I
want to show a simple graphic. It's a relationship that’s been known in
Psychology for about one hundred years. It’s the relationship between performance
in any domain of skill and let’s call it stress. And actually, technically, this is
low
this is high. And this axis really assesses levels of stress hormones in the brain.
Cortisol, adrenaline, and so on. And the relationship is curvilinear. So this is optimal
performance. It’s a midpoint. You’re motivated, you’re engaged, you’re going. So
there are some hormones but not too many.
This is people who are bored, who are daydreaming. In the world as human
resources as they call it where this 50% but at work its really high. This is when
we’re at our best. This is the state called Flow. And this is a state that was written
about there was an article in Science, the journal Science, about this state it was
called, “The Neurobiology of Frazzle”. It’s being frazzled. So these are also distinct
attentional states. The brain circuitry for each of these is very very different. When
we’re in flow, this is when our attention is where we want it to be. This is attention
at its best. It mobilizes; it allows us to mobilize whatever technical or cognitive skills
we may have so we may operate our best. Whatever performance skills we have are
at their best when we’re in the flow state.
The flow state, some of you may know, was discovered by a group of researches
from Chicago who asked people from many walks of life, “tell us about a time
when you were at your best. You outdid yourself”. And basketball players, chess
champions, neurosurgeons all described the same phenomological state. No matter
what they were doing, it was a state where, well let me tell you about one of the
stories actually. A neurosurgeon says, “I was performing an operation. Before I
started, I didn’t really know if I could do it. But by the end of it, I did it beautifully.
But then, at the end of the surgery I looked around and there in the corner and there
was some rubble. And I said, what happened? And a nurse said, while you were
operating, part of the ceiling caved in but you were so concentrated you did not
notice”. Your concentration is two hundred percent indestructible when you’re in a
flow state. I hope that story’s apocryphal also. Think about it.
So in flow, one of the gateways to flow is to pay full attention. So when you amp up
concentration skills, which I’m going to talk about in a little bit it makes flow more
accessible. In flow, usually you’re challenged to the top of your skill set whatever
it is for that domain. You’re also very adaptable. As things change, you change with
them. And very important: flow feels good. It’s kind of a quiet joy. You’re really
digging what you’re doing. So many of the things we do voluntarily in life, the things
we choose to do, love to do, are ways to get into a state of flow or micro flow as it’s
called.
This state of being bored involves a different part of the brain, and it’s a variety
of attention. Every variety of attention, like every emotion, has its function. It’s
when they’re out of proportion and out of place it becomes a problem. So when
you’re trying to concentrate, daydreaming and being distracted is a negative. But
if you’re trying to be creative for example, it’s a positive. The annals of science
and mathematics are rife with examples of someone who struggled intensely,
concentrating on a problem, couldn’t solve it, and then let it go, and the answer
came to them in an off time. They’re walking on the beach. A famous equation, a
soluble equation, a guy had been struggling with it for three of four years. He got
the answer as he’s getting on a bus. And the reason is when we’re in a kind of open
awareness; we have more access to parts of the mind that have more information.
That has more life experience, where we can put together two discrete elements
that had not been combined before in a unique original way that has a useful
application. That’s the definition of a creative act. So there’s a positive here,
it’s just
when it isn’t what we want to be doing that it’s a problem.
Then there’s the frazzle. Frazzle is a different attentional state. In frazzle, our
emotional centers have hijacked the pre-frontal voluntary attentional centers.
When you’re upset, the mind is arraigned so that whatever is pre-occupying you
is where your attention goes. And that has a positive function. If you can have
constructive worry, you’re going to come up with the solution. Usually, interestingly,
it’s relationship issues. That thing she said to me. Why didn’t he answer my email?
Whatever you know. If I were to ask people in the room we’d get a thousand
examples instantly. We all know what I’m talking about. That’s where the mind goes.
And when the mind, until we solve that, we can’t let go of it. So the negative side
of
that is called rumination, where you go through tape loops of the worry and you
don’t get anywhere.