Transcript

High school exams. Do you remember the feeling, the nervousness, the restlessness, the churning in your stomach, then the time starts? Everything in the room seems to disappear except that piece of paper in front of you, Time moves strangely. Intuition takes control, and every answer comes to you. This is the flow state, initially coined by Mihai chicsimniai. He describes the flow state as characterized by simultaneous absorption, concentration and enjoyment. It occurs when you're in a state of intense focus, absence of worrying, higher responsiveness, and when self consciousness disappears.

In recent years, scientists such as Ulrich, Dietrich and van der Linden have begun to decode what happened in the brain when we are in the zone. Considering that flow can happen during many different activities, it's difficult to see which areas and systems it's caused by key areas theorized to be affected by flow are the locus coeruleus, the default mode network, and the dopaminergic pathway. The locus coeruleus is a small nucleus in the pons responsible for releasing the chemical norepinephrine. It's linked to various other parts of the brain, as shown here, in the adaptive gain theory, the locus coeruleus neurons fire in two different states, phasic and tonic. The phasic state corresponds with focused, precise behavior and task relevant decision making.