Flow States Explained

Have you ever done something, such as writing, painting, cooking, teaching, where you are so completely engrossed in what you are doing that you 'become one' with it? Your perception of time seemed to change. Maybe it felt like someone or something else was doing the actual work almost through you. And to top it off, you knew what you had just created wasn't the usual slog, it was easy, fluid, it was special.

Scientists call this the flow state - what athletes and artists have long described as ‘being in the zone.’ It’s that sweet spot where you’re so absorbed you forget yourself, time bends, and somehow you do your best work. People who experience flow more often tend to be happier, learn faster, and bounce back from stress more easily.

Why? Because in flow, the brain temporarily shifts its operating mode. Parts of the prefrontal cortex - the area responsible for self-criticism and time tracking - go quiet, while networks linked to focus, creativity, and pattern recognition light up. Dopamine and norepinephrine flood the system, sharpening attention and speeding up learning. It’s not magic; it’s neurochemistry doing what it does best when you finally get out of your own way.

It seems that creativity isn't a skill, but a state of mind. If we want more creativity we need to train our non-ordinary state of consciousness. In this day and age, the most familiar non-ordinary states are meditation, flow and psychedelics.

Now, before you think I am going to offer a special 20% code off your first LSD purchase, not this time but do sign up to my newsletter though, I do sometimes offer discounts on things...

Why Flow Matters

Ironically, in an age where AI is doing more and more of the hard work for us, the risk is that we lose the very friction that produces flow. Those awkward, effortful moments - the wrestling with words, the trial-and-error, the thinking itself - are what light up the brain’s reward systems and spark creativity. If a machine removes all that, we might get efficiency, but we lose the satisfaction of making something through focus and struggle.

Researchers link flow directly to creativity which, according to the ATC21S project (a collaboration of over 250 researchers across 60 institutions), is one of the most essential life skills for the 21st century. Not because we all need to paint better watercolours, but because creativity is how we solve problems, design systems, and navigate chaos. It’s what turns information into ideas, and ideas into action.

Even the business world has caught on: in the IBM Global CEO study of 1,500 executives, over 60% ranked creativity as the single most desirable leadership quality; above vision, integrity, or discipline. But beyond boardrooms, studies consistently show that people who access flow more often report higher wellbeing, stronger focus, and a greater sense of purpose.

So yes, creativity keeps companies alive, but it also keeps us alive. It’s how humans think, build, and evolve. And flow is the state that lets us do it brilliantly. The question then becomes: how do we train it? It turns out you can’t really teach creativity. You have to create the conditions for it to appear.

Flow doesn’t happen by accident. Psychologists call the circumstances that make it possible flow triggers: conditions like novelty, risk, deep focus, and clear goals that light up your brain’s attention systems. These six habits are essentially daily ways to cultivate those triggers.

How to Train Flow - Six Habits that Actually Work

Sleep like it matters: Keep the bedroom dark, cold and quiet. When you sleep well, your brain shifts from effortful, conscious control to the effortless, automatic kind of processing that makes flow possible. A review found that the transition from ‘trying’ to ‘being in it’ depends heavily on a rested brain. When sleep is poor, dopamine receptors dull, which means less focus and less drive.
Own the hour after waking: Have a good morning routine. The first hour of your day sets the tone for everything that follows. Early light exposure, movement, and hydration spark the brain and its chemical backdrop for motivation and good mood. Some performance experts call this ‘dopamine priming’. Little morning wins like journaling, stretching, or moving in natural light that tell your brain, we’re awake, we’re ready, we’re safe. That first hour isn’t about productivity; it’s about state management.
Defend your first 90 minutes: Remove all distractions and focus on the most important task. Flow doesn’t stand a chance in a room full of notifications and half-open tabs. Research shows that uninterrupted single-tasking for 60-90 minutes yields the deepest concentration and the highest creative output before mental fatigue sets in. The brain needs sustained focus to balance challenge and skill.
Stop & recover (micro-breaks): Paradoxically, the way to do more is to stop often. Studies show that even a one-minute movement break or a few slow breaths can reduce mental fatigue and reset your attention networks. Think of them as pit stops for the brain. So, every hour, get up, stretch, wiggle, breathe, or dance it out for a song. Don’t wait until your brain crashes.
Active recovery: Do activities that engage the parasympathetic nervous system, your body’s ‘rest-and-digest’ mode. Things like taking a bath, Yoga Nidra, breathwork, a walk in nature, even mindful cooking-all reduce cortisol, rebalance adrenaline, and clear the neural noise that builds up during deep work.
Plan adventures: Novelty is rocket-fuel for flow. Step into something new and your brain floods with dopamine, curiosity spikes, and learning speeds up. The trick is to find that sweet spot where the challenge is just beyond your current ability-not so easy you’re bored, not so hard you’re panicking. This ‘challenge–skill ratio’ is one of the most reliable flow triggers. So go plan an adventure: book that retreat, try the dance class, write the chapter, sign up for the workshop. Novelty keeps your neurons curious.

