21/02/2019

Published in

One year journaling challenge

2 min readFeb 21, 2019

Thoughts:

Let’s talk about FLOW. Flow is the optimal state of consciousness for high performance in any domain and it has different names like: the Zone, deep now, runners high, forever box etc. In this state you feel and perform at your best. This state it has some of the next characteristics: deep attention, total absorption, sense of self vanish, time runs differently (slow down or speeds up), complete presence etc. The state came to FLOW because of the easiness to which next action follows the last one almost in a flowy way.

The godfather of the flow state Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi find three thing about this state:

1) Is definable and measurable

- Complete absorption with the task at hand, ego vanishes, time expands or contract etc.

2) Is universal (is for everyone)

3) Is fundamental to well-being and overall life satisfaction

In Flow less is more, we are using less components of the brain. The prefrontal cortex of your brain shuts down. This part of the brain that handles logical decision making, complex planning and calculation is turning off. You get in the deep now state, complete presence and absorption on now, time melts, your anxiety levels goes down and your sense of self dissolve. But risk taking and creativity goes up.

Bonus you get a huge bust on neurochemistry. Only in the flow state you get all the five chemical for pleasure from your brain: norepinephrine, dopamine, anandamide, serotonin and endorphins.

Flow follows focus, deep attention into the now. For more check this talk: