In 2004, Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi gave a TED talk that introduced the world to “the secret of happiness,” which garnered over 4 million views.
This secret is a state of consciousness he calls “flow,” in which a person experiences deep contentment and creativity by being so engaged with the activity at hand that they forget everything else around them. Flow, he claims, is what makes life worth living.
Since then, achieving the mental state of flow has become a popular goal, actively pursued by artists, athletes, doctors and company CEOs alike. So it was not surprising when Jamie Wheal’s $5,000, five-day retreat last month called Flow Camp crowded Eden, Utah with enthusiasts.
Wheal challenged flow camp attendees to permanently alter their mindset in order to avoid being led astray by the massive amounts of information and background interference we absorb daily in our fast-paced, technology-centered era.
Wheal’s newly published book, Stealing Fire, details the struggle of many powerful companies and individuals in an effort to reach peak human performance, the “optimal experience.”
This book, with its convincing case studies, also argues that solutions for the complicated and multi-layered problems of today’s world requires creative, effective solutions that can only be achieved through flow. Stealing Fire is probably what brought so many people, near and far, to Utah that week.
Wheal designed Flow Camp to introduce and help cultivate flow. Starting at 8 a.m. each morning, the camp attendees practiced different forms of yoga, from bouncing on yoga balls to lifting each other’s partner into the air in acro-yoga.
Wheal calls this “embodied cognition,” melding mind and body together as one through a certain exercise. It is inspired by the scientific finding that physical movement directly affects how a person thinks and feels.
In Stealing Fire, Wheal links flow to the emotions associated with six different neurotransmitters: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, norepinephrine, anandamide and endorphins.
These neurotransmitters are linked to reward centers in the brain as well as the production of emotions such as trust, significancy and pleasure. As such, they are associated with many of the same feelings flow is said to produce.
This knowledge points toward the possibility of novel scientific methods to stimulate flow whenever necessary, instead of relying on meditatation and other methods. The flow enthusiasts — flowsters, they call themselves — look toward this future with excitement.
