COLUMN: Total absorption is the key to 'Flow'

Consider flow as moments when you don’t hold back. 

That’s a broad and exciting brush that Dr. Todd B. Kashdan, Professor of Psychology at George Mason University and highly-distinguished author, uses to emphasize the intensity associated with being in a state of flow.

You’re in flow when you are totally engaged in an enjoyable, challenging, single task or activity with such intense concentration that your sense of self-awareness and ego disappear. Time stands still or becomes meaningless – you could do whatever you’re doing forever. Your total absorption envelops you in calm, or drowns you in streams of excited perspiration depending on the task, but anxiety is banished. Success or failure is beyond comprehension in the moment, only completion of the activity, achieving your immediate goal, matters.

The nature of the activity is incidental. Artists and musicians in flow produce their best work, athletes “in the zone” become unbeatable, craftsmen and women reach perfection in their trade, gamers ascend to the unprecedented heights of acuity, and authors or readers exist only through the characters in their books.

All that matters is what you, yourself, are concentrating on. While in flow you are conscious of nothing else. You may forget you have a physical body, not noticing that you are thirsty or hungry, tired or physically uncomfortable from sitting or standing in a contorted position.

Sounds like fun doesn’t it? How can one experience flow, get into the intensity level required, and reap the benefits of a happier, more satisfying life?

Flow will happen unintentionally the first few times. You’ll know you’re there when you complete a task and immediately ask yourself, “Whoa, where did those three hours go?” or when your partner plants their face in front of yours and shouts, “Why are you ignoring me? I yelled to you six times and you never answered.”

You can’t always summon flow on demand, but there are criteria and actions that will help you create enticing environments and opportunities.

Flow is best achieved when your brain senses that the level of challenge aligns exactly with your level of skill. A task that absorbs all your attention but doesn’t overwhelm you can induce flow. However, if the challenge is too great you’ll become frustrated and stressed. If the challenge is insufficient, you will become bored and allow outside thoughts to creep in. Neither state of mind is conducive to creating flow.

The activity itself must be rewarding because the experience rather than the outcome is the main goal. Personal interest in the activity or task isn’t essential for flow as long as it is challenging and meaningful. Learning is an experience for most of us, making a task that forces us to learn something new a source of flow. Once you’re in flow, results are secondary to the task; although having a defined goal at the outset can help you maintain attention.

The activity must be able to provide feedback, which may be processed at the subconscious level. To stay in flow, you must sense that you are in control and believe that you are achieving something.

To stay in flow, you must sense that you are in control and believe that you are achieving something

A ritual of some sort, which your brain recognizes as a signal that a flow period or opportunity is approaching, may be helpful. Playing a particular type of music, or turning all sounds and distractions off, might send such a signal. Consistently entering the same room, or something as simple as closing a specific door, might also indicate to your brain that flow is about to begin.

How do we benefit from being in flow?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian psychologist, whose 1990 book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, was instrumental in relating the benefits of flow to positive psychology, which is the study of things that help humans thrive.

He wrote that, “What counted was the feeling of immersion and mastery. The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”

Science is unsure exactly how our brains are involved.

It is known that people have higher levels of dopamine while in flow than at other times. Dopamine is a feel-good neurotransmitter that helps us achieve pleasure and experience reward, as well as increases our motivation. These feelings in turn allow us to concentrate on tasks longer, and gain skill and competence while doing so. While there is no doubt dopamine is important to mental health, some argue that it is a prior increase in production of dopamine that allows us to enter flow. Proof of which comes first, the dopamine or the flow, is not conclusive.

Our brain’s Central Executive Network (CEN) performs high-level cognitive tasks, and Csikszentmihalyi suggests that when we are in flow, these tasks are engaging rather than frustrating, which allows the CEN some relaxation.

Our brain’s Default Mode Network (DMN) kicks into gear when our brain is at rest, and provides functional coherence and connectivity including memory consolidation, mind-wandering and auto-biographical memory. There is a link between DMN integrity and cognitive health in older adults, and increased activity of the DMN has been found when we are in flow.

Proof for these theories is not definitive either, but studies continue.

However, regardless of exactly why, flow has additional known mental health benefits.

The heightened sense of engagement during flow reduces negative emotions like self-doubt, anxiety and fear, while the intense concentration prevents negative or distressing thoughts from intruding.

Intrinsic motivation, participation in an activity for its own enjoyment and satisfaction, reduces the importance of external pressures and rewards as criteria for determining self worth.

The demands put on our brains by tasks and activities that generate flow improve our focus, information processing, creativity and problem solving.

All the above indicate that finding flow can significantly help us enjoy many of the activities we choose or are obligated to perform on a daily basis, while generating residual health benefits too — which is great. But if I were being honest, I’d have to say that Todd had me at moments when you don’t hold back. Sounds like an opportunity to me.