Finding your flow state
Illustrations by Jon McCormack
by Karen Fischer
Five years ago, I was volunteering in a small pop-up kitchen serving plates of barbeque to festival attendees when a curious thing happened. Once the crowds rolled in and the line snaked around the building, an odd, coordinated symphony native to any working kitchen began: the crew plated and slid each dish onto a steel table. I took orders, counted money, turned, grabbed a plate, and returned the food to the customer — over and over and over again. The line kept growing. Every plate that came out was whisked off immediately. We were in the thick of the rush.
I remember this afternoon because that intrinsic, somewhat thoughtless flow felt so good. I vaguely recognized the same sensation from working lunch rushes at cafes during college, but that essence of mindless flow seems simply out of reach for many everyday activities, even the ones we want to do without thinking too much about it. For me, the closest thing to that same flow in recent years is swimming laps at a pool. The first 15 may feel like a drag, but around the 25-lap mark, I zone out. I don’t realize how much time has passed. I’m just swimming.
But whether it’s swimming laps, a lunch rush, or a particularly productive morning spent deep in the thick of a project at work, flow isn’t new. It’s highly studied and, for many, the key to everyday happiness. Here are the origins, reasons, and ways to find your own version of flow.
The father of flow
The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in an undated photo. after publishing Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience to great success in 1990, he devoted his life’s work to the study of flow.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, often dubbed the “father of flow,” was one of the first psychologists to research this phenomenon. Born in what was then considered Italy, Csikszentmihalyi was a young boy when World War II broke out across Europe. After the war, he recognized how difficult it was for the adults that survived to be happy when all of the tethers to their everyday life from before the war — like their job, home, or family — were gone. That led Csikszentmihalyi to want to identify which qualities contribute to happiness.
Having more money, it was found, did not contribute to greater rates of happiness. For example, as wealth grew in the US from the 1950s through the 1990s (and nearly tripled), the rate of deep happiness for residents still remains around 30 percent.
Throughout his studies, Csikszentmihalyi looked closely at artists, scientists, and other creatives with the ability to become utterly immersed in their work — so much so that it inspired emotional ecstasy. This was especially notable since many didn’t have strong financial incentives waiting for them at the completion of their projects.
The secret behind the joy of the creators was that they were able to be transported through their work into a completely different world than the physical one around them. It was found that getting so lost in a task that they looked up and didn’t remember where they were created pure joy. Silencing the inner voices of the mind and focusing on the task here and now was it: that was flow.
At the core, flow is a way to escape self-referential thinking, worries, and self-consciousness. A task that can get you out of your head can effectively create a flow state. According to Csikszentmihalyi’s 2004 TedTalk on flow, reaching the state requires:
Complete involvement in an activity
A feeling of ecstasy throughout the activity
Inner clarity to know what needs to happen next
Feeling confident and that next steps are achievable
Lack of awareness of inner feelings, stressors, or turmoil
Losing a sense of time (hours pass by without thinking twice)
The product of your flow becomes the motivation for it
Jon McCormack
Neurological considerations
Even though flow state has been studied for many years now, there is still little consensus on the neurological nitty-gritty of flow state. Researchers note that more study is necessary to be able to definitively state what is and is not flow in the brain. However, previous studies have even found that activities like playing video games can create plenty of flow — players lose hours upon hours of time in the midst of a game when they’re in the thick of it.
Donna Marino, a licensed clinical psychologist and executive coach based in Aurora, IL, notes that the quirk of flow is that the activity in question has to strike a balance: it cannot be too easy or too difficult.
“The brain is releasing dopamine, the neurotransmitter in the reward center of the brain, which causes you to keep going and enjoy the activity. In something that has repeated challenges, you will get multiple hits of dopamine,” says Marino.
Gabrielle Juliano-Villani, LCSW, a burnout-prevention coach and business consultant based in Sarasota, Florida, notes that there are other internal biological changes softening automatic reactions when someone enters a flow state.
“When you're in a flow state, your vagus nerve is engaged and you are in the rest and digest pathway of your nervous system. This means your body is feeling safe and your prefrontal cortex is online,” she says. “Stress levels are low and the body is feeling more relaxed.”
With that engagement of the prefrontal cortex, people in flow can make decisive, logical decisions. There is clarity about the next steps, and those next steps actually feel doable.
How and why to get into flow
Marino employs flow exercises frequently with clients on the verge of great shifts — from career changes to burnout or diminished enjoyment in life — as a reset. While athletes often receive intense buzz around entering flow states through their respective sport, demanding physical activity isn’t required to enter into flow.
Marino says that playing an instrument, dancing, woodworking, working on a puzzle, yoga, reading, or writing can help people easily enter flow. The bigger consideration relates to self-awareness.
“Try taking that time for these activities when your body and mind are most susceptible to flow states, such as the time of day when you concentrate the best,” she recommends.
For Juliano-Villani, the concepts of flow and the nervous system come up frequently with clients, especially the ways in which it impacts the quality of their lives.
“Being in flow helps [my clients] come back to the moment and connect to their inner wisdom and intuition,” she says.
John Kennedy, a neuroplastician from Evanston, Illinois, notes that the concepts of flow are ideal not just for people going through internal struggles, but those seeking to improve the quality of their work or everyday life.
“It is the optimal processing state and it helps anyone regardless of what they do,” Kennedy says.