Elizabeth Gilbert’s ‘Visiting Genius’

In her wonderful TED talk, writer Elizabeth Gilbert describes creativity as something that visits - an idea strikingly similar to how psychologists describe entering flow. Inspiration isn’t something you own - a personal possession- it’s something that visits. In ancient Greece, they called it a daemon; the Romans named it a genius. The idea was that creativity moved through you, not from you (which, thank goodness, takes the pressure off trying to be brilliant on command.)

Maybe flow is just the scientific way of describing that same mysterious visit. You can’t summon it, but you can leave the door open and the light on. Do the groundwork, then let the genius do the rest.

The Flow of Yoga

In yoga, flow isn’t new. You might recognise the term ‘Vinyasa Yoga’. The Sanskrit term comes from the root nyasa (‘to place’) and vi (‘in a special way’) so vinyasa literally means ‘to place things with intention.’ Each movement is a mindful link between breath and awareness. When breath, body, and attention merge, the experience becomes effortless - exactly what modern psychology calls flow.

You’ve probably felt it yourself during a class, when the rhythm of breath and movement takes over and, for a while, you disappear into it. There’s no effort, no thinking, just a quiet sense of being moved.

As T.K.V. Desikachar wrote in The Heart of Yoga, “The quality of our action is determined by the attention we bring to it.” That’s the yogic version of flow: not losing yourself but becoming fully yourself in the act of doing. The postures aren’t the goal; the union of breath, focus, and presence is.

In yogic philosophy, this merging is called samadhi, the eighth limb of yoga, where the line between observer and observed dissolves. It’s often described as a state of complete absorption, when awareness and the object of awareness become one. You might think of it like a musician so immersed in playing that the music seems to play itself. In both yoga and art, the ‘me’ steps aside and something larger moves through.

Modern writers like Steven Kotler call this ‘the neurobiology of transcendence,’ but yogis have spoken of it for millennia as cosmic flow, aligning personal rhythm (microcosm), with universal rhythm (macrocosm). The ancient texts framed it poetically: when prana moves freely, consciousness expands. When consciousness expands, creativity flows.

Whether it’s pranayama, painting, or project management, the idea’s the same: you stop pushing and start participating. Flow isn’t about striving; it’s about syncing.

The Modern Obsession: From Microdosing to Mind Hacking

It’s not just yogis and scientists who want to ‘get in the zone.’ These days, everyone is chasing flow; artists, athletes, coders, CEOs, anyone who’s realised that being fully absorbed in what you’re doing feels better than almost anything else. It’s become a billion-dollar obsession. There are apps to measure it, ice baths to shock you into it, and a growing tribe of modern explorers using psychedelics to shortcut their way there.

The tech world loves a hack, and ‘microdosing for flow’ has become their holy grail- tiny doses of LSD or psilocybin, said to quiet the brain’s default-mode network (the bit responsible for overthinking and self-criticism) and unlock that sweet spot of creativity. There’s some science behind it: a 2019 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that psychedelics and flow share similar brainwave patterns - alpha and theta rhythms - both quieting the brain’s over-controlling regions and allowing freer creative thinking.

But this isn’t new. The Vedic texts spoke of soma, a mysterious plant or brew said to connect mortals with the divine. The Beat poets had their jazz and Benzedrine; the ’60s had Timothy Leary telling everyone to ‘turn on, tune in, drop out.’ Humans have always looked for ways to quiet the mind and slip beyond the ordinary. Flow just happens to be the sober version.

So, you don’t need to chew a mushroom to feel transcendence. Most of us find it in less dramatic ways - when a piece of music swallows you whole, when you lose track of time painting, an effortless run, making love, or teaching. Moments when doing becomes being. The brain settles, self-consciousness switches off, and we drop into the rhythm of what’s happening. We call it focus, passion, creativity, devotion, but underneath, it’s the same impulse: the wish to step out of the noise and merge with the doing itself.

Why We Can’t Stay in Flow Forever

As blissful as it sounds, flow isn’t meant to be permanent. It’s a state, not a lifestyle. Biologically, the neurochemistry that fuels flow - a cocktail of dopamine, norepinephrine, endorphins, and anandamide - is designed for bursts, not baseline. After the high comes a natural dip, what researchers call the recovery phase.

Living there constantly would fry your system. The goal isn’t to be in flow all the time: it’s to visit it often enough to remember what alignment feels like and then build a life that makes those visits easier.

It’s hard not to chase flow, isn’t it? Here I am, working my cotton socks off trying to make this piece coherent and worth reading: the washing machine’s spinning, the dogs are demanding, and I can confirm the creative genius has not popped by for tea.

Of course, it would be lovely if this blog wrote itself and swept us both into a state of effortless flow, but the truth is that hard work is part of the deal. Flow isn’t about skipping the effort; it’s about being absorbed enough to forget you’re making one.

Maybe that’s what both science and spirituality are hinting at: stop paddling so hard. Flow happens when you finally let the current do some of the work.