 Industry Leader, a Newsweek Most Trusted Brand, was named a “Best GLP-1 Telehealth Platform” by US News & World Report, and has been recognized by Inc. and Fortune as a best place to work. Learn more at noom.com, subscribe to our blog, or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Contact:
Daniel Zahler
comms@noom.com
1 Noom, “Noom’s AWE-some Approach to Art Therapy,” Jan. 27, 2026, https://www.noom.com/blog/nooms-awesome-approach-to-art-therapy/. Feature metrics reflect Noom member engagement and survey data reported in the article; awe-lift figures come from a separate Noom student-art experiment described there.
2 Monroy M, Keltner D. Awe as a Pathway to Mental and Physical Health. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 2023;18(2):309–320. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916221094856; Monroy M, Uğurlu Ö, Zerwas F, et al. “The influences of daily experiences of awe on stress, somatic health, and well-being.” Scientific Reports. 2023;13:9336. doi:10.1038/s41598-023-35200-w
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