Flow State

Now that we’ve learned about a gamer’s body, mind, and heart, it’s time to put everything together. Strengthening your foundations, or your pillars, generally leads to improvement, and you might have felt it over the last few weeks. After playing for a while, ask yourself this question:

Are you thinking about what you’re doing?

If your answer is “no,” you might just be playing at an elevated state that makes it feel like you’re not thinking, when in reality you are. This is totally normal, and it is, in fact, the ideal way to compete. When you’re playing in a clutch capacity, or else playing at the speed of thought, you are experiencing something referred to as flow.

What is Flow State

Flowing, or flow state, is a state of mind in which a competitor can make complex decisions in a split-second and execute them to the best of their ability. Flow state is referred to by a couple of names, such as being in “the zone,” and is something all kinds of competitors do, from professional athletes to gamers. When a gamer’s body, mind, and heart are all healthy and strong, a gamer’s flow will be strong. When one of those elements are weaker than the others, the flow will be weaker as a result.

The goal of this section is to teach students about how to maintain their body, mind, and heart so that they can more easily access their flow state with an understanding of what they’re doing. If a student can be aware of these things while they play, the act of gaming goes from a potentially mind-numbing distraction to a mental workout, keeping the mind strong across other aspects of their lives.

As described by psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in 1975, who studied flow state and wrote books on the topic, flow is a state of complete immersion in an activity. He described the mental state of flow in an interview with Wired Magazine in 1996 as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”

Researchers have found that flow can enhance performance in a wide variety of areas, including teaching, learning, athletics, and artistic creativity. Flow can also lead to further learning and skill development. Because the act of achieving flow indicates a substantial mastery of a certain skill, the individual must continually seek new challenges and information in order to maintain this state.

As you grow as a gamer, you will need to challenge yourself in order to continue building up your flow. Once you get good at flowing when you need to, though, you’ll find that the constant introduction of new challenges isn’t as challenging as it might have originally seemed. Professional and high-level gamers are constantly finding ways to improve their game play, introducing new challenges to themselves so they can continue to grow their flow.

How do you do it?

According to Csíkszentmihályi, there are ten factors that accompany the experience of flow. While many of these components may be present, it is not necessary to experience all of them for flow to occur:

1. Clear goals that, while challenging, are still attainable.

2. Strong concentration and focused attention.

3. The activity is intrinsically rewarding.

4. Feelings of serenity; a loss of feelings of self-consciousness.

5. Timelessness; a distorted sense of time; feeling so focused on the present that you lose track of time passing.

6. Immediate feedback.

7. Knowing that the task is doable; a balance between skill level and the challenge presented.

8. Feelings of personal control over the situation and the outcome.

9. Lack of awareness of physical needs.

10. Complete focus on the activity itself.

Flow is likely to occur when an individual is faced with a task that has clear goals that require specific responses. A game of chess, or a video game you’ve been practicing, is a good example of when a flow state might occur. For the duration of a competition, the player has very specific goals and responses, allowing attention to be focused entirely on the game during the period of play.

“Flow also happens when a person’s skills are fully involved in overcoming a challenge that is just about manageable, so it acts as a magnet for learning new skills and increasing challenges,” Csíkszentmihályi explains. “If challenges are too low, one gets back to flow by increasing them. If challenges are too great, one can return to the flow state by learning new skills.”

This concept is illustrated by this chart, made from Csíkszentmihályi’s work Finding Flow, published in 1997.

As you can see, flow state is just one part of the emotional spectrum when it comes to challenging tasks that require skill. If you are feeling something other than flow, try to identify where on the chart you are in order to start working your way towards flow. This process might be a quick fix, or it might take a couple of weeks; it depends on the player. Don’t give up, though, if you’re struggling. Remember, you can always turn to your teammates and coaches for help. Once you achieve a consistent flow state, the last thing left to do is to find new challenges and repeat the process all over again.

Here are some other tips on how you can find your flow state:

1. Have a consistent routine you follow when competing, whether that’s your warm-up routine or otherwise.

• Consistency will help you mentally transition from your “day-to-day” brain to your “competitive” brain, so to speak.

2. Practice breathing and other physical relaxation techniques.

• If you’re too nervous or jittery, it’s hard to focus on playing the game as well as you can. Regularly taking calm, meditative breaths can help you recenter yourself if you’re off course.

3. Don’t overthink things!

• Sometimes, a player can get so wrapped up in something like communication, or a specific role they fill, that they forget the rest of the game around them. If you notice yourself getting target fixation, commonly referred to as “tunnel vision” in gaming, call yourself out and try to mentally reset. Acknowledging a problem is almost always the first step to fixing it.