Neuroscience of Coaching – Episode 23
Tapping into Flow: The Path to Peak Performance (Eugene Choi)
Eugene Choi: When your amygdala’s turning on, you feel threatened in any way. What most people don’t realize is we’re in this survival state for a lot of our life not because of physical threats, but emotional threats. When we feel anxious, when we feel scared, when we feel upset, frustrated, it literally turns off these executive functions of our brain and it’s preventing us from being in flow.
Dr. Irena: Hi, I’m Dr. Irene O’Brien and you’re listening to Neuroscience of Coaching. I’m a cognitive neuroscientist with almost 30 years of study and practice in psychology and neuroscience. And as the founder of the Neuroscience School, I teach coaches and other wellness professionals real world evidence-based strategies to use in their own practices. In each episode, I invite a seasoned coach to discuss a topic that affects our field and together, we probe provide you with science-based tools to help your clients reach their goals by working with their brains to create results that last.
You’ve probably heard the term flow at some point. It’s variously described as a joyous state of heightened focus and total immersion in activities such as art, sports, science and work. We also often hear it called being in the zone, but for today we’ll refer to it as flow. Prominent 20th century psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a pioneer in our understanding of peak performance, creativity and human fulfillment, and he’s also credited with originating the term and concept of flow.
Csikszentmihalyi studied flow in a wide variety of occupations, from artists and chess players to business leaders and from ordinary people to the elite. From that, he put forth that creating flow is critical to peak performance and enabling our own individual genius and highest potential. Although flow is not rigidly defined, and Csikszentmihalyi specifically warned against this, it does nevertheless have a number of distinct elements, all of which are open to measurement and therefore scientific study. Firstly, we can look at brain activations and deactivations while study participants report being in flow. This has shown that the default mode network experiences decreased activation while the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex showed increased activation.
In other words, there was a distinct reallocation of brain resources during flow, which means that flow isn’t just a subjective experience. Second, we’ve seen that brainwave activity shifts with higher alpha wave activity and lower beta wave activity during flow. It should be noted that alpha waves are also associated with creativity and insights. Third, we can look at the heart. We have our heart rate, which is beats per minute, but also heart rate variability, which is the difference between the heart rate on the in breath and the heart rate on the out breath.
In a state of flow, we experience a lower heart rate but a higher heart rate variability, which matches what the heart does during other feelings of effortlessness. Last, the involvement of the feel-good chemical dopamine should be evident. And it is. Studies using computer and video game simulations found that flow states generated more dopamine release. Likewise, people who report being more prone to experiencing flow in general were shown to have more dopamine D2 receptors in their brains.
So neuroscience has established a clear biological basis in our brains for this thing we call flow. But how can you take advantage of this? Can you create more flow? Is there such a thing as too much flow? For these answers and more, let’s bring in my guest today and jump into this fascinating topic.
Dr. Eugene Choi teaches executive leaders how to achieve and sustain peak performance in high stress, high stakes and high change environments. He has created a unique science backed process that teaches leaders how to activate their executive brain to dramatically improve results and increase clarity and focus in challenging and unpredictable situations. He has a background in clinical, pharmacy, neuroscience and business coaching and has helped thousands of entrepreneurs and executives optimize their mindset, reduce toxic stress and lead with more impact.
Eugene, thank you so much for joining me today.
Eugene: Thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited to be here today.
Dr. Irena: So am I. So tell us a little more about your journey and how that made you especially interested to talk about flow.
Eugene: Long story short, after many transitions I have a background as a clinical pharmacist. And eventually, when I made a transition, I went from New York City to LA. I had a little stint in filmmaking for a little bit, but after that I was back in pharmacy and I ended up getting promoted where I became a leader for all of Los Angeles healthcare system. So it was six major hospitals, 250 plus clinics. So immediately, I was getting a lot of experience in leadership.
So when it comes to leadership, I got a little bit jaded because there was a lot of things to deal with, a lot of high pressure, high stakes, high change kind of situations. Not only that, there’s bureaucracy, there’s politics, unfortunately, there’s even backstabbing type of stuff happening behind the scenes and it got me thinking a lot about how do you become an effective leader? Because there was a saying that just because you’re a manager doesn’t mean you’re a leader.
And I realized part of this was understanding how to tap into a deeper level of yourself where you’re able to perform better. But not only doing that, but when you’re doing that for yourself, you’re able to help lead a team to be able to tap into that flow as well. So that’s kind of where I just got really fascinated with the science behind it. So my healthcare background helped me geek out and, and read journal articles, write medical articles, and really start diving deep into how our brain works and how to take some of these concepts, simplify it without making it sound so complicated so that the average everyday person can apply it for themselves and experience the benefits for themselves as well because honestly, we’re stressed out all the time, aren’t we? And we’re not making the greatest decisions because of it.
