Leadership and innovation coach Tanja Yardley shares her expertise on brain science and the importance of getting into a flow state during innovation initiatives. How do you achieve this flow state? Find out in the next episode.
Episode Transcript
Did you know that one of the most powerful states of mind which drives innovation is called flow? During flow, a person becomes fully immersed, involved, and focused on an activity. Interestingly enough, during flow you get a rush of mood-boosting chemicals and a flushing out of stress hormones. Flow can increase productivity by up to 500% and boost learning and skill acquisition by 230%. Flow cuts mastery time in half. Another interesting fact about flow is that it’s a state in which your ego is subdued, and to many, it feels almost spiritual. This is because it shuts down the part of our brain that produces self-awareness as well as the part of our brain that perceives our orientation in time and space, which results in a feeling of oneness with your environment, dissolving of boundaries, a sense of freedom from rumination, and clearing of self-doubt. It just requires the right amount of challenge so that you can do an activity without feeling anxious about it and just enough skill that it doesn’t feel too easy. Once you get into that flow channel, time just disappears, and you can think of things that you wouldn’t normally think of and experience new and novel insights.
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