Flow Stress And You
Flow is a state experienced when people choose an activity and find themselves totally absorbed by it. In many ways flow is the opposite of stress.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, an academic psychologist, came across the state he called FLOW whilst researching happiness. Actually he called the state flow as so many people who were subjects of his research used this word to describe their happiest state. As though they were caught up in the experience and just went with like flowing down a river.
Researching Happiness
Psychologists were reluctant to research happiness as it seemed to vague and wooly idea. The main method available was to ask people to fill out a diary at the end of each day or week and because this was based on memory the method was not very precise.
Mihaly, along with fellow researchers, used the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) which involved giving subjects a pager or alarm which went off randomly during 2 hour intervals throughout the day. Subjects agreed to write down as soon as alarm went off things such as
- where they were
- what they were doing
- what they were thinking about
- who they were with
and to rate on a numerical scale
- how happy they were
- how much they were concentrating
- how motivated they were
Around 2300 subjects provided 70,000 pages of responses. Other researchers have tripled the amount of data.
So What Did They Find
Whilst most people reported most happiness when with friends many people regularly reported happiness at work, after that many people reported happiness in leisure time or when driving.
Surprisingly perhaps people reported more occasions of being occupied with feelings of satisfaction and creativity and a high skilled task at work than at home. I guess that counts as happiness.
So What Is Flow
Flow is a state which people describe as being arising when they are fully concentrating on a task which is challenging and requires them to use their skills, yet the challenge is achievable and the rules of the task are clear.
If the challenge is not high enough people get bored, if the challenge is too high people either give up, get stressed or worried.
Another common label for this state is in the zone.
Occasionally this state can arise without performing any task
- listening to a piece of music
- experiencing a beautiful view
This state can even arise in situations of extreme discomfort where one might think it would never arise. Viktor Frankl described his experiences in a nazi concentration camp in Man’s Search For Meaning. Viktor realized even though the camp guards had total control over his life, they could even end it, yet they could not control what he thought. Viktor also tells how he and others experienced moments of pure joy, perhaps triggered by an act of kindness or simply a beautiful sunset.
Examples Of Flow
In his books Flow and Finding Flow Mihaly gives many examples of flow. Two stand out in particular.
A female patient with chronic schizophrenia in the Netherlands was given an ESM device, as were all the patients at the clinic, to find out what they did all day. She had been in hospital for over 10 years and was usually confused and had low self esteem. Over the two weeks she had the ESM device she only reported a positive mood twice. (Remember there may be 6 or more requests from ESM device every day so this is only 2 out of at least 84 reports).
On checking on both occasions the patient had been doing her nails.
But there’s more.
The clinic asked a professional manicurist to teach her. The patient was soon caring for the nails of other patients and went on to make so much of a recovery that she was released (under a supervision order) and went on to become self sufficient.
Perhaps Mihaly’s favourite example is Joe a worker on the shop floor of a factory (page 147 Flow, page 2 Finding Flow). Joe had taught himself how each of the machines in factory worked and how to repair them. Effectively the factory was totally dependent on Joe. Despite his ability Joe repeatedly refused promotion. The shop floor, repairing machines was where he wanted to be. On top of this Joe has masterminded the factory’s operation could perform any role when needed.
But Joe has a home life too. At home he has built a beautiful rock garden, fitted sprinklers which Joe has arranged to make rainbows. And because he’s usually working during the day he’s installed lights so he can see his rainbows during the dark. Oh and he bought adjacent vacant lots and extended the garden their too.
Mihaly regards Joe as a prime example of life is what you make it. Coworkers might view the factory as dirty, noisy and something to be escaped for the freedom of a beer watching television. Joe relishes the challenge of understanding and bringing order to his environment at work or at home, simply because he enjoys doing so.
Whilst Joe may be an extreme example but he is by no means the only one. While Stress Can Make You Ill Yet Can Be The Spice Of Life reported people in lower status jobs tend to suffer more stress and hence more illness, Joe shows this isn’t necessarily so.
How Can You Find Flow?
Rather than a long list here are 3 suggestions
find a hobby
find friends
find something interesting about what you already do
and just do them for their own sake so you can get lost in them, rather than aiming for success or happiness.
As, in the words of Viktor Frankel, success and happiness are like a rainbow as they tend to retreat as you pursue them.