The psychology of color: how logos use color to influence mood
twiggez-vous: Csikszentmihalyi’s [model](https://i.imgur.com/yavMiJ9.png) is a really great visual representation of what Flow is: the mental state (focused, happy) of doing something that requires a high level of skill to tackle something with a high level of challenge.
Edit: Thank god for the existence of the copy and paste functions, when referencing Hungarian psychologists.
scottanon: Being in the zone is beautiful when it happens. Everything is right with the world and you are exactly where you are supposed to be.
babyballoooga: Yup.. I’d be on the toilet surfing Reddit and look up all of a sudden, it’s tomorrow.
TooShiftyForYou: *Some examples include spending “too much” time playing video games*
Flow is sitting down to play GTA for a bit and then realizing it’s 4 hours later.
chris_coy: What about when you’re in the zone in sports where the puck looks as big as pancake or the tennis ball like a softball etc AND things/people seem to be moving slower?
I’ve had that happen at about 10 times in my sports life and it is really just magical.
It’s a flow but – it’s another level when your performance exceeds your normal average level.
Furankuu: Flow is being totally absorbed in the present experience without nagging commentary from thoughts.
Flow, intoxication, deep sleep, love.. there’s a certain quality these all share and that’s reprieve from constant self obsession
GoodnightElizabeth: Even Flow.
PJae: You mean Ultra Instinct
atx00: OP, did you learn this from the Duncan Trussell Family Hour? He interviewed a guy who was some sort of expert on this.
raining_picnic: Yeah I used to record music and for me whenever I put on headphones and was literally only listening to the sounds I was producing and adding to it you get caught in flow over time and it’s beautiful to step be able to step out of this world into your own momentarily.
newtonrox: Fascinating! I experience this when shooting heroin.
Hope_Burns_Bright: Shout out to Civ V
Nanobot_FPS: I believe this sometimes happens to me when I get into a book and lookup only to see a couple of hours has passed.
Phoxa: I get this with music quite a bit. I see videos of performances where I’m running around all over the place but to me, the song was over almost as soon as it started and I don’t always remember moving in that way. Sometimes I zone back in when I or a bandmate hit a bum note. We share a ‘ha you fucked up’ glance / smirk and immediately go back into ‘flow’.
Nice to have a proper word for it.
Not_that_Matt: Surrender to the flow.
fireandbass: Some ‘Flow Arts’ are:
Poi
Hooping
Staff (+double staves)
Yoyo
Cyr Wheel
Fans
Puppyhammer
Juggling
Orbital
Glowstringing
Levitation Wand
Dance
Partner Yoga
krzysd: So, I get the flow from Factorio!
_obsessed_: Is anyone able to confirm for me if there a correlation between the concept of flow and dopamine release? My neurophysiology is dated and I’m sure at least one of you out there knows the modern science.
DoctorKynes: I highly recommend Timothy Gallwey’s “The Inner Game of Tennis” for practical applications of this(even if you don’t play tennis).
aGreaterNumber: This is how I got addicted to video games
Mr_Evildoom: In ADHD, this is called hyperfocusing. We have a tendency to fall into it without meaning to.
egodevolution: Easy to feel this when hiking, one of the main appeals imo
Hermaphrotitties: Uh how can you function without spatial awareness? Losing track of time, sure, but what is meant by space?
Redhotchiliman1: This happens to me when I’m playing music and jamming with friends.
jcd1974: This only happens to me when listening to music…
…while driving.
fkdsla: Has someone been reading Raymond Williams?
sayyesplz: *Not now chief, I’m in the zone*
anonymousUTE: Can you be in flow if you are studying really hard for a test? Or is flow strictly for things you enjoy doing like art etc?
StayHumbleStayLow: Nujabes helps me get into a flow state
RedShirtDecoy: Honestly, Im at a loss for words because this answers something that has been bothering me for over a year now.
I have really bad ADHD and until Oct of last year every single hobby I picked up had a stressful cycle of obsession, buying supplies/equipment for said hobby, talking about it all the time, and eventually dropping it all together.
But in Oct last year I got into yoyoing and something about it “clicked” like the other hobbies but it felt very very different.
I was so worried it would end up like all my other hobbies that I refused to even call it a hobby until it had lasted a year.
I never could describe why I like it so much and why it felt different from all my other hyperfocused hobbies, but I think this might answer the question.
I can become absorbed in yoyoing, I can use it to distract myself away from anxiety prone thoughts, but I never get so into it that I feel it has taken over my life the way other hobbies have.
Thanks for sharing OP. I not only learned something new but I might have just learned something about myself.
arithmeticulous: Fascinating. I had no idea this was a quantifiable item.
groot_liga: And my wife thinks I’m just ignoring her and gets irritated when I try to explain what to look for as signs I’m in flow and to perhaps consider postponing an interaction,
Sno-Shoes: Tetris
FictionBrownCocks: Me in CoD