Dr. Irena: Yeah, exactly. So many people who have experienced flow describe it as losing track of time and feeling effortless. So what could you add to that for deeper understanding?
Eugene: Yeah, so my fascination with it became how productive we become and how great it feels. You were mentioning how we do experience increased amount of dopamine in our system as well. So one of the things that I realized was if you really think about what flow is after having. Whether it’s having read Mihaly’s works and just kind of going deep into it, the first thing I was thinking about was if you really think about what are humans restricted by?
If you were to try to sum it up for more or less, we’re restricted by this body that we’re in, right? The body suit that we’re in. We’re restricted by time because we’re always racing against the clock to try to get things done, and rushing and rushing. And we’re restricted by an environment, right? We didn’t choose where we were born. We didn’t choose the parents we had that we grew up with or the caretakers that we had. So there’s a lot of these elements of, we’ll call them restrictions that human beings experience in daily life.
And when you enter into a state of flow, you lose those restrictions, you lose track of time, you lose track of your body, you lose track of your environment. So I realize it’s really this. I don’t know how else to describe it, but you’re in this moment where you lost the sense of self, right? It’s the same when we’re so empathetic with someone. You’re so focused on them, where did you go? And I realized when we’re in this zone, amazing things happen. Your creativity kicks in, your ability to make good decisions comes in. Just so many amazing things happen.
And some people might explain it as like a supernatural experience. Even too, where they’re able to accomplish more than they ever thought they could when they’re in that kind of mode. So that’s how I’ve started to define it for myself. It’s this mode where you’re starting to lose certain restrictions that you believe that you have.
Dr. Irena: So how do you help like a manager? Does a manager need to be in flow? Like, because the manager manages people?
Eugene: Yes. So it is so important for a manager to be in flow, because you and I both know this. The whole nervous system really operates in one of two areas. Right? It’s either in a state where it feels threatened in some way. It’s. I label it as a survival state. Right? When your amygdala is turning on, you feel threatened in any way. What most people don’t realize is we’re in this survival state for a lot of our life, not because of physical threats, but emotional threats. When we feel anxious, when we feel scared, when we feel upset, frustrated, it literally turns off these executive functions of our brain and it’s preventing us from being in flow.
And if you’re a manager, your brain’s only focus is on protecting itself. If you’re in this state of stress and survival, because your brain literally thinks it’s about to die, that there’s some sort of life-threatening situation here. So if we don’t get into that state of flow, I realize it blows up in the face of the company. It destroys relationships, it destroys culture. Right? Poor decisions are made because their brain’s not able to access that level of critical thinking skills that they’re able to. And that’s kind of what I realized, how important it is in the leadership space because if you’re a leader leading other people and your brain’s in a constant state of focusing on itself and not in that state of flow, who would want a leader like that?
Dr. Irena: And flow is contagious.
Eugene: Exactly.
Dr. Irena: If you’re in flow, then it can be contagious to your team.
Eugene: Yes.
Dr. Irena: And so they’re more likely to get into flow. So it flows downward and upward too, because it would flow upward also.
Eugene: It’s so contagious. And are you familiar with the whole story with the monkey and how mirror neurons got discovered in 1992? Like, there was this lab in Italy, they had the brain scans on the monkey, and they would have the monkey do different things and see which part of the monkey’s brain lit up. And what the researcher did was he had the monkey eat a peanut, and they would see which part of the scans would light up, basically. And the researcher was on a break. He decided to eat one of those peanuts in the bowl because he was hungry.
And the part of the monkey’s brain that lit up was the same exact part as if the monkey was eating the peanut itself. And that’s when they discovered mirror neurons. So, in essence, I feel like, yes, it’s so contagious because, you know, that whole experience, you see someone get hurt, and you’re like, ooh, ow as if you’re experiencing the pain yourself. I think that’s such an important thing to understand how contagious our state is with the people around us. So I agree with you. When we can have leaders be in a state of flow, it’s contagious. Not only does the leader perform better, but the team performs better as well.
Dr. Irena: Can you be in flow all the time?
Eugene: Honestly, I don’t think so, in my opinion.
Dr. Irena: There’s the concept of the autotelic life.
Eugene: Yes.
