Parking Stress – The Concept of Flow

Flow

The word flow is used in lots of ways. ‘Going with the flow’ is often meant to describe doing what the majority have decided to do. Flow is also used to describe the various rates at which a river progresses along its course. You’ve probably also less commonly heard some people talk about being in “the flow”. It’s this last definition which I’m going to focus on in this blog.

Psychology Today describes flow as “a cognitive state where one is completely immersed in an activity—from painting and writing to prayer and surfboarding. It involves intense focus, creative engagement, and the loss of awareness of time and self”.

The phrase itself was first coined by the Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the 1960’s.

It’s essentially this state that I achieve when I’m gardening. I can be weeding (less enjoyable but not stressful), planting, pruning, cutting and designing. I will be out in the garden for hours with little or no comprehension of time. The process has the effect of seeing time speed up and yet, as we know, that’s impossible.

Positive and Negative Flow

To go into a little more detail, you’ll be aware that if you’ve been in considerable pain, it drags. Every second you are aware of the pain and time seems to go slowly. You are aware of every second in a negative way. However, when you’re doing something that you really enjoy and are absorbed in, you are literally dealing in the present, in a positive way. I can be out in the garden for hours and it feels like minutes. Even if I’m stressed when I go out there, it doesn’t take long for me to park the stress. Just doing something mechanical and something that allows me to focus on what is right in front of me.

In a similar but more stressful way, I would arrive at school at 8am. Often, the next time I looked at the clock it would be 6pm. That is me being so absorbed in the job and the need to work quickly and urgently to get through the tasks ahead of me that time literally flies. Whilst this is still a form of flow, it is a level of flow made necessary by the pressure of the job.

Psychology Today describes flow as being “the delicate balance between the tension of anxiety and the tedium of boredom.”

Realistically, if I don’t prune the roses they’ll just have to wait. The pressure of time on tasks that are concerned with people is all the greater. So, whilst flow is what I was experiencing in school it wasn’t a mentally healthy form of flow. Often despite being in flow all day, I’d leave school with the feeling that I hadn’t got through everything and a lot of the things I hadn’t got through were pressing and really needed completing.

So having flow activities at home that help you to park stress and just focus on something rewarding that you can become absorbed in is a good way to alleviate stress from work.

Tom Daley

Probably the most public expression of flow which has been picked up by the media was illustrated by Tom Daley the British diver. Tom taught himself to knit during the Covid lockdowns which helped him with his mental health but has since taken his knitting to the poolside between dives. The mechanical movement of the needles and the working towards something that he was creating put him into a state of flow. This in turn took the pressure off him between dives as he no longer focused on the quality of other divers and dives. When he came to do his dive his head was clear, and he could just focus on executing what he had practiced.

In terms of elite sport these small changes can make the 1 or 2% difference between achieving gold or taking silver. For us in schools, flow activity at home is about helping us to be the best version of ourselves when we’re at work and yet feeling that sense of accomplishment outside of work.

Activities for Flow

So, on the assumption that school creates stress, what are the activities that you do to create a state of flow and give you a break from the pressure? Some have suggested painting. Others prefer to read and as mentioned my garden is my “flow place” but what do you do to create that space called flow?

In my next blog, we’ll be looking at how we can manage the all-consuming job that is working in schools by looking at the concept of wonder.