Flow State

Life and How to Live It — Show Notes

Episode 14: Flow States — How to Get in the Zone

Have you ever looked up from something you were doing and realized that an hour and a half had passed when it only felt like five or ten minutes? Or been so absorbed in a physical activity that your body seemed to move on its own, without any conscious effort? If so, you've been in a flow state — and in this episode, I break down exactly what that is, how it works in your brain, and how you can access it more often in your daily life.

What Is a Flow State?

Flow is a mental state of intense focus, full immersion, and enjoyment in an activity. The term was coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the 1970s, after he studied people across different cultures who described losing their sense of time, losing their self-awareness, and feeling like they were performing at a peak level. You might also know this feeling as being "in the zone," "locked in," or "in the groove."

For a flow state to happen, a few conditions need to be in place:

• The activity must be personally meaningful to you. I can get into flow playing chess — someone who doesn't enjoy chess never will, no matter how skilled they are. I personally don't enjoy gardening, so flow doesn't happen for me there, even though it's a perfect flow activity for many people.
• Your skill level must match the challenge. If the task is too easy for your skill level, you'll get bored. If it's too hard, you'll get frustrated. Flow happens in that sweet spot — the "just right" challenge.

I also believe there are at least two distinct types of flow. One involves high technical skill, decision-making, and focus — like playing chess or rock climbing. The other is more like going on autopilot during a repetitive, rhythmic activity — like a runner experiencing a "runner's high." Both are real, and both are valuable.

The Neuroscience of Flow

As a physician, I'm always curious about what's actually happening under the hood. The neuroscience of flow isn't fully understood yet, but here's the current thinking as of 2026:

Two key brain systems:

• The Dopamine Reward System — Dopamine drives motivation and provides a sense of reward. When an activity is meaningful to you, the dopamine system gets you started and keeps rewarding you for doing it.
• The Locus Coeruleus Norepinephrine System — This system is involved in attention, motivation, and — crucially — task persistence. It keeps you doing the thing. If a task becomes too boring or too difficult, norepinephrine drops and you disengage. In flow, both of these systems are likely working together: one gets you in, the other keeps you there.

Three neural networks:

• The Default Mode Network — This is where your brain goes when you're not focused on anything. It's responsible for self-talk, rumination, and self-awareness. You know the voice: "How am I doing? What do people think of me? What do I need to do today?" Some people call this the "monkey brain." In flow, this network is down-regulated — which is why you lose that constant sense of yourself.
• The Central Executive Network — This is the focused, task-oriented part of your brain. In flow, this network is highly active.
• The Salience Network — Think of this as the conductor. It sits above the other two networks and modulates them — turning up the central executive, turning down the default mode, and vice versa. It also appears to take periodic "snapshots" called global emotional moments — quick internal check-ins covering things like your heart rate, discomfort, and sense of time. The theory is that during flow, these snapshots become less frequent, which is why time seems to disappear.

So putting it all together: a meaningful activity engages your dopamine system, the norepinephrine system keeps you at it, your central executive network locks in your focus, your default mode quiets down (so you lose that nagging self-awareness), and your sense of time fades as the salience network takes fewer snapshots. That is flow.

Why Flow Is Good for You

Flow doesn't just feel great — it's genuinely good for your health. When you enter a flow state, your parasympathetic nervous system becomes relatively more active, and your sympathetic nervous system (the "fight or flight" system) calms down. This means:

• Lower blood pressure
• Decreased cortisol levels
• A more relaxed overall physiological state

Many of us spend a lot of our modern lives stuck in sympathetic overdrive — stressed, overstimulated, always "on." Flow is one of the best natural antidotes to that.

How to Get Into Flow: Hobbies That Work

I truly believe hobbies are the best gateway to flow. And I think people experienced flow far more naturally a hundred or two hundred years ago, before constant digital distractions. The phone ringing, a text notification, someone walking in — these can yank you right out of a flow state, and it's hard to get back. So when you're pursuing a flow-inducing hobby, put the phone away and protect that space.

