According to psychology, a flow state is “the optimal state of human consciousness.” To be in a flow state means to be in a state of total absorption, when you become so focused on an activity or task that everything else falls away. In a flow state, action and awareness merge. Time flies. Self vanishes. You actively access the subconscious, and mental and physical performance go through the roof. This phenomenon was first named “flow” by psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in 1975. Research on flow states began to increase in the 1980s and 90s.
You’ve probably heard the term “flow state” used in extreme sports, military and business examples. It can also be called being in the zone, peak experiences, being unconscious, hyper-focus and runner’s high. In recent years, the study of flow has moved out of just positive psychology circles and into the mainstream. Books like Stealing Fire and Breath of Relief have become best sellers as they attempt teach everyone a skill that comes naturally to autistic people.
This article will explain what flow states feel like from an autistic point of view, where the term came from, how you can trigger flow if you aren’t autistic, what the characteristics of flow are, and the types of flow that you can achieve if you’re neurotypical.
What Does Flow State Feel Like?
You know those times when you feel your best and perform at a top level, seemingly effortlessly? You get so focused on a task that everything else disappears. Your action and awareness merge. Your sense of self vanishes. Time distorts (either speeding up or slowing down). And, during this total absorption and rapt attention, your mental and physical performance go through the roof.
As a neurotypical person reading this, you may have had a few such experiences like this. As an autistic person writing this, flow is a natural state for me when engaging in writing tasks. I get so focussed on grabbing the words from my personal quantum field. Time doesn’t speed up or slow down necessarily. It becomes meaningless. Such is the nature of the autistic teleological experience.
In the neurotypical world, flow states are associated with a healthy sense of well-being and increased happiness. At work, it’s been shown to increase productivity, motivation, and company loyalty. If you’ve ever experienced anything like that, you’ve been in a flow state. If you’ve never experienced it, stay tuned. I’ll help you get there.
Now, let’s break flow states down to see what they actually are.
Why is it Called Flow?
The “discoverer” of flow is the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced: chick-sent-me-high) conducted one of the largest psychological surveys on this phenomenon. He asked a simple question: “What activities produce your deepest enjoyment and greatest satisfaction?” His findings were published in his 1975 book, “Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: Experiencing Flow in Work and Play.”
The term “flow” came from Csikszentmihalyi’s survey subjects describing what their peak activities felt like. They all described similar “flowy” experiences where every action flowed seamlessly, effortlessly, from one thing to the next. In 1990, Csikszentmihalyi put his decades of research on flow states into his seminal work Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
Flow science isn’t new. It actually has a very rich and exciting history.
Triggers Used to Achieve Flow State in Neurotypicals
Csikszentmihalyi’s research, along with other scientists, uncovered ten characteristics of flow state. Four of them are usually included among the “flow triggers” found in most modern guides on the subject. Research has found that these usually precede flow. These aren’t the only flow triggers, but studies have shown these to be activities that help drive you into a flow state.
Intense Concentration—not dividing your mind between tasks, but being totally absorbed by one action in the present moment.
Challenge/Skills Balance—the challenge of the task slightly exceeds your skill set. You are pushed out of our comfort zone. The magic ratio is about 4% harder than you are comfortable with. You want to stretch yourself—not snap.
Clear Goals—not big life goals (like winning a gold medal or making a million dollars). Small, immediately achievable goals. Knowing where you are right now, and where you want to go next.
Immediate Feedback—closing the gap between cause and effect. In a moment, you can course correct mid-flight.
These characteristics can help propel you into flow with enough practice.
The Characteristics of a Flow State
If you want to know if an experience qualifies as being in flow state, this list of flow characteristics is a great place to start.
Action and Awareness Merge—You and what you’re doing become one. Your actions feel automatic and require little or no additional resources. I find it silly that people spend hours trying to keep their autistic child from arranging their toys (e.g., lining up trucks), trying to extinguish that behaviour, yet elite athletes and performers spend even more to try to do for brief moments what comes naturally to us.
