Amid the wave of social upheaval set off by the anti-extradition movement, Hong Kong has been confronting the silent, invisible threat of a lung-disease virus. On one hand, people feel anxious and helpless as they scramble for masks, disinfectant and other supplies; on the other, the steady stream of pandemic news, along with word of pay freezes or layoffs at work, leaves them worried and uneasy.
Faced with an overwhelming tide of negative emotion, how can we still enjoy a happy, fulfilling life? – It begins with the experience of "flow".
What Is "Flow"?
The term "flow" was coined in 1990 by positive psychologist Csikszentmihalyi. It refers to the state of "self-forgetting", joyful absorption that a person reaches by devoting themselves wholeheartedly to an activity. In his early work, Csikszentmihalyi interviewed people across different professions and interests – mountaineering enthusiasts, musicians, dancers, painters and so on – and asked them to describe the psychological state they entered while doing the activity or work they loved. He found the following common threads:
- (1) A loss of any sense of time – they seemed to transcend the clock;
- (2) Complete absorption – a sense of forgetting the self, of merging with the environment of the moment;
- (3) The process is challenging, yet they finish it tirelessly and with such enjoyment that they forget to eat or sleep;
- (4) A feeling of having reached one's best state, of performing at one's "peak". These, he said, were the moments when a person had entered a state of "flow". Among the household names we know, the way Michelangelo painted Genesis on the ceiling of The Sistine Chapel, and the way Einstein worked on his Theory of Relativity, were very likely a kind of "flow" state.
- (5) Even without any external reward (reinforcement), the person is still willing to take part in the activity – this is a form of intrinsic motivation;
- (6) The challenge of the work matches the person's skills, and the two rise together.
On top of this, as the diagram below shows, a comparable level of challenge and ability is the only way into a state of "flow". Whenever the two are out of sync, we feel nothing but apathy, boredom or anxiety. Csikszentmihalyi believed that "flow" is the wellspring of our happiness and joy. Because when we enter a state of flow, we cast every worry to the back of our minds and pour ourselves into the activity alone.
How Do You Enter Flow?
To a greater or lesser degree, everyone enters a state of flow when doing certain activities. So choosing the right activity matters enormously.
To work out whether a given activity produces a "flow" experience for you, here are some questions worth considering:
- Do you love the activity, and would you willingly give your time (even your money) to complete it? (even with no reward at all)
- Does doing the activity often make you feel that time has flown by – a sense of "Wow! Is it really that late already?!"
- When you talk to others about doing the activity, do you feel a sense of pride (note: not arrogance, but an affirmation of yourself), or an indescribable satisfaction?
The Benefits and Applications of "Flow"
The "flow" experience brings (but is not limited to) the following benefits:
Positive emotions – when you reach a state of "flow" through an activity you love, you not only feel pleasant emotions; because most of your attention shifts onto the task, your worries and other negative emotions are cast to the back of your mind too.
Improved performance – one study showed that, for the average company employee at work, the "flow" state accounts for only five per cent of the whole working day. Yet when that proportion rises to fifteen per cent, the employee's productivity doubles!
Improved creativity – in a state of "flow", because a person temporarily sets aside the everyday clutter and other constraints, inspiration and creativity are greatly enhanced – a major condition for innovation (e.g. for a composer or a painter).
Fostering skill improvement – a state of "flow" drives a person to keep pressing on through difficulty and challenge, rising to meet it, so that their skills make a sudden leap forward. If we apply "flow" theory to the classroom, teachers and parents can gradually raise the difficulty in line with a student's or child's interests (positive and beneficial ones, of course), while at the same time offering extra resources to support them, so that they can excel and achieve within a given field of knowledge or skill. For example, if a child loves maths, you can encourage them to try harder exercises (even maths olympiad problems), while also giving appropriate guidance and positive feedback, drawing them on step by step (this works in much the same way as Vygotsky's "zone of proximal development" theory).
"Flow" Is Not the Same as "Addiction"
Reading this, the more sharp-minded among you may raise the following objection: since a person in a state of "flow" throws themselves into an activity to the point of forgetting to eat or sleep, isn't that simply "addiction"? True, the two descriptions do have similarities; the defining features of the latter, however, are (1) tolerance – every time you take part in a certain activity (e.g. gambling, drug abuse) you need to raise the dose or amount (an incremental increase) just to obtain the same "effect"; (2) withdrawal symptoms – when you stop the activity, body and mind exhibit a series of adverse reactions (such as breaking out in a cold sweat, tension, gastrointestinal upset); (3) over-involvement in the activity leads to negative effects on the person's studies, career or social life. So we hope you can use the information above to tell "flow" and "addiction" apart.
Finally, the author would like to point out that happiness is, in fact, not a luxury (this may sound like an old platitude, but for the front-line volunteers who gave so much, or sacrificed, in taking part in the anti-extradition movement, it is another matter altogether). I hope this small piece of advice can bring you a brief moment of calm and respite in these stormy days.
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References and Further Reading
Admiraal, W., Huizenga, J., Akkerman, S., & Ten Dam, G. (2011). The concept of flow in collaborative game-based learning. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(3), 1185-1194.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper-Perennial.
Lee, E. (2005). The relationship of motivation and flow experience to academic procrastination in university students. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 166(1), 5-15.
Seligman, M. E., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014). Positive psychology: An introduction. In Flow and the foundations of positive psychology (pp. 279-298). Springer, Dordrecht.
Chan, T. K. (2018). Positive education and the holistic mental wellness of tertiary students. Journal of Youth Studies (10297847), 21(1).
Lo’s Psychology. (2019). "Flow Theory (Flow)": Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/lospsychology/photos/a.458599831313171/749661225540362/?type=3&theater
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