Dr. Irena: And so it’s not that you’re in a high state of flow all the time, but it’s just that your life flows. Right? Like when you have high meaning and that meaning governs your entire life, then you can have that autotelic life. And that an autotelic life is a life that is effortless.
Eugene: Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Irena: In a way.
Eugene: I believe you can significantly increase the amount that you’re there. I think that comes from this whole understanding that a majority of our brain is pretty much on autopilot. I think that saying that gets severely misinterpreted where there was a saying from. I think it was like, in the 90s into 2000s. I don’t know if people still say it a lot, but, like, there used to be the saying that we only use 5 to 10% of our brains. It was very misinterpreted.
Dr. Irena: People still say it.
Eugene: It’s so misinterpreted because people are saying it as if only 5 to 10% of your brain is on while the rest of the brain is off, which is totally not the case. It’s just 5 to 10% of your brain is your conscious brain. Your ability to make a conscious choice right now, to think a conscious thought, to take a conscious action right now. But a lot of the brain is subconscious, which is basically just on autopilot.
And, you know, with the whole aspect of Hebb’s Law in neuroscience, which states that neurons that fire together, wire together, meaning if you think the same thought or do the same thing repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly, those neural networks get strengthened for efficiency purposes to the point where you can do it without having to tell yourself to do it. It becomes a habit. So.
Dr. Irena: And that’s how your life and your work become effortless.
Eugene: Exactly.
Dr. Irena: So not in the sense that you’re not putting any effort into it. It just feels like it’s effortless.
Eugene: Exactly. You’ve done it. So that’s the part most people don’t want to do, is the repetition. Right? Is when we want to create change, we literally have to do the repetition part so that your neurons fire and wire together to the point where it just goes on autopilot. And so much research around this, it’s so fascinating because a friend of mine is like, if you want a autotelic life on autopilot, it’s in essence, how do you create that as a habit? I think that’s the bottom line, isn’t it, right to be able to take advantage of learning how to change the subconscious in a way where your habits are working for you instead of against you?
And a lot of people, I think, don’t like it because from a brain perspective, your brain likes predictability. Because during the cavemen, cave woman days, you go to uncertain territory, you might get killed by a wild animal. It kept us alive this whole time. But when it comes to, like, daily functions, everyday live productivity, the brain still just doesn’t like change, so tries to keep doing what it’s usually doing, even though it’s not getting you the result that you want. But what’s fascinating, what’s encouraging for me, is, like, I have a friend. Her name is Linda Fogg. She is the sister of BJ Fogg. He wrote a book called Tiny Habits. It was this New York Times bestselling book.
And it was so interesting because there was a saying that it takes 21 days to build a habit. They were talking about how they found that it’s not true based on the research. It’s just a widely misinterpreted study. It’s based off of one study. But what they found is you can change a habit in a moment, in a day. And the key part about that is it’s the emotional shifts, right? So, for example, if there’s a habit you want to change, one of the things with the method of tiny habits is do an instant celebration. It could look so silly, but you just instantly celebrate to create an emotional shift in your body, which helps change the autopilot, because your body has that autopilot as well, of feeling the same feeling every day.
So even if it’s just jumping up and down, clapping for yourself, giving yourself a high five. The point is how quickly that we can change our autopilot. So with that research, it’s very encouraging because for people who want that autotelic life, it does take practice, it does take effort, but it’s possible to put in the work and change it faster than you think. If you want to access this state of flow more often where you’re operating at a much higher level and performing at such a high level. And it feels amazing.
Dr. Irena: Yeah. So we really should be living in the parasympathetic nervous system. Right? Most of the time. And then we exit the parasympathetic to the sympathetic to get stuff done.
Eugene: Yes.
Dr. Irena: The more difficult stuff done. And so just for the listeners, the parasympathetic system is like the rest and digest system. And the sympathetic nervous system is the stressful; is a stress response.
Eugene: Yes.
Dr. Irena: And that goes back to when we lived in caves. The people didn’t hunt for animals all the time. Right? And even if you look at other mammals in the wild, they don’t hunt all the time. They spend most of their time resting and relaxing. And when they need to eat, they go out on the hunt. And that’s the stress response to go out on the hunt. But then they come back to their normal, relaxed life. But in our modern society, people are in that sympathetic nervous system all the time.
Eugene: Yeah. You know, I was reading there’s a book called Sapiens, which basically maps out like the whole history of mankind. And it’s fascinating because you’re bringing this up with the caveman days. The work week wasn’t a 40-hour work week back then. You would spend maybe two hours hunting and then the rest of the week just doing your gathering. Organizing. Right? And the gathering part. Right? Taking the meat and all that stuff you need or the plants, and the rest of your day you’re free. That’s what life used to be like.
