If you’ve been on the internet lately, chances are you’ve come across the idea of flow. Creators will often describe the experience of sitting down with their favourite food, locking in to work, or making a sale on Vinted and ‘genuinely entering a flow state’. TikTok in particular is notorious for snatching up snappy scientific terms and misusing them with relish – so it may come as a surprise that the flow state is, in fact, a well-characterised psychological phenomenon.

Achieving a state of flow has been proposed to be the key to reaching peak athletic performance, optimising concentration, and even living a happier, healthier and more meaningful life. So what exactly is this mysterious phenomenon – and are the people on your For You page genuinely entering a flow state?

The term ‘flow’ was coined by Hungarian-American psychologist Dr Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the 1970s, after he became fascinated by how some artists and musicians could become so deeply immersed in their creative process that they would forgo the need to eat, drink or sleep for long periods of time. Csikszentmihalyi christened this state of total absorption the ‘flow state’, after noticing that many of these professionals described a feeling of being carried effortlessly through the task as if ‘floating’, without having to consciously maintain their focus.

“Around 85% of people can recall at least one instance in which they’ve experienced a flow state”

You’ve probably experienced flow yourself, even if you didn’t recognise it at the time – according to Johann Hari, author of Stolen Focus, around 85% of people can recall at least one instance in which they’ve experienced a flow state.

Online, the term is often used interchangeably with a feeling of enjoyment or relaxation – while listening to your favourite song, for example. In psychology, however, flow has a much stricter definition. It is characterised by a feeling of intense, sustained attention, a distorted perception of time, and a sense of the activity as intrinsically rewarding. The consistency of these features across individuals suggests that flow may have a common biological basis – although research into what these neural mechanisms could be is still fairly limited.

“Studies using functional MRI suggest that flow is associated with decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex”

Studies using functional MRI – which tracks changes in blood flow to estimate activity in different areas of the brain – suggest that flow is associated with decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex. This region of the brain is involved in ‘higher-order’ cognitive functions like working memory, abstract reasoning, and self-awareness. Reduced activity here may explain why people in flow lose track of time and become unaware of both their surroundings and themselves. This phenomenon – referred to as transient hypofrontality – offers one explanation for the feeling of intense focus experienced during the flow state. Hypofrontality means people in flow act more automatically, exerting less conscious control over their actions. This allows them to devote as much attention as possible to the task at hand.

While flow states only arise spontaneously, particular activities are more conducive to entering flow than others. In particular, it’s crucial that the task is the optimum level of difficulty, something Csikszentmihalyi has termed the ‘challenge-skills balance’. If a task is too easy, boredom sets in. Too difficult, and it becomes frustrating or anxiety-inducing – increasing the chance we’ll lose interest or give up. Flow occurs in the narrow window between these extremes, where the task is challenging enough to absorb our full attention, but is still within our capabilities.

“Spending more time in flow may also be the route to a better life”

Achieving this Goldilocks level of difficulty makes it unlikely that many people on TikTok are actually reaching a flow state while watching their favourite film, for instance. However, some of the activities mentioned online, such as writing an essay, or even juggling multiple offers on Vinted, may well strike the right ‘challenge-skills’ balance.

The benefits of flow state extend beyond subjective enjoyment. The streamlined focus, coupled with lower levels of pain and fatigue offered by the flow state means that no matter the task, we often perform our best whilst in flow. This is why professional athletes, for example, will often make it their goal to enter flow during training and competition – the basis of many pre-race rituals.

More broadly, spending more time in flow may also be the route to a better life. Flow states produce a sense of calmness and relaxation, and invoke deep and meaningful engagement with a task. As a result, individuals who spend more time in flow experience better wellbeing, increased motivation, and lower rates of cognitive decline, and people often look back on moments of flow as some of the most enjoyable of their lives. For once, your For You page might actually be onto something.