The best flow hobbies share a few qualities:

• Something you genuinely enjoy
• Clear goals with immediate feedback
• A good balance of skill and challenge

Physical/outdoor flow activities:

• Rock climbing — You're staring at a wall with no distractions, constantly making micro-decisions about your next handhold or foothold, with immediate feedback on every move. It's one of the purest flow experiences I can think of.
• Hiking — Especially solo, on a trail with roots and rocks that demand your attention. You're focused on footing, terrain, the sounds around you, and moving through nature — a natural soother of the human soul.
• Skiing, surfing, fishing
• Running, swimming, cycling — These repetitive rhythmic activities may work differently neurologically, actually quieting both the central executive and default mode networks together, putting the brain in a calmer state overall.

Creative flow activities:

• Cooking, gardening — Weeding, for example: a clear goal (get those weeds out), immediate feedback (you can see the result right away), and an enjoyable, focused task.
• Sewing, quilting — My wife is a perfect example. I've learned not to interrupt her mid-project. She's in a trance, and she is not happy when I break her out of it.
• Drawing, painting, woodworking, playing a musical instrument

Mental/strategy flow activities:

• Chess, video games, creative writing — Inherently challenging and technical. Chess is my personal go-to.

Dr. Rocko's Recs

📖 Food Rules: An Eater's Manual by Michael Pollan (2009)

This is a short, wonderful book — barely a book in the traditional sense. It's 64 practical rules for eating, laid out one per page, with a brief explanation for each. Michael Pollan is a well-known food writer and New York Times contributor who has done extensive research on the relationship between food and health. He distills everything into three overarching principles:

"Eat food. Mostly plants. Not a lot."

A few of my favorite rules:

• Rule #2: "Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food." If she'd look at it and not know what it was, it's probably not real food.
• Rule #20: "It's not food if it arrived through the window of your car." That one speaks for itself.
• Rule #50: "The banquet is in the first bite." The first bite gives you the most pleasure — every bite after that is a diminishing return. Stop before you're completely full. The best of the meal is already behind you.

Highly recommend this one. Quick read, genuinely useful.

One More Thing

Did you know that the oldest known human drawing is a 73,000-year-old hashtag-like pattern drawn in ochre, discovered in a cave in South Africa? We have been creative beings — making art and leaving our mark — for at least 73,000 years. We are part of a long and beautiful tradition.

