Scientific approach to flow-state

[Buba]

Came across with this article and wanted to share it with you.

"We daydream so much that scientists call it the default mode—what the human brain is doing when it’s not focused on something in particular. The brain network responsible for daydreaming is named the default mode network (DMN). And much like letting your car idle will burn your fuel reserves, this “idling” activity negatively affects our daily happiness. The Harvard study, for example, discovered that people were the least happy when daydreaming. As Killingsworth summed it up, “A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” Simply put, it feels good to be focused on the moment in a flow state and bad to be fantasizing about greener pastures, or the purple vistas of what might have been."

"Brewer’s research centers on a region of the brain known as the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), which is a major node in the default mode network. The PCC is one of the most active and densely connected areas of the brain, involved in emotion and memory processing. It also turns out to be very good at interfering with the flow state. In a 2013 paper published in the Frontiers of Human Neuroscience, Brewer noted that the PCC gears up when we are daydreaming and are caught up in DMN activity.[3] When the PCC calms down, on the other hand, we become more mindful of our immediate experience, making it easier to enter a flow state."

http://deconstructingyourself.com/flow-machine-human-brain.html