So to your point of the sympathetic nervous system being the dominant part that’s on the ratio was much less to today because we live, a lot of us live in a self-induced cutthroat environment where we feel like we always need to fight to compete. We always feel like we need to be ahead of others, whatever that means for each individual. And therefore we enter into the sympathetic nervous system for a majority of our adult lives. And I think most people don’t realize, like, you’re wasting so much energy when you’re there. A lot of us people who label ourselves as high performers, they think if they’re working hard all the time, they’re actually a high performer.
But it’s not, that’s not flow. That’s just overworking yourself in your sympathetic nervous system. And when you’re in your parasympathetic, you’re accessing such amazing functions of yourself and you’re conserving energy instead of wasting energy. And you can conserve that energy for better use. And you work smarter, not harder, because you’re accessing these executive functions of your frontal lobe, your decision-making skills, your critical thinking skills, your creativity, your empathy.
And it’s just such a fascinating thing because I think that’s the big illusion. And that’s why I got very disenchanted with hustle culture, because I bought into that growing up, being lower middle class, not coming from money, thinking I had to work my butt off all the time to succeed. But I mean, there’s just so much statistics out there. Working harder does not equal financial success in the long run. So it’s working smarter that does. Educating yourself. Yeah.
Dr. Irena: Yeah. And being that spending a lot of time in the sympathetic nervous system. There’s a lot of cortisol release.
Eugene: Yeah.
Dr. Irena: Right? And so in the end, by having that constant release of cortisol, it damages your health.
Eugene: It damages your health. Your hippocampus. Right? Like also many things, your memories.
Dr. Irena: It damages your brain.
Eugene: It damages your brain. And ask any medical healthcare provider what long term exposure to steroids due to your body, it also tanks your immune system. So people are getting sick. And I just find that so interesting. Why don’t more people get educated on this? We don’t learn about this stuff in school.
Dr. Irena: I don’t know. There’s a research study from several months ago where they had people do tasks in the lab for six hours. That’s a long day in the lab. So you know what these lab tasks are like, right? The arbitrary tasks. And they separated the med into two groups. They had a group that did easy tasks and a group that did hard tasks. And every so often, they would stop them and then they had to, they would offer them something, probably money, I think. And to earn that money, they had to either choose another simple task or another hard task.
And what they found was that as the day went on, the group that was doing all these simple tasks, the quality of their decisions did not change. But for the ones who were doing the hard tasks, they were making decisions that were easier. They chose the easier route for less money than the harder route for more money.
Eugene: Interesting.
Dr. Irena: Yeah. And that was toward the end of the day, it started at around four hours or so and then it increased to six hours. I mean, so that was, that was such a brilliant and elegant study because it shows that hard work for that amount of time affects your decision making. Right? Your brain is tired.
Eugene: Yeah. And our brains. Yeah. Don’t like burning. It likes to be efficient. That’s the whole point. We have all these habits and if there’s a capacity, I think there’s other studies too that showed like the whole eight-hour day. There’s a lot of research on, like it was pretty arbitrary. There’s no research showing that the eight-hour day is your optimal amount of hours you should be working. Most people, just like the caveman days, we’re really only productive for two to three hours a day, just like we were when we were caveman. Yet we still have this eight-hour workday.
Nothing against like that kind of life, but I just find it interesting when, if we want to be more productive and in that kind of accessing that kind of flow state. I think it’s really about nervous system management. Right? Versus just working hard all the time. It’s just fascinating how we all have this capability of working smarter. We all have this capability of tapping into this state of flow. And if we want to do it for our clients, like we either do it for ourselves and let it be contagious or some of the science needs to be put out there that’s easy to digest for the average person and applicable for the average person for them to experience the benefits for themselves. In my opinion.
Dr. Irena: I think that’s a hard sell, especially in North America or in the US Particularly, I think with the puritan work ethic.
Eugene: Right.
Dr. Irena: Which is. I think it’s easier in Europe. Right? Because in Europe they have generous vacation laws. Right. And hours of work. So I think it’s easier in some cultures than in others.
Eugene: It’s interesting you bring that up because, for example, in Germany it’s not a 40-hour work week. I think it’s a 30 something hour workweek, like a 32 or something like that.
Dr. Irena: In France, you’re not allowed to message your employees after work hours.