Remember, Life is not a dress rehearsal. Until next time.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Do you sometimes feel like life is passing you by? How would you like to get more out of life? We explore all things life on this podcast. Welcome to Life and How to Live It podcast with Dr. Rocco. Welcome to another episode of the Life and How to Live It podcast with me, Dr. Rocco. Have you ever been so focused on something you're doing that after what seems like five or ten minutes, you look up at the clock and an hour and a half have gone by? Have you ever been so involved in an activity, a physical activity, where your body just felt like it moved itself? You didn't have to think. It felt like you were floating and that you never had any awareness of yourself. If you have felt these experiences, you have been in a flow state. This incredible and interesting thing, flow state, has many other common terms for it. It can be called being in the zone or being locked in or in the groove. This is the topic of today's episode. We will be talking about flow states and how we can access flow states and a little bit about how they actually work neurologically. Now, the concept of flow was first uh coined by a psychologist named Miheli Sixcent Mihali in the 70s. He was a person who was studying different people who were in different cultures and experienced this interesting condition where they lost their sense of time, they lost their sense of self-awareness that they were even there, and they had this feeling that they were performing at a very high or peak level. And he described this and coined the term flow. Now, a flow state is a mental state of intense focus and full immersion and enjoyment. Not only are you immersed in it, you're enjoying it. And it's you're doing something that is meaningful to you, and that the level of skill that you have matches the challenge of the activity that you're doing. So let's let's break that down a little bit before we go further. So it's very important if you want to be in flow that you have to do something that is personally meaningful. So I do not enjoy gardening. Okay. Gardening is a wonderful way that some people get into flow. But since I don't personally enjoy it that much, I can't get into flow. I like to play chess. That's a it's a place where where I go, especially if I play online chess and I'm not looking at another person in front of me, I can just get into this deep focus where I flow. Someone else who plays chess who doesn't really like it may never get to flow. So the thing you're doing has to be personally meaningful and interesting to you. The other thing is that your skill level has to match the um the challenge. Now that's something that Dr. Mahaley uh was very uh interested in and actually drew some very interesting diagrams where he showed, you know, the level, if your level of skill is too high for the challenge that you're doing, that will mean that the activity will be too easy and you'll be bored and you won't get into flow. And if the your skill level is too low for the challenge, it's going to be too challenging, too hard for you, and you'll get frustrated. So you have to have this match where it's just like the just right challenge that will help you to get into flow. Now, I think, and I have seen and experienced myself a different kind of flow. I think there is more than one kind of flow state. Uh, there is another kind of flow state where you are not actually challenged in any great way. You're doing something that is repetitive that you're good at. For instance, a runner. A runner can get into flow. Sometimes it's called the runner's high. Uh, and that really is not involving a lot of thought or skill. They're just running, but they're still entering flow. So there are at least two different kinds of flow. One involves a lot of technical ability and decision making uh and focus, and another one is almost going on to autopilot. So, as a physician, I'm always interested in like what's really happening, what is the neurological basis of flow? So, I'll start by saying that it is not 100% known at this time, but the consensus is that there is a complex interaction among a few different brain systems and networks. Now, our brains work through connections, different parts of the brain work together at the same time to perform complex actions. So, you know, and and there's a certain kind of orchestration, you know, some areas are more active, other areas are less active, depending on what you're doing. So, in the in the case of flow, it seems that there may be an interaction between these few networks and systems. So, I'm gonna go into them. There will be some technical language here, but I'm gonna try to make it as straightforward as possible. So the first system is the dopamine reward system. Now, we've heard a lot about dopamine um in the popular literature, etc., you know, over the years. And dopamine is involved in this reward system where it it both causes motivation and it causes it gives you reward. So going back to this idea of flow that it has to be something that is meaningful to you, that's kind of where this dopamine reward system kicks in. Is is like if it's meaningful, that means that there's more dopamine involved to get you started doing a thing and to reward you for doing that thing. Another system that's involved with this flow is the locus ceruleus norepinephrine system. This is uh another brain system that is involved in attention and motivation, but more importantly, for this is it's involved in task persistence. So task persistence is persisting on a task, continuing to do that thing. Um, and and it's it's a very complicated uh feedback loop, but sometimes the if the system, if the challenge or the task becomes boring or too difficult, you will have a decrease in your norepinephrine, which will actually cause you to stop doing the task. So in flow, you may have a combination of the dopamine reward system and then also the locus ceruleus norepinephrine. One gets you interested in doing it, the other one keeps you doing it. Now, there's also three neural networks that may be involved according to the most recent thinking. One is called the default mode network. So, default mode. This is where