If you’ve never heard the term before, ‘flow state’ describes a mental space in which a person is completely absorbed by an activity or task. And it’s been linked with multiple cognitive benefits, from greater productivity to a brighter mood. We consulted a neuroscientist to help you understand it – and harness it.
The Sweet Spot
Flow state is a balancing point between boredom and stress, says Nicole Vignola, a neuroscientist and author of Rewire: Your Neurotoolkit For Everyday Life. The task can’t be so dull that you’re faced with ‘self-interruptions – internally generated thoughts, like stopping for coffee’. But the task can’t be so tricky that you become paralysed or procrastinate. It also benefits from a mix of intrinsic motivation – inner drive – and extrinsic motivation (eg, a work deadline).
Feeling Good
During flow, dopamine – the neurotransmitter that plays a role in motivation and reward – is released in the nucleus accumbens. This is part of the basal ganglia, a group of brain structures also involved in habit-forming. The activity becomes ‘self-rewarding’ – performed for its own sake, rather than the outcome alone – making you feel ‘euphoric and good about yourself’, says Vignola. This in turn can diminish fatigue and discomfort.
Laser Focus
Norepinephrine is the neurotransmitter released during moments of stress, to keep you ‘aroused and alert’. Too much will take you out of flow state, but a little helps. It’s responsible for ‘determining which part of attention needs to be diverted to which task and removing competing stimuli’, says Vignola, and allows you to become fully immersed in the job at hand. It’s what creates that tunnel-vision feeling, the sense that everything else ‘ceases to exist’.
Out of Body
Flow state can help get you out of your own head. ‘The default mode network (DMN) is responsible for internal thoughts, self-referential information, autobiographical memories and mind wandering,’ says Vignola. This network is less active when you’re in flow because you’re less self-conscious and instead are ‘solely focused on your task’. Neuroplasticity also allows us to tap into previous experiences with flow to push past resistance.
Mind Map
Creativity during flow is an interplay between the DMN and ‘the central executive network (CEN), responsible for problem-solving and cognitively demanding tasks’. A third system, the salience network, ‘decides which stimuli are important and switches between the DMN and CEN, determining which should be “on”’, explains Vignola. You can make this process more efficient via meditation and self-hypnosis.