Eugene: Right? Like they have certain boundaries which are. I think it’s healthy. Like in Germany they’re working less than the average American workweek. But they’re the ones that produce for most of the economy in all of Europe. So that says something. Right? Maybe they figured out something to help people tap into their flow more often and make it more conducive for them to get out of that overactive, sympathetic nervous system. There’s nothing wrong with either state, but I think it’s the ratio that we want to examine of where we’re in more often and our lives.
And I remember when I was living in Italy for a month, there’s a saying in Europe that Americans live to work, but in Europe, we work to live right. And it was such a beautiful statement because, I mean, yeah, I get. People can argue about it from a productivity standpoint, but from a quality-of-life standpoint, leaving my New York City bubble, which glorifies the being busy and miserable type of stereotype, which I was. And then you experience something like that overseas. I mean, that’s the thing that helps you really access your state of flow is like, can you imagine exactly what you said earlier?
Imagine life felt where you’re being more productive, but it also felt easier. And I think that’s a key thing, that when we learn how to access our own flow, you really experience the benefits for it. Because my favorite quote, one of my favorite quotes is something Bruce Lee said. He said, don’t ask for life to get easier. Ask for yourself to get stronger. Because when you get stronger, life just gets easier. If we can get stronger by understanding how, we could reprogram ourselves right through neuroscientific principles to get that autopilot, being in that autotelic life, things do feel better, we do produce better.
Our brain gets out of tunnel vision because when you’re in sympathetic nervous system, you’re in tunnel vision because you feel so threatened. If a tiger walks into your room right now, are you going to look anywhere else except where that tiger is? But what happens? You’re missing information. You develop blind spots, ideas, solutions, opportunities, especially if you’re a leader or coach. If you’re going to be in that sympathetic nervous system in this narrow, focused tunnel vision, it’s preventing us from accessing the information that we needed.
And when we’re in that flow state, it’s just like, whoa. Like, you can see things that you weren’t aware of before. And that’s the thing that gives you clarity and you take powerful action. And then you become laser focused on what’s the most efficient way to do things, the best way to do things, and you make so much better decisions. And then people come up to you and ask, how did you accomplish all this in such a short of time? It’s like, I don’t know, I just did it.
Dr. Irena: So do you have a client’s story, a client who didn’t believe you at the beginning, but then really embraced the concept of flow.
Eugene: Yes. So just to give context, every client that I have, I don’t take them as a client Until I teach them about the nervous system so that we develop a similar language. So number one is your nervous system operates in one of two states. Right? I call it a survival state or executive state. Executive state is where you access that flow state. Right? But because we’re a majority of our life, we’re in this state of survival. Right? Where it’s overactive, sympathetic nervous system. I have to make sure that I help them become aware of what are the three things your brain does reactively without thinking when you’re in the state of survival, which is the fight, flight, freeze response. Right?
Most people don’t realize in everyday life, we need to understand what it looks like when we’re surviving from an emotion. And our brains view these emotions as a threat a lot of times. Because there’s research that suggests that emotional pain can also be almost just as painful as physical pain based on the way the brain processes information.
Dr. Irena: It activates the same brain areas as physical pain.
Eugene: But most people don’t know how to identify it in everyday life. What does a fight response look like? It’s like when you have your ego hurt and now, you’re getting defensive. When you get into an argument with someone, your brain literally views that person as a threat, and you’re actually attacking them, you’re trying to hurt them. Most of the time, we do it verbally, ideally, not physically. Right? But we do it verbally. We verbally attack people. Trying to prove yourself can be a fight response. Overworking to prove yourself can be a fight response. If you have a not-so-great belief about yourself trying to prove yourself. All of these things are a fight response.
Flight response can be when we procrastinate because we’re afraid if we do the thing now, what if I get judged? Or flight response can be when we start numbing ourselves, which we all do when we’re going through some sort of emotional pain that we feel overwhelmed by. Some people do it by distracting themselves intentionally, overindulging in things like food, alcohol, drugs, to the point of addiction. No judgment around it. Judgment is also a fight response. When you judge someone’s character, you’re trying to put them down to put yourself up.
Free’s response is when we literally kind of play dead. Right? Where we just don’t take action. This is why I realized I was just like; you know, I don’t think there’s such a thing as laziness. I think that’s just a label people give and it’s a judgment. You’re going, that person’s lazy. But what’s. What might be happening in their nervous system? If you look at it from the point of how the nervous system, they might be in a chronic freeze response for whatever reason, things they’ve been through, experience with that.
So anyway, I have to bring all that stuff up because I had a client who was in his 60s, had everything he wanted, he got it. He had the multimillion-dollar business, the beautiful home, the beautiful family, and he’s going, why am I still feeling so stressed and anxious all the time? I don’t feel like I’m operating at my best. I don’t feel like I’m experiencing as much of that flow that I would like. We’re going over the fight flight freeze response and he has an aha moment going. I’ve been in my fight response my whole life. I’m like, what do you mean?
