Instant Happiness using Flow — New Flow Research (2020)

Hi, I’m Paul Krismer, your happiness expert, and holy smokes, my life has been stressful lately. Just this morning, I woke up taking care of my 83-year-old mother, who just came through hip replacement surgery, and she’s an incredibly non-compliant patient. It’s stressful, I got other things in my life to do than just making sure an 83-year-old is doing the basic things that she’s required to do. Recently, my son, who some of you will know, was in the military reserves. He got hurt, he got a machine gun barrel in the crown of his head and knocked him out unconscious, and it’s going through a concussion. I mean, it’s been a challenging period for me. So today, in this video, I want to give you advice. It’s a surefire way to get more happiness in your life, regardless of the crazy stuff, not the least of which is coronavirus, that’s impacting your life. So stay tuned and check this one out.

As a coach, public speaker, and best-selling author, I teach topics just like this one all around the world. So stay tuned, and I’ll give you practical tools that you can use to make both yourself and those around you both happier and more successful. So what we’re talking about here is a surefire way to always get happier, and I have talked about the subject of flow in the past. Flow is this amazing state where we basically have heightened attention, real good focus, and concentration, and at the same time, a tremendous amount of happiness. There usually has to be some level of challenge in it. But I want to talk about some of the very new research that I’ve just laid eyes on that’s so cool. It’s actually showing the mechanics of the brain and why flow is such a positive state, and this is new.

What we’re finding out is that the sympathetic nervous system, that is the part of the system that deals with fear and anxiety, and when there’s high pressure, we get our sympathetic nervous system all fired up. This new research is showing that when we’re in states of flow, the sympathetic nervous system completely fires up. We’re excited, we’re intense, our breathing accelerates, our focus is laser sharp. But here’s the kicker, ordinarily when our sympathetic nervous system is fired up, so does our amygdala. Amygdala is where it’s kind of our emotional regulation center, and it says, “Oh, I’m excited and therefore my emotions run away from me.” But in flow, the amygdala actually quiets down.

So here’s the really cool thing is that not only do we have this intense concentration and heightened awareness that we’re we’re bringing from a brain perspective geared for performance, but then with that state of mind, we’re also having a state of calm, very chill. The whole default mode network, which I’ve talked about before in meditation videos, that default mode network is a series of related parts of the brain that basically are self-referential ways that we talk about ourselves. The default mode network goes from our brain to our amygdala to our prefrontal cortex, and we process our obsessive thoughts about ourselves. Well, that silences in flow too. So getting in flow is a surefire way, mechanically and experientially, to have a happy experience. There’s a lot of ways to get flow.

For me, I’m out riding on my bike today. This is a surefire way for me to get some levels of greater happiness. Not only do I get the endorphin rush from the physical exercise, but I ride this bike hard, I challenge myself. I’m going up big hills, and that little bit of challenge, that’s only relevant to me. But I know how I did the last time I rode it, and now I want to ride that time even harder. I want to press my limits a little bit, and in so doing, that challenge is part of what keeps me in that focused state. Now it’s not my best flow activity. There’s other flow states for me that are even greater.

One of my best flow states is actually when I’m speaking in front of really large audiences. I’m super excited, super intense, and yet my self-referential thoughts completely disappear, and when I’m truly in the zone, so does my amygdala. It just calms right down, and all I’ve got is this sense of excitement, not some other set of emotions that are clouding the experience of that flow experience. Many many things can be flow experiences. Athletics are often a good choice, but even a really good conversation with somebody that you really care about, if you’re paying deep attention and trying intentionally being there for them, then just go, “Ah, that was an amazing conversation when it’s over,” and that’s a flow experience.

It might also be if you’re doing something at work, and typically we are more often happier than we are in our leisure time. So people who are accountants might be working in a spreadsheet, forget that they have to go pee, forget that they’re hungry, and just be in that state of flow where they’re performing very, very well, and the self-referential default mode network and the amygdala all quiet down. So you’re just in this laser-like focus, enjoying the quality of your optimal performance when you’re doing that activity. It could be any number of things, but whatever works for you, whichever ways you find flow, it is a surefire way to get happy, and we know it from some beautiful new science out of Germany, and I’m just happy to share it with you today. Have a good one.

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