The art of riding the wave - about flow and conductive commitment to life The Danish Society of Engineers, IDA, 2014 Page 2 the same time. You do not feel the soreness of the neck, the normal feeling of hunger, or the need for coffee or other stimulants. You have stretched the rubber band to the maximum, it neither bursts nor sags. You are in a positive state where you are fully conscious, alert with a coherent line of thoughts; fully committed to the task – that is flow. In this state of flow you merge with the object. You are one with your work task, leisure-time activity or sweet girlfriend. Of course this characterisation of flow is familiar to you – flow is an everyday matter, and all healthy people can reach a state of flow. 3. ADVANTAGES OF BEING IN FLOW – and certain disadvantages When you are in flow, you learn and remember better, the confidence grows, the resilience is strengthened and new ideas, thoughts and associations are supported. The activity is experienced as extremely meaningful. There is no room for negativity; speculations are excluded from the mind which is absorbed by a deep, focused concentration. You might say that the reflective part of the mind recedes into the background during flow. Common to flow activities is that our otherwise slightly chaotic minds focus on and are filled with the activity itself. The flow activity becomes a goal in itself. Your motives/intentions, feelings and thoughts are in joint harmony. The commitment you reach in the flow state, contrasts with the positive emotions you develop during more relaxed activities which do not require your full attention. Most respondents state that they do not think or feel anything while they are fully committed in a flow activity. It is not until the flow activity is over and there is time for reflection that the positive emotions appear. A surgeon who is deeply concentrated during a complicated surgical procedure does not consider how talented he is during the surgery. Not until the subsequent evaluation, he can give himself a pat on the back and thereby trigger the positive emotions due to joy and exhilaration. The focused attention that the flow situation demands from you apparently uses all your intellectual and emotional resources which you use to think and feel. ”Parking” intellectual and emotional considerations permit you to become a better version of yourself – and especially to become your own best friend with confidence in future opportunities. There are other benefits to the flow state. Japanese and Swedish research results show that when you are in flow the strain releases the reward substance dopamine in your brain. With these reward substances in your brain, you can lay off stimulants such as coffee, beer and cigarettes – you are fully covered. The fight for survival has resulted in the ability to reach the flow state; a state which allows us to disregard hunger, cold, etc. We enjoy being optimally challenged, and the positive response we get in flow situations makes us carry on regardless of how rough the outer circumstances may be. Flow forms a counterweight to the overburdened, anxious and strained aspects of work where you work more but achieve less because you are not in balance. As such, you can look at flow as a contrast to stress. Flow boosts performance and productivity; you reach maximum results with less energy.
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