Well, I’ve been trying to fight to prove to people that I’m better than my older brother. His older brother was an NFL football player. And he’s sharing with me the story that when he was in high school, his football coach said to him, you’re never going to be as good as him. Don’t even bother trying. And that hurt. That emotional pain put him into a chronic fight flight freeze response throughout his life. In his situation, it was a fight response. How do we fight? We try to accomplish more. We try to achieve more, get more status, thinking that it will help us feel better about ourselves.
And it always leads to burnout and always leads to a lack of fulfillment. Because what’s happening in the nervous system when you’re constantly in a fight mode, you’re wasting so much energy, you’re in your tunnel vision, you’re not accessing your executive function, you’re just head down, working hard all the time, thinking that you’ll feel better until one day you wake up and decades have passed by and you’re going, why do I not feel better?
And the moment he was becoming aware of that, he was able to shift, that he was able to understand because of the source of what he was actually surviving from, which was a perspective, it was a belief about himself that from thought alone, it created this subconscious autopilot of his opinion about himself. And he fought to try to change it when in reality he could through coaching, through education, he was able to rewire these networks where he was able to perform a lot better and he felt better. And like you’re mentioning, he was describing that, it’s just like. I don’t know how to describe this because it sounds weird. It’s almost like he just had to give himself permission to just go into this state.
And the more he did it, the more you liked it. And because you like it, you crave more of it. And you keep doing it through repetition. Neurons are firing together, wiring together, and next thing you know, he’s a totally different personality and he’s just performing better and he’s feeling better. He’s actually happy because he thought the outside circumstances changing would make him feel happy. Right? He had more money, the family, the material possessions, but through the internal work of rewiring the neural networks, he was able to activate that state of flow much more often.
Dr. Irena: I had a previous guest on, Anke Herrmann, who I think she teaches marketing to coaches, and when they get stuck, she says, go take a break, go to the beach, have a nap, get a good night’s sleep. And that often opens things up for them. Yeah, but it’s counterintuitive.
Eugene: Correct. People don’t because they’re wired that way. Right? A lot of us deal with our burnout and our stress by working harder. Right? I think it’s ingrained in our culture. Right? Like the underdog experience of working. You know, become the entrepreneur that works 80 hours a week. But if you look at it from a brain perspective, the moment you relax and get into your parasympathetic nervous system, you’re re accessing your critical thinking centers, your creativity, to be able to come up with a creative solution, your empathy, your intuition. You’re accessing these amazing parts of your brain.
This is why so many people have that experience in the shower. All of a sudden you have this aha moment in the shower. What if it’s because it was just for a moment? Even if it’s just for a moment, you get out of your tunnel vision where you’re blind to the opportunity, solutions and ideas that were there. You can. There’s information inside of yourself you can access. But simply from being in that fight flight freeze mode, being in the state of survival sympathetic nervous system is just preventing yourself from accessing that information. So this is why it’s so important.
Yes. Like to take intentional breaks. I’m not talking about that break where you’re on vacation and you’re still thinking about work and working. Right? Like, I think that’s something a lot of us do too. It’s like a true relaxed moment. And I mean I share whatever context that I can share to help people feel like doing that for themselves. Because I think that’s the challenge, too. It’s like, we know it’s good for us to take a break, but because I don’t feel like it, I don’t do it. I know it’s healthy for me to eat better or work out, but I don’t feel like it, so I don’t do it. And that’s part of what our subconscious default mode network our autopilot keeps doing to us, thinking it’s for our benefit.
But I think that’s why it’s so important to be aware of what this all looks like. And I think that’s why I’m such a fan of what you’re doing, is you’re helping the average person understand how we operate at a biological neurological level. Because the more you understand this, it takes the shame and guilt away. Like, we don’t go, oh, I act this way because I’m such a loser. We can put a label to it, oh, I act this way because I have a chronic fight response for whatever reason, because my brain’s been conditioned this way.
And if we educate ourselves, we can redesign ourselves to get into the state of flow. Part of it is, yes, we need to understand how to access our parasympathetic nervous system when we’re dominantly in our sympathetic nervous system. Not accessing our brain’s higher functions. That come a lot from our frontal lobe, which is the largest as humans. It’s. We have the largest frontal lobe compared to any other species. It’s 40% of our brain compared to any other species. Why don’t we learn how to use it better?
