All About the State of Flow: Definition, Health Effects, and How to Get Into the Zone

Have you ever done a tricky but doable task — say a puzzle — and felt intense engagement, absorption, and enjoyment? If so, you’ve experienced a flow state.

If this sounds familiar, you’re in good company, according to psychologist Dwight Tse, PhD, who studies the psychology behind flow and is a lecturer at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland. Dr. Tse estimates about 80 percent of people experience flow at some point — and recent research makes the case that it’s possible to find flow at any age.

This is largely positive news since flow feels good, and experts believe it’s generally good for you, too.

But finding and maintaining flow isn’t all that easy in daily life, and you should know about possible downsides, says Tse. Here’s more on what flow is, how it seems to work, what it means for your health, and how you can master it for yourself.

The American Psychological Association (APA) defines flow as “a state of optimal experience arising from intense involvement in an activity that is enjoyable.”

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, PhD, is known as the “father of flow.” Dr. Csikszentmihalyi developed his ideas about flow after noticing common themes in how the people in his studies described deeply enjoyable experiences, according to his 1990 best-selling book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.

In the book, Csikszentmihalyi goes on to describe nine components of flow. These overlapping features cover what it’s like to find flow and be in the zone.

• Challenge-skill balance: Tasks are tough enough that you’re not bored but not so difficult that you’re overwhelmed.
• Action-awareness merging: Your attention is totally absorbed in what you’re doing.
• Clear goals: You understand what you need to do.
• Unambiguous feedback: You can tell how you’re doing as you go.
• Concentration on the task at hand: You’re focused on what you’re doing — and nothing else.
• Sense of control: You feel like you’re in charge of what will happen.
• Loss of self-consciousness: You don’t think about yourself.
• Transformation of time: Time feels different. Sometimes hours can flash by in what feels like minutes.
• Autotelic experience: What you’re doing is its own reward, not something you’re doing for outside accolades.

Tse, who coauthored a number of studies with Csikszentmihalyi and was one of his last doctoral students, says people in flow don't necessarily experience all of these components at the same time and to the same degree.

While Csikszentmihalyi first described flow decades ago, the neuroscientific research on flow is still relatively new, says Dimitri van der Linden, PhD, who studies flow and is a professor of psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Even though scientists haven’t settled on what brain processes cause flow, he says they have ideas about what’s happening.

Brain Activity During a State of Flow

One promising theory put forward in a paper published in December 2004 in Consciousness and Cognition suggests that flow works by temporarily reducing activity in some areas in the brain’s prefrontal cortex related to critical thinking and self-control so that more automatic processes can take over.

Some brain imaging research provides evidence supporting this theory, called the transient hypofrontality theory. In one small study, researchers scanned the brains of 27 people during experimentally induced flow states. During flow, people’s brains showed less activity in an area associated with thinking and worrying about ourselves. Suppressed activity there during flow makes sense since one of its characteristics is that you don't feel self-conscious, explains Dr. van der Linden.

At the same time, some parts of the prefrontal cortex do appear to be more active during flow. The same study found that people in flow had more electrical activity in a part of the prefrontal cortex that helped meet task demands. Researchers think activity in this part of the brain could contribute to the sense of control people feel during flow.

The Chemical Signature of Flow

Flow is also likely driven by neurotransmitters. Van der Linden says that because flow is characterized by sustained focus on a task, it probably involves dopamine (which helps tasks feel rewarding) and norepinephrine (which helps provide energy for them).

“Your brain has to decide, ‘Okay, I'm going to work on this task,’ but it also has to decide, ‘I'm going to continue working on this task,’” says van der Linden, whose paper published in October 2020 in European Journal of Neuroscience explores how the brain may behave during flow.

All told, van der Linden says more research is needed to fully understand how flow works in the brain.

Proponents have long believed that flow is an essential part of a good life, according to the foundational textbook A Primer in Positive Psychology, by Christopher Peterson. But pinning down exactly how flow impacts health has proven surprisingly tricky. Plus, despite its glowing reputation, experts say its precise impact on health is less clear-cut.

Flow May Support Well-Being

Since most flow research uses self-reported data after the fact, experts can’t yet say for certain the effects flow has on mental and physical health, says Kate Sweeny, PhD, who has studied flow as a technique for coping with uncertainty and is a professor of psychology at the University of California in Riverside. But, by definition, flow feels good, and it appears to be positive for your health while it’s happening, she says.

Dr. Sweeny explains that when your mind is roiling, using flow to get your consciousness into an activity rather than being stuck in your head seems to help mental health in the moment. For example, one study found that teaching musicians how to trigger flow while playing lowered their performance anxiety. “I think it's a good mood boost for when you're in it, and maybe for a short time afterward,” Sweeny says.

Flow may be particularly suited to helping people cope during an acute crisis, Sweeny says. “The way that I think about flow is kind of an exquisite distraction,” she adds. Sweeny and her colleagues used online surveys to study how 5,115 people living in China coped with COVID-19 lockdowns early on in the pandemic. They found that flow not only helped lower the stress of quarantine but also reduced unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking and heavy drinking.

While Sweeny thinks that flow’s effects are mostly short-lived, she said it’s possible that flow could start a positive cascade that might have a longer-lasting impact on physical and mental health. For example, she says that if you’re having a hard time, a deep flow experience could disconnect you from stress, which could lead to better sleep, which could have more health benefits down the line.

Dark Flow May Harm Health

Could too much flow be bad for you? A growing area of research looks into the potential downsides of flow, particularly its relationship to behavioral addiction, says Tse. “We’re trying to distinguish the good side of flow versus the bad side of it,” he says.

So far, some studies have looked at dark flow and gambling, while other lines of research examine flow and video game addiction. Tse points out that some research, including a past study on kayakers, has found that flow may also impair risk perception in adventure sports. Tse says discounting risk during flow could lead people to do things that harm their health. He says studies like these introduce a caveat to the generally positive effects of flow on well-being: The activity in which you find flow matters.

While some research suggests that personality and other factors you can’t easily control facilitate flow, experts say there are things you can do if you’d like more flow in your life.

Reduce Distraction

Since flow is a state of deep concentration, when you want to find flow, the first thing to do is eliminate distractions, says Torrie Higgins, PhD, head peak performance coach based in Austin, Texas, who works with the Flow Research Collective in Gardnerville, Nevada. She says it’s important to look out for digital distractions (like notifications on your phone) and physical ones (like heading for another cup of coffee). She explains that to get into flow, you often need to push past an initial phase of struggle. Distraction interrupts this process. “If you are allowing constant distractions and interruptions, you're never going to get into flow,” says Dr. Higgins.

Establish Clear Goals and Outcomes

If you have to keep pausing to ask yourself what you should do next or whether you’re on the right track, you’ll have a hard time staying in flow, says Higgins. Instead, take time upfront to set yourself up with clear goals and outcomes, two of Csikszentmihalyi’s components of flow. “That allows you to really immerse yourself in the task and go into that pure execution mode,” she says.

Seek the Challenge-Skill Sweet Spot

To find flow, look to the edge of your skill set, advises Higgins. If a task is too easy, you may get bored, while if a task is too hard, you’ll get anxious. Flow exists in between. “It’s about fine-tuning,” she says, adding that giving yourself more or less time to complete tasks can be a great way to adjust the difficulty level.

Observe Yourself

If you want more flow in your life, Sweeny says you can work with the flow that’s already there. Once you identify that the thing that happens to you when you garden or bake or organize your closet is flow, you can try to recreate the conditions and deliberately seek them out.

We have an inherent ability to find a state of flow, she affirms.