One day recently, I set to work on a blog for this website. After a while, my words began to come easily, and I became deeply immersed in what I was doing.
I didn’t notice that the cat had jumped up on my desk until she knocked something over. That stopped me and, bleary-eyed, I glanced at the clock. I thought I’d spent about an hour working, but three hours had slid past, and I’d forgotten to have lunch.
I was hungry but delighted with the work I’d done. I knew I’d been in flow.
You experience flow when you become completely absorbed in accomplishing something that’s neither too easy for you nor too hard. Virtually everyone does this at times. It can happen while you’re playing the piano, reading a book or working on a crossword puzzle. Creative efforts often generate it—as people who paint or write music or poetry in their spare time can testify. Meditation can be a flow experience and so can dancing, playing tennis or making love.
Whatever you’re doing, it goes so smoothly, it seems almost effortless. You lose track of time. You’re in top form and feel competent and full of vitality. A chess player I talked to put it this way: “The concentration is like breathing—you never think about it.” If you experience flow in sports, whether you’re playing basketball or climbing a rock face, your movements are fluid and easy. It’s called “being in the zone,” but it’s flow in a different context.
Being in flow is an odd experience. You don’t know it’s happened until it’s over, and it’s involuntary: you can’t make it happen. Mostly, I find flow while I’m writing.
My recent flow experience reminded me that it had been quite a while since the last one. I wondered whether aging (I’m 90) had made it less likely.
A bit of research reassured me that aging isn’t an obstacle. What’s more, studies have confirmed that being in flow is especially good for your psychological health and well-being in your later years. Older people sometimes tell researchers that when they’re in flow, they feel younger.
That’s not surprising. We live in a culture that teaches us to dread aging and that stereotypes older people as weak, unhealthy and incompetent. It’s almost impossible to avoid absorbing some of that ageist bias and turning it against yourself. It’s easy to see why, in our later years, we feel younger after we’ve been in flow: feeling competent, confident and happy with ourselves counteracts the stereotypes.
While aging itself isn’t an obstacle to experiencing flow, retirement can be, according to research. Perhaps that’s because, once you leave the work force, you don’t have as many opportunities to take on engrossing tasks.
Are there ways to help yourself get into flow? The key is engaging in the right activity: something you enjoy that’s just difficult enough to present a challenge. Think about what’s put you into a flow state in the past and try it again where you won’t be interrupted. Don’t choose a quick task—it takes time for flow to develop.
If the activity you’ve chosen feels too easy, make it more difficult. If you’re playing the piano, for example, set the sheet music aside and try to play the piece from memory. Keep going until you get it right.
Another approach is to gradually build up skills in something entirely new. Learn to play the guitar, to paint with watercolors, to knit. And don’t be discouraged if it takes a while to become good enough at it for flow to develop.
As you grow older, you may find that a task that once induced flow is now too difficult. Instead of giving up, break it down into steps or spend time practicing until your skills and confidence come back.
I expect to retire within the next year, and I’ve wondered where I’ll find flow once I stop working. Here’s one thing I’m planning to try. Years ago, I played the clarinet relatively well, but I haven’t picked up my instrument in a long time. When I retire, I’ll start with something basic, like playing scales, and then move on to simple tunes. If I can pace myself so that each time I practice, I’m stretching my skill, I stand a good chance of finding flow along the way.
And that’s very much worth doing. Not only will it help me sustain my self-confidence but it feels so good, it’s worth missing lunch occasionally.
Flora Davis has written scores of magazine articles and is the author of five nonfiction books, including the award-winning Moving the Mountain: The Women’s Movement in America Since 1960 (1991, 1999). She currently lives in a retirement community and continues to work as a writer.