Dr. Irena: Yeah. People are fixated on the 10,000-hour rule. Right? And that takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in anything. Which is not true. It all depends on the difficulty. Right? Or the complexity of the domain. But if you go deeper into that research, what you see is that it was focused practice. It was only for four hours a day.
Eugene: Interesting.
Dr. Irena: Over many years, but still only four hours a day. The rest of the time they did some kind of domain related activity, but that wasn’t so focused. It just might be reading something about it. They also slept an average of 8 and a half hours a night and they also napped in the afternoon.
Eugene: Wow.
Dr. Irena: So at the rate of four hours a day, that was it. And if you look at, I mean, some of the anecdotal evidence, like Darwin, I mean, he was a prolific writer and researcher, and he only worked four hours a day. And the rest of the time in the afternoon he would take his bicycle and he would ride it in the fields and look at the flora and the fauna. So it was related to his work, but not in a deep focus sense.
Eugene: Yeah.
Dr. Irena: And it was more enjoyable.
Eugene: I love that, you know, like when you’re in this state of flow, you have like so many connect the dots moments happens, right? I feel like it’s related, but like, one of the things that fascinated me are people who are extremely intuitive and spot on with their intuition. And one of the things, you know, you and I both know your subconscious brain processes information so much faster than your conscious brain.
So one of the things that I was fascinated by and looking into, and I’d love your perspective on it, too. It’s just like when you have these moments of intuition, I feel like it’s hard to access your intuition where your brain is rapidly accessing this information that we’re not aware of on a daily basis to provide an answer for you. Like that moment you have in the shower when you have an aha moment. Right? If we’re in a state of flow, I feel like more of that tends to happen because when you get back into your parasympathetic nervous system, you’re not feeling under threat.
So your creativity kicks in and you’re accessing all this information, concocting it together based on whatever intention you have in the moment of trying to figure out. And all these connected dots moments happens, and it’s usually not from the place you thought it would be. Like you’re mentioning Darwin just kind of exploring the flora and fauna. He could be sitting there just writing papers all day, eight hours a day. But then I think if it wasn’t for experiences like that where it’s a novel experience, a different type of experience, right?
You’re coming up with these brilliant, like, aha moments because we’re accessing our intuition better as well. Like you’re becoming more aware of information that’s been inside and stored inside your nervous system. At least I know there’s no, like, direct research that can pinpoint this. Right? Like, I’m aware of that. But it’s just fascinating to me that I think we access our intuition at a deeper level when we’re in a state of flow.
And what it helps them do too is they work smarter, not harder. How many people like that experience of being in their bat, I call it their bat cave, where you’re just working your butt off for like 80 hours a week and you spend years Doing it. And you think it’s because of that you got the result you did. But what if in reality, because you teach yourself to train your nervous system better to be in your parasympathetic, you could have gotten the same result with only three hours a day working? Because clearly other people are doing it.
Dr. Irena: Yeah. Because one of the requirements of insight. Right. To have moments of insight is to have a relaxed mind.
Eugene: Exactly.
Dr. Irena: And so that you’re in the parasympathetic nervous system, then when you have a relaxed mind.
Eugene: Yeah.
Dr. Irena: You can’t have it if you’re tethered to your to do list and trying to get more done.
Eugene: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Irena: And more done. And more done.
Eugene: And I think there’s a nuance here. I don’t know how you would label it, Irina, but, like. Because the nuance I also found is, you know, the parasympathetic. Yes. This is the desirable place you want to be, at least at a higher majority of our lives. Not just for neurological purposes, for biological purposes, too. Because there’s a lot of stress going on in your body. Right? It’s taking a toll on your body when you’re in chronic sympathetic nervous system.
But at the same time, what I realize is the freeze response, when we’re kind of like not taking action, frozen in fear, is the overactive parasympathetic. So I think this is where people misinterpret. Like, I’m just going to veg out all day and stay in bed all day, and I’m doing it for me. Right? When in reality, it’s. I’m too afraid to take action. For the thing that I think there’s a nuance there.
But I think that’s the key thing where introspection is so important, because you’ll know when you’re in a state of flow. Right? I think the best way I can describe it now is like you feel a pull towards something. Like it’s this moment of self-expression. It’s like something inside of you can’t contain anymore and has to come out of you. I think that’s the best way to explain it because you’re just performing at such a amazing level because it’s a form of self-expression, not a form of self-consumption because when we’re in chronic fight flight, it’s a lot of consuming, it’s a lot of taking. Right?
