The Neurochemistry of Flow
Earlier, I talked about the communication between neurons. Specifically, I talked about the fact that neurons emit chemical signals to other neurons. These chemicals are called “Neurotransmitters” and there are a lot of them, but we will only concern ourselves with five of them. These five neurotransmitters are absolutely key to the Flow state. These chemicals are dopamine, norepinephrine, endorphins, anandamide and serotonin. Let’s go through them to get an okay idea of what these five chemicals are responsible for.
Dopamine is responsible for learning, movement, attention, excitement, creativity and curiosity. Dopamine is often referred to as “the reward chemical”, that’s because when dopamine is released in the brain, it feels good. Not only that, but dopamine increases attention, information flow, pattern recognition, heart rate, blood pressure and muscle firing in the body, so we perform good as well.
Hey, remember when we discussed habits? Well, the strongest habits we have are often the ones that cause the release of the most dopamine, the most reward. We can be rewarded with dopamine in response to our AWESOME hobbies like movement arts, reading and flirting with our significant other. However, on the flip side, we can be rewarded with dopamine for reading memes, eating cake and taking drugs. Dopamine is part of why all these things are so addicting. Dopamine causes you to want more of whatever caused its release. Thus, it’s important to learn what activities you receive dopamine through, because dopamine can act as either an enhancer, or a destroyer.
Norepinephrine A.K.A. the adrenaline chemical, is another pleasure-performance enhancer in the right context (It’s effectively our body’s natural Ritalin!). Norepinephrine is present in both anxiety and excitement. Anxiety and excitement actually have nearly identical body signatures, however, in excitement there is a positive thought/emotion and thus a positive experience. Norepinephrine increases heart rate & muscle tension, respiration and causes the release of glucose to give us more energy! We experience heightened awareness, laser sharp attention and in general quickly become optimized mentally and physiologically to give our best performance.
Endorphins are our body’s endogenous opiate, in other words, its our body’s natural form of heroin. Just like heroin, endorphins relieve pain, produce pleasure and cause feelings of relaxation and bliss.
Anandamide is our body’s endogenous cannabinoid, which you might have guessed, is your body’s natural marijuana! Anandamide relieves pain, elevates mood, aids respiration and amplifies our creative potential.
Serotonin is essentially our body’s natural Prozac! Serotonin is responsible for feelings of well-being and happiness. Serotonin also contributes to mood, appetite, sleep, memory and learning! Serotonin typically comes at the end of a Flow session once we’re moving into the “recovery” portion of the Flow cycle.
That’s it! The Flow state chemical cocktail that allow us to both perform our best and feel our best! Large amounts of any one of these chemicals, or even large amounts of all of them at the same time does not mean that we will be in the Flow state. The magic is in the proportion of these chemicals, or the balance of the chemicals. You can’t have too much DANSE (Dopamine, Anandamide, Norepinephrine, Serotonin, Endorphins), or to little DANSE, you have to have just the right amount of DANSE all the right levels.
So, we understand that we want to be in a high theta/low alpha state more often, achieve hypofrontality more often, and have all the right chemicals in the right proportions more often, but the big question has been, TYFOODS, HOW DO WE DO THAT?!
The answer is actually quite simple, all you need to do to keep yourself on the edge of Flow is to sleep right, eat right, move right, meditate & relax, and set big audacious goals!
Let’s dive into the details!