Selflessness—Your sense of self disappears. As self-consciousness goes away, the inner critic is silenced. How many times have I heard care providers say that their autistic student spends so much time in their own head?
Timelessness—You experience an altered perception of time. Past and future disappear as you enter “a deep now.” The autistic brain is teleological, past/present/future experiencing that “deep now” all the time. There is so much power and strength in this way of being. It’s connected to one’s Quality World Picture, in the sense of Choice Theory.
Effortlessness—Your sense of struggle and frustration vanishes. This is connected intimately to the concept of Wu Wei, found in the Dao De Jing. According to the central text of Daoism, the Dao De Jing: “The Way never acts yet nothing is left undone’. This is the paradox of Wu Wei. It doesn’t mean not acting, it means ‘effortless action’ or ‘actionless action’. It means being at peace while engaged in the most frenetic tasks so that one can carry these out with maximum skill and efficiency. With Wu Wei, we are at one with what we are doing, in a state of profound concentration and flow.”
Intrinsic Motivation—The experience is “autotelic.” This means the activity has a purpose in itself. The activity or work becomes its own reward. Again, this is tied into one’s Quality World Picture.
Paradox of Control—You have a powerful sense of control over the situation. In flow, you are the master of your own destiny. This relates to the Basic Needs of Power and Freedom.
These characteristics feel so good, that flow for the neurotypical is probably the most addictive substance on the planet. That’s why people so often spend hundreds, even thousands attending seminars and devouring books on the subject in order to get into a state of mind that comes completely natural to an autistic person. Neurotypical flow coaches would mention at this point that it’s important to realize that we are not meant to be in flow all the time. They warn their clients that if they chase flow too much, they’ll become a “bliss junkie” and experience the dark side of flow. The coaches counsel that people want flow, but they need to control flow. They don't want flow to control them. Because it’s not natural for them, control becomes an issue. For us, for autistics, control is not a problem because our brains are wired to flow naturally.
The Flow Cycle for Neurotypicals
While there is no neuro-biological definition of flow, Herb Benson’s research at Harvard led to the understanding of the four stages of neurotypical flow.
Struggle—this is the loading phase, when you are overloading the brain with information. This would be a baseball pitcher learning a new pitch, or a writer researching and diagramming structure for a new book. It’s important to remember that flow starts with this unpleasant state.
Release—take your mind off the problem. To get into flow state, you’re trading conscious processing for subconscious processing. Slow thinking with limited RAM, for efficient endless RAM. To do that, you have to stop thinking. Go for a long walk, garden, take a very hot or cold shower, stare at the clouds.
Flow state—stress hormones leave your system. They are replaced by feel-good neurochemicals. Flow demands laser-focused attention in the present. The brain trades energy normally used for other purposes and reallocates it for flow.
Recovery—at the end of the flow state is a critical recovery phase. After the amazing high of flow, you’re going to crash. You need certain vitamins, minerals, and sunlight to get back. Steven Kotler says, “If you really want to hack flow, you’re going to need to learn how to struggle better, and how to recover better.”
According to the research, if you get stressed out by the struggle or recovery phase, you’re going to produce too much cortisol. You don’t want to trigger your flight response doing this. This will block the deep learning that’s meant to happen during flow. You may still get a short term benefit, but the long-term benefits of a high flow states will be lost. Also, you might think that vegging out in front of the television counts as recovery. It doesn’t. Screen time produces waves in the brain which actually block flow.
Get More Flow in Your Life
To understand the role flow plays in ultimate human performance, you can follow the links on this page, read some of the books you’ll find there, or you can ask an autistic person … like me.
— December 16, 2023 Note —
Some of the materials herein have made it into my book, No Place for Autism? It was released in February 2023 from Lived Places Publishing and is available at Amazon and other major book retailers worldwide.