Part of the fight response is like; it feels like you’re pushing yourself towards a certain outcome. I have to do this. I have to do this. And you’re constantly stressing out your nervous system, but you’re not working smarter because you’re in your amygdala and your brain’s not thinking as well. So that’s kind of what I realized is just like, it’s such an amazing place to be. I mean, I know I’m sounding kind of poetic about this, but it’s really a place where you reach a level of pure self-expression and you express things that are valuable for other people in your own ways, whether it’s with your words, your actions. Right? And that becomes contagious. That’s inspiring when you meet people like that. It’s so fun to be around people like that, isn’t it?
Dr. Irena: It is.
Eugene: Right?
Dr. Irena: Well. And it’s joyous.
Eugene: Exactly.
Dr. Irena: It’s joyous for the person who is in flow and for the people around them.
Eugene: Yeah. You ever meet a high performer that’s grumpy and angry all the time?
Dr. Irena: I think there are many of those.
Eugene: Yeah, there’s a lot of people like that. They’re not fun to be around, and they’re actually not high performing, in my opinion. Now that I learned about the nervous system, they’re just in a chronic fight response. They’re just great at being in a fight response. They get things done, but they’re miserable about it. But who likes being around that type of person? It’s also very beneficial to have people around us that at the end of the day, that we feel safe. Because if we don’t feel safe, boom, we’re going into sympathetic nervous system, fight, flight, all that stuff. Right?
But imagine you have people in your life that, let’s say you make a decision together as a group or with a person. Right? That even though you make the wrong decision, that you make a mistake, because we all make mistakes. That you know, that this person still has your back even though they were severely disagreeing with you, that when the decision was made, that even if it was a mistake, they still have your back and they don’t hold it against you.
I think at the end of the day, we don’t like uncertainty because of our caveman days going into this uncertain territory. I think at the end of the day, if we can create environments where we feel like we have a community of people that have our back, where we’re navigating uncertainty together because we’re all navigating uncertainty every moment. Right. Who knows what?
Dr. Irena: Exactly. Exactly.
Eugene: We’re literally navigating uncertainty every moment. That, number one, if we have that level of relationship with ourselves, where we navigate uncertainty and have our own back, but also, we have it as a community. I think the level of flow that will access will significantly increase and the world will benefit from it because we’re just producing more value rather than consuming the value, if that makes sense. And that’s been the vision for me. It’s just like, yes, it’s contagious. You can learn how to do that for your clients. We can learn to do it as leaders.
Dr. Irena: I think that’s a great way to wrap up our conversation today.
Eugene: Yeah. Awesome.
Dr. Irena: Yeah. So what’s the best way for listeners to learn more about you and what you do?
Eugene: Yeah. So I have piloted and launched a community, an online community where I have all my modules that I teach a little bit more around. This whole awareness piece, how to reprogram this autopilot subconscious that we’re in based on what I found. That’s at neurohackingschool.com. It’s a membership where we’ll also meet live once a month to discuss further any questions you have around that topic. So that you should be able to teach yourself how to access that state of flow, increase the chances of you getting into it more often in your life so that you have more of these aha moments.
That’s one way to reach me. I have a podcast as well. Anyone that wants to join, like, get to know me and what I talk about as well. That’s at neurohackingpodcast.com or yeah, people can reach out to me on LinkedIn, Instagram. I’m under Eugene K. Choi.
Dr. Irena: So again, Eugene, I’m grateful for your time with me today, and this was really a fascinating conversation. So thank you everyone, for listening. Whether you call it flow or being in the zone or something else, it really is a magical state of being. And neuroscience has shown us that it’s not just a subjective experience, but rather a combination of physiological activities in our brains, hearts, and bodies that we can measure. Best of all, the ability to demonstrate this also means that we can more or less create flow at will.
As Eugene and I discussed, this is a true power that you can harness for achieving much more in your life than you may have realized. Far from flow being a state we could only hope to experience on a given day, we can actually take action to move into it. Then, when applied smartly to our goals, we can accomplish what we want with less effort. And ultimately, we can achieve our own definition of success in whatever endeavors we choose.
I’m Dr. Irena O’Brien, and you’ve been listening to Neuroscience of Coaching. You can find out more about me neuroscienceschool.com. Neuroscience of Coaching is a part of the Mirasee FM Podcast Network, which also includes such shows as Just Between Coaches and To Lead is Human. This episode was produced by Andrew Chapman. Danny Iny is our executive producer, and Marvin Del Rosario is our audio editor. To make sure you don’t miss great episodes coming up on Neuroscience of Coaching, please follow us on Mirasee FM’s YouTube channel or your favorite podcast player.
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