Flow -- the mental state of being completely present and fully immersed in a task -- is a strong contributor to creativity. When in flow, the creator and the universe become one, outside distractions recede from consciousness and one's mind is fully open and attuned to the act of creating. There is very little self-awareness or critical self-judgement; just intrinsic joy for the task. Since flow is so essential to creativity and well-being across many slices of life -- from sports to music to physics to religion to spirituality to sex -- it's important that we learn more about the characteristics associated with flow so that we may all learn how to tap into this precious mental resource.
But who enters flow? What are these lucky folks like? Recent research shows that people differ quite a bit from each other in the frequency and intensity of their flow experiences. These differences aren't just found in Western cultures. In a study conducted on Japanese students, those who reported experiencing flow more often in their daily lives engaged in more daily activities, and were more likely to have higher levels of self-esteem, Jujitsu-kan (a sense of fulfillment), life satisfaction, better coping strategies and lower anxiety.
In a hot-off-the-press paper in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (author of "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience") and his colleagues in Sweden set out to investigate the associations between flow proneness, intelligence, and the major dimensions of personality. Across two samples of participants with a wide age range, they found some intriguing associations with flow. "Proneness to experience flow" was measured by having participants report how frequently they have flow experiences during three slices of life: work, maintenance (i.e., household chores) and leisure time. They then looked at relations with personality and cognitive ability.
Neurotic participants experienced less flow across multiple domains in their daily lives. The researchers offer some possible mechanisms that could account for this association. One possibility is that the negative emotions that come with high neuroticism interfere with the state of joy that occurs when in a flow state. Another possibility is that the fluctuations in emotion that come with neuroticism can also affect both the cognitive and emotional aspects of flow, causing a disruption in flow. A third possibility is that neuroticism impacts on flow indirectly, through the life choices those high in neuroticism make on a moment-to-moment basis. Research has shown that those high in neuroticism do tend to have less motivation to become involved in activities and experience a greater sense of futility in engaging fully in life.
The researchers also found an association between flow and conscientiousness. Those who were more dutiful and persevering also tended to report higher levels of flow in their daily lives. This association is probably due to the fact that conscientiousness is positively related to other variables that are also associated with flow, such as social problem solving, life satisfaction, subjective happiness, positive affect and intrinsic motivation. Conscientious individuals are also more likely to spend the time practicing to master challenging tasks, conditions which make flow more likely. As the researchers note, "It seems likely that high conscientiousness involves emotional and motivational mechanisms that make an individual engage in flow promoting activities."
The researchers didn't find significant relation with other factors of personality, which I found surprising. I expected them to find an association with Openness to Experience, as prior studies have found a positive link. Perhaps a reason for their lack of association with Openness may be that their Openness measure had quite a few items relating to a preference for intellectual engagement mixed in with items which are more strongly related to flow, such as an openness to aesthetics, feelings, and sensations. Indeed, there was only a very weak association between flow proneness and performance on an actual measure of intelligence, which required participants to find patterns. At first blush, it would seem as though intelligence would be related to flow. After all, intelligence is related to the ability to control attention.
But as the researchers note, the mental state of flow differs markedly from the mental state involved in solving problems on an IQ test. In a prior study conducted in Sweden led by Örjan de Manzano (who was a co-author of the study with Dr. Csikszentmihalyi), the researchers asked professional pianists to play a musical piece five times and rate their level of flow each time. The respiratory patterns and emotion-related activity of the facial muscles found in those entering flow more frequently suggested that they were experiencing an emotional state of enjoyment and a lack of mental effort. Contrast this with taking an IQ test, where it's difficult to bring your expertise to bear on the task. Instead, flow seems most likely to occur when a person engages in a task with a moderate level of challenge that is well matched in difficulty to a person's current skill level. Flow also shares some commonalities with the mental states of high concentration seen during meditation, which also seems to be a form of concentration uninhibited by our critical facilities when one is fully immersed in the moment. The researchers sum it up: "Flow may thus be a state of subjectively effortless attention that occurs during skilled performance and has different underlying mechanisms from attention during mental effort."
I'm excited to see that this is an active area of research. The finding that flow is more strongly related to personality than cognitive ability is fascinating and hopeful. Minor tweaks in your personality might make it more likely you will enter flow. The changes are well worth it.
© 2011 by Scott Barry Kaufman.
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In his book, Authentic Happiness (© 2003), Dr. Seligman describes the flow experience like this: "When does time stop for you? When do you find yourself doing exactly what you want to be doing, and never wanting it to end? Is it painting, or making love, or playing volleyball, or talking before a group, or rock climbing, or listening sympathetically to someone else's troubles?" http://bit.ly/9JTjUW He is director of PPN.
Of course this is what yoga is all about. It is about raising the consciousness so a person can feel this more of the time and at deeper levels. I have been doing yoga since age 12. That is also when I started doing martial arts and tai chi that also help one to experience this more and more.
A favorite poem of mine says:
"The flower in the garden gives up its fragrance regardless.
I sit and stare.
How rueful this world."
The flower fluidly flows from moment to moment without stopping, releasing it's fragrance. Our mind stops on the flower and the fragrance and elaborates: "Oh how wonderful, how beautiful. There were flowers like this at my old house. I wonder how long this flower will last? I don't want it to go." Etc. Meanwhile, our mind is no longer fluidly flowing. We should take the example of the flower itself, which releases its fragrance regardless.
Your fellow blogger Jeanne Ball’s article "The Key To Health And Happiness: A 'Lost' State of Consciousness?" is all about a technique to enter the flow.
Or, more accurately, about a technique for preparing to enter the flow. Transcendental Meditation "cleans" your brain and lets it function more as a whole. After some time of doing that regularly, people notice it becomes easier and easier to enter the flow.
In the context of that article, the 4th state of consciousness is the meditative state, and being in the flow would be a 5th state combining waking consciousness with the inner restfulness of the meditation.
Yes, this is an active area of research, and it’s high time, too!
I experience it primarily when doing dangerous activities like skiing, scuba diving, roller blading, etc. If my life isn't on the line, it's difficult for me to focus.
I am not surprised to hear that the experience of flow is not strongly dependent on cognitive ability. A certain level of intelligence is necessary for engaging in creative pursuits, but that itself is not necessarily highly correlated with attention skills as measured by IQ and other tests (those skills can be quite lousy in the brightest and certainly in the most creative individuals).
Also not surprised that different states of flow -- and therefore different types of attentional engagement -- are involved in skilled and well-practiced performance and solving new (or old) mental problems that require sustained and directed attentional effort.
The most intriguing, I'd say, are the states of flow associated with artistic and other creativity. Those involve employing a high level of practiced skills in solving a new mental problem (creating an invention, a piece of art, etc.), and thus engaging both types of attention. This kind of attentional engagement is strongly mediated and augmented by non-cognitive factors: emotion and imagination, which allow creators, whose everyday attention for the mundane may be poor, fully invest their minds in the creative process.
Look up the concept of overexcitability (OE; it correlates with openness to experience, but goes beyond it). It is quite certain that OE (some of its specific forms and types) are necessary for the experience of flow.
To draw, you must close your eyes and sing._Picasso
Each time I undertake to paint a picture I have a sensation of leaping into space.
I have never had time for the idea of searching. Whenever I wanted to express something, I did so without thinking of the past or the future._Picasso
While I am working I am not conscious of what I am putting on the canvas._Picasso
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For myself, being one with the canvas, is an innate sense, to which I have no idea of how I arrived.
Nor am I aware of the route of the journey , as there is no beginning and no end ....it just is....not segmented stages to analyze , scrutinize or even agonize over.
It just is. Very much like a meditative state.
To study the space or the flow by scientific methods, may prove difficult because the researcher is not in that space or flow.But rather they're looking in from outside and may miss the totality of the very space or flow they are trying to observe in others. Though they can measure particulars, that space and flow is elusive and fluid. Just my opinion, but I also think the data studies yield will have benefits, though I don't think they will ever be able to encapsulate it, because that space/flow is also personal.
But I also feel that the flow/space is related to levels of brainwave activity. much the way a meditative space and non meditative spaces are ascribed to particular levels , Alpha Beta ,Theta & Delta.
In technically driven creative spaces, we tend to utilize I think all wave levels from each skill specific hemisphere for particular actions.
One may begin the creative process in say ,Theta or Delta, but the to carry out or reproduce it in the arts , we also rely on Beta.
However when one is truly in the space, it's an area that goes beyond academics or measurable areas. Because we enter a neuronal space and it transcends the obvious skill related entities of Rt-Lt brain shifts. It's a space that is truly unique, yet as old as time itself and very personal space unique to each individual.
Measuring it by scientific methods can only record bits of the whole, then it's pieced together to try to understand it. It may be the only approach we have at the moment, but it can only record specifics,using tools like, FMRI,EEG's, as well as many other forms of scientific recording methods.
They're studying the outward recordable effects not the intuitive or intrinsic ingredients that make up the whole.....and this probably made no sense:-)
for we all have both a left and right
and one side is underdeveloped while the other side is bombarded