our brain goes when we are not actively engaged in doing something. So, for instance, if I am not focused on a particular activity, my brain will go to this default mode network. And the default mode is to have a lot of like self-awareness and kind of self-talk and even rumination. It's like it's that part of you that's wondering, oh, how am I doing? What do these people think of me? What do I have to do today? Uh oh my god, I'm late for that. This is the default mode network. Some people call it the monkey brain. And I I it's kind of sad that that this is where we default to as humans, but this is where we go, and we're all familiar with this place, this default mode activity. Now there's another network called the central executive network. That is the part of your brain that gets activated when you're very focused on doing something. Okay, so central executive network, and now there's a third network, and then I promise we'll stop with these networks. Salient network. The word salient means like relevant or meaningful. The salience network is like an overseer that sits above the default mode and the central executive and kind of switches back and forth. It's almost a bit like a conductor. So it may give you a little more activity in the central executive where you're more focused and kind of down-regulate the default mode, or vice versa. The other fascinating thing, and I think this is currently theory, uh, is that the salience network does something called global emotional moments. Now, global emotional moment is like a snapshot that the salience network takes periodically, maybe every five seconds, maybe every minute, but it takes this snapshot. It's kind of like what is the current status of of me? It will have it will have things like, you know, uh, am I in pain? Am I uncomfortable? Am I itchy? Am I late for something? Uh, is my, you know, what's my heart rate? What's my blood pressure? It's sort of this sort of central data system, and it takes a snapshot. Here's where you are at this moment, and then here's how you are five seconds later, etc. Now, if this is true about these global emotional moments, it's possible that during flow that the salience network actually takes fewer of these snapshots, and therefore you have a sort of a loss of a sense of time. You can't tell, you know, it's like maybe those global emotional moments are something about how we understand the passage of time, and they go, they get decreased. So let's think about flow real quickly. So you have uh a rewarding, interesting activity, that's the dopamine reward system. You you do it, you like it, you keep doing it. That's the locus ceruleus norepinephrine system. You are focused on this activity, that's the central executive network. And the default mode network that gets you all thinking about yourself and who am I and what am I doing, etc., etc., that is down. That's decreased activity. And so with a decrease in the activity there, you lose that sense of yourself and you just get like lost in what you're doing. Um, and then the as we said, the little snapshots of your uh global emotional moments are decreased and you lose sense of time. So, you know, if you're listening to this podcast in the year 2050, well, maybe all of this is debunked. But at this point in 2026, that is the latest thinking on what may be happening under the hood when we go into the flow state. Now, the flow state feels really good. We all love being there. Uh, but is there anything besides just feeling good that, like, is it actually good for us? Does it do something physiologically for us? Well, the answer is yes. One of the things that happens is that it decreases the um activity of the sympathetic nervous system and relatively increases the parasympathetic nervous system. So I think people are somewhat familiar with these terms, but just basically what it is, we have a system called the autonomic nervous system that regulates a lot of very important physiologic activities like heartbeat, blood pressure, rate of respiration, depth of respiration, digestion, the dilation of our pupils, uh, sexual function. You know, there's many, many things. And one side of the system is the sympathetic. So some people call that the flight or fight response. So that's sort of when we're really activated. The other side of the system is the parasympathetic nervous system, which is sort of more of a relaxed state. So we in our modern time tend to live a lot in the sympathetic, you know, especially, you know, hard driving, you know, big city life, you know, it's very that is considered to be like a sympathetic system that's kind of going over time. And and we many of us live in that a lot. And that is a a place where you know, when we talk about being stressed, that could be part of it. Now, when you go into flow, the parasympathetic kind of becomes relatively more active, so you feel more relaxed, your blood pressure decreases, your cortisol levels decrease. And so there are health benefits to doing this, to getting into flow. So, what you know, what ways do we have that we can get ourselves into flow? And I think the I really think that hobbies are the best ways to do it. I, you know, and I'll say just a word before I get into the hobbies, it is that in the past, people had many fewer distractions. I think that people lived in flow a lot more a hundred years ago, two hundred years ago. It's easy to be taken out of flow. So when you're in flow, you're doing this, you're feeling good, you're losing sense of self and time, etc. And then all of a sudden your phone rings, you get a text, you get uh someone interrupts you, there's something. A lot of it is technology driven, and you lose that flow, and it's hard to get back to it. So trying to cultivate hobbies that can get you into flow uh is is very helpful. And I think it's important to try to decrease distractions. Like put your phone aside and just focus on this hobby that you're doing. So what the hobbies that you that give you flow are first of all something you enjoy, second, that have clear goals with immediate feedback, and once again, that balance of skill and challenge. So, some examples, and I think one of the prime examples of flow is rock climbing. Now, in rock climbing, you are