The enigmatic state of “flow” enables us to achieve a lot in a very short timeframe. There are many discussions regarding getting into the flow state: prepare yourself to emerge in work, match the task at hand with your personal skill, anticipate the work, remove whatever blocks your creativity. However, it is very seldom that we find
descriptions of what actually happens during the “flow” state. This interesting article opens a window into the physiology of the flow which I want to discuss.
Each area of a brain has its own working frequency. Just as a computer chip, some areas of the brain are tuned to consume more energy and work harder, while other parts of the brain rest. Due to the way the information is exchanged between neurons, the closely connected areas of the brain all function at the same frequency. This means that multiple neurons may exchange information at the same time, syncing to similar states and generating some results. These results pass through loose connections between various clusters of neurons that work at different frequencies. Since the brain is responsible for a huge part of energy (food) consumption, it is in the interest of survival to preserve the energy and deal only with the necessary information exchange. This could be compared with a ballet show, where different groups of dancers dance in slightly different tempo.
Occasionally, energy preservation and longevity are simply not as important as solving a life and death challenge. In this case, the brain needs to activate the fastest, most effective processing loop, even if it means draining the body of its reserves. The various parts of the brain suddenly synchronize with each other. The effort may become so large, that the brain gets flooded with hormones, probably including endorphin, dopamine, and serotonin – associated with the performance increase and with pleasure. Curiously similar hormones are mentioned in some tantric practices and hypnosis. At this synchronize state, the information can traverse the brain much faster and further, creating sparks if creativity and productivity. The personal feeling is one of great excitement and power, hyper-focus, joy and interest.
Synchronized brain activity generates more creative solutions, hightened productivity, more effective decision making, faster response time. Memory, expecially long term memory is more active as so called theta waves synchronize. In flow state we are catching a glympse of what our brain is really capable of. Great books are produced in matters of days. Nietzsche commented in Ecce Homo that for the completion of each part of his most important masterpiece : “Ten days sufficed; in no case, neither for the first nor for the third and last, did I require more”. Songs are written in 20 min.
The toll of the flow state on the body energy reserves is vast and not very well documented. The synchronized brain activity may be as hard for the brain as epileptic siesure and it may be followed by a similar state. Drowsiness, confusion, headache, disorientation and hunger may follow as the brain looses its synchronization and the blood flow changes. Interestingly, these adverse effects following the flow state are seldom discussed and are typically treated as “burnout condition”. While most of us prefer steady and controlled progress, some creative professionals, workoholics and productivity freaks quite often exchange flow and burnout states.
You may probably understand, that some of this article is written from personal experience. I have experience various forms of flow when writing a program than I did when writing poetry. I have personally suffered the effects of the burnout and the price of top performance is more than I am usually willing to pay. People are different, and you may have a different perspective, which I invite you to share youw owne “flow” experiences.
You may want to access your flow state to envoke your brain’s full potential, and you might prefer to do this carefully. We still do not know enough about how our brain works. Different parts of brain are locked in a dance, and if the dencers synchronize with each other we get a truly remarkable performance.
