Getting into the flow easily

Kristen Hamling Photo/File

Have you ever had the experience that when you are so engrossed in an activity that what feels like five minutes has actually turned into five hours?

You feel supercharged afterwards and experience a bunch of positive emotions.

Athletes describe it as being in the zone. This state has been researched by Mihaly Cskszentmihalyi who sought to define what it is to "be in the zone", studying people who do something just for the sheer joy of it, such as dancers, artists, musicians and chess players.

He came up with the idea of flow - a state when you are completely absorbed in an activity that you forget about everything else. You are oblivious to the world around you, all of your attention is focused on this one activity.

Although people don't describe feeling happy while in the flow moment, it is the post-flow glow that generates the gutsy happiness. From my own experience, after a flow state I feel invigorated, stimulated, excited, joyful but also content and focused. I think nowadays in our busy world we think that all of our activities have to be productive, purposeful and lead to tangible outcomes.

However, it may help to spend some time in activities that you love just for the sake of getting into some flow. Studies show that people experience more positive emotions, higher self-esteem and better health outcomes when they regularly experience flow.

Flow is also such an important pathway to gutsy happiness that it is a worthy endeavour and I'll try to give you some tips for getting in the flow.

The key to creating flow is to establish a balance between skills and challenges. If you have high challenge + medium to high skill you get yourself into flow. High challenge + low skill results in anxiety and stress, and low challenge + high skills results in boredom and apathy. The key is to find an activity that you are skilled in but it is enough of a challenge to push you into flow.

After watching Cskszentmihalyi talk about flow, I have become a bit of a flow junkie. It used to involve chardonnay and watching movies, but I have since learned that this is cheating. So now I get flow from studying, sometimes playing with my kids and always when engaged in super-stimulating conversations.

Indeed, five hours pass like five minutes, I forget hunger, what is happening around me and I am engrossed in what I am doing. I have mastered the formula between sufficient skill and high challenge to get myself in the zone.

The post-flow glow is wonderful and the energy generated during these times permeates to other parts of my life. In fact, I become even more focused, productive and decisive after a flow experience.

I had a conversation with a friend recently, encouraging her to study. My point to her was that if you can find something that you enjoy, have even a wee bit of talent for and you find challenging then you start to grow more as a person.

Pushing out of your comfort zone brings a deeper sense of confidence, a different perspective and a nourishment that ripples out to other parts of your life.

Try to find activities that expand your mind and body, strive to accomplish something difficult, novel or meaningful to you. Do something you love for the sake of it, knowing it will have impacts indirectly on other parts of your life.

A registered psychologist with a masters in applied psychology, Wanganui mother-of-two Kristen Hamling is studying for a PhD in positive psychology at Auckland University of Technology