literally staring at a wall. There's nothing, there's nothing to distract you, and your entire focus is on what is the next handhold or foothold that I need to do to move myself up this wall. Now, you know, that is a dis those are decisions you're making constantly, and you're getting you know immediate feedback right away when you do make take that next step up the wall. Uh, and of course, there's a skill level and a challenge level that it needs to be matched in order to even get up the wall. Hiking can do this for you, especially if you're hiking alone and you're hiking out somewhere where the trail is a little um challenging. Not just that it's a hard climb, but that there's like a lot of roots and rocks and things that you have to avoid when you're walking. Because every step you take, you're focused on that. You're focused on the you know, the the the footing and the terrain, you're focused on that breeze that's blowing, you're focused on the sound of birds, you're focused on all these different things, and you're moving through nature, which is a a great is a great soother of of the human soul. So that can be a great hobby. Fishing, gardening, you know, now gardening, I think about that, even just weeding your garden. If you you're sitting there and you're staring look down, looking at the soil and finding the little weeds and pulling them out, and you're so you've got something that is enjoyable to you, clear goal, let's get these weeds out, and immediate feedback. You see how much better it looks after you remove those weeds. Skiing, surfing, doing yoga, um, creative hobbies. Like my wife is uh sews and does a lot of quilting. Um, that is, you know, she gets deep into flow states, and I come in and like ask her a question, and I find that she's basically in a trance, and she is not happy that I just broke her out of her flow. So I I've learned to stop bothering her. But sewing, quilting, cooking, playing a musical instrument, drawing or painting, doing woodworking. Um, so these are all different kinds of flow that have to do with doing things that are technically challenging. Um then there's also mental or strategy hobbies like playing chess or playing video games or creative writing. These are play these are activities that are inherently challenging and technical. Now, remember, I said there's other kinds of flow, like you can go out and uh go swimming, swim laps in a pool. You barely have to think, but you can get into flow by doing that. And I think that neurologically what may be happening is you're actually decreasing the central executive network and the default mode network, that your brain is sort of in a quieter state when you're running, swimming, cycling on flat terrain, um, and you're doing this repetitive rhythmic activity. So, those are some examples of um ways to get into flow. I hope that this has been an interesting discussion. Uh, I hope you learned something and maybe got some ideas about how to get more flow out of your life. Now it's time for Dr. Rocco's Rex. Dr. Rocco's rex. Now it's time for Dr. Rocco's Rex. Now for Dr. Rocco's Rex today, I am recommending the book Food Rules and Eat an Eater's Manual. Food Rules and Eater's Manual by Michael Pollan, P-O-L-L-A-N, written in 2009. Now, this is a very short book. Um, I think this is a fantastic book. It's barely a book in some ways because it basically is 64 rules to guide your eating. There is a rule on each page, and sometimes that's really all that's on the page. So there's not a lot of reading here. Um, there'll be a rule and maybe a paragraph or at most two paragraphs to describe the rule and why, you know, what it means. Um and these are uh Michael Pollen uh is a food writer uh who has written many books and has uh been a contributor to the New York Times. Um and he uh has done a lot of research on eating and health and how food and health are related to each other, and he used uh the a lot of that knowledge and interviewing of many different people to to break it down and to like synthesize it into like three simple categories. And he says the three rules are eat food, mostly plants, not a lot. So those are the three overarching rules, and then each of those is a section in the book, and within that section there are rules that have to do with eating food. So, what does that mean? Of course, we eat food, but he defines food as something that's more like whole food, like a real food, not something that's processed. For instance, rule number two is don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. So the it breaks, you know, it's kind of like these are these are lovely little food rules that you know, it's like if your great grandmother didn't think that this thing was food, it's probably not food. Okay. Uh, rule number 20 it's not food if it arrived through the window of your car. You know, it's basically only fast food can come through the Window of your car. So he's just basically saying eat whole foods, eat real foods. And then there's number 50, which would be under the category of not a lot. The banquet is in the first bite. So the first bite of your meal is the one that gives you the most enjoyment and pleasure. And then after that, every bite is kind of a diminishing return. And so the idea is that you should find that point where you would kind of stop, you know, before you're full, before you're totally full. Because the banquet is in the first bite. So the food rules. I hope you enjoy that one. And that's it for today for Dr. Rocco's Rex. And now for one more thing. Did you know that the oldest known human drawing is a 73,000-year-old hashtag looking pattern that was drawn with ochre and found in a cave in South Africa. So we as humans have been creative, have been putting out creative output for at least 73,000 years. Think about that. We're part of a long and beautiful tradition. Well, that's it for today's show. I hope that you all enjoyed it today. And until next time, so long. That's all for today's show. Thanks for listening to the Life and How to Live It podcast with Dr. Rocco. If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe and leave a review. See my show notes to find out more about the show. And remember, life is not a dress rehearsal. Until next time.