How can we unlock a state of flow in our daily lives? How does connecting with nature influence our mental and physical well-being? How do movement, dance and play help us feel more creative, connected, and content?
Dr. Julia F. Christensen is a Danish neuroscientist and former dancer currently working as a senior scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Germany. She studied psychology, human evolution, and neuroscience in France, Spain and the UK. For her postdoctoral training, she worked in international, interdisciplinary research labs at University College London, City, University London and the Warburg Institute, London and was awarded a postdoctoