![]() When all that that good stuff combines, you’re primed to seriously and excitedly get after your goal. “Individuals who regularly achieve this state improve their skills and are likely to feel more confident because of that,” says Levy. That’s because flow-inducing activities tend to be gratifying, and performing them helps you become even better at said activity. Regular flow experiences are also tied to higher confidence and self-esteem, studies show. That can give you major momentum to crush your WOD, dominate on the soccer field or, say, stick with your goal to eat more quality carbs. “From a sport-psychology perspective, flow is when the mind and body are totally in sync,” says Joel Fish, PhD, the director of the Center for Sport Psychology in Philadelphia. Research has uncovered a direct link between athletes’ flow experiences and peak performance too. That’s why experiencing it on the reg can translate into big benefits for your mental health as well as improved productivity. “When you’re in a flow state, your brain releases neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin that make you feel good,” explains Levy. (That post-flow bliss is worth savoring, says Paterson, as it can help you focus on what you’ve just done instead of darting off to the next thing.) You don’t just feel good while you’re doing the flow act, you’re also set up to feel calmer, more content and more accomplished afterward. Other big-time psychologists, like Martin Seligman, believe flow states are key to achieving deep, authentic happiness. You typically feel, he noted, “strong, alert, in effortless control, un-self-conscious, at the peak of ability.” Problems seem to disappear. When you’re flowing, you’re sort of stretched to your limits doing something that’s challenging and super-rewarding and fun, all at the same time. The psychologist who coined the concept of flow back in 1990 (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in case you do trivia) considered it an optimal life experience. And it could keep the progress a’flowing too. With a little effort, reaching a state of flow can be a deliberate - and frequent - experience, experts believe. But in flow, the device is devoting much more of its capacity to running a single, high-powered app, so it can work at its prime. ![]() Most of the time you’ve got a bunch of tabs or apps open at once, which can slow down your device, explains Randy Paterson, PhD, a psychologist in Vancouver and the author of How to Be Miserable in Your Twenties. “It’s almost as if the individual experiences a merging of their action and their self-awareness.” That’s the opposite of how most of us function the majority of the time, she notes. “It can be defined as complete absorption in the present moment,” explains Morgan Levy, PhD, a licensed psychologist in Boca Raton, Florida, who specializes in stress, anxiety and burnout. And it’s the secret to creating momentum that can lead to real progress with sports skills, athletic performance and almost anything requiring focus.įlow is when you’re totally at one with whatever you’re doing. But the reality is that you’re experiencing a very real psychological state: flow. It might seem like magic to get so immersed in an activity (devouring a memoir! riding a wave!) that you legit forget about your never-ending to-do list, everyday worries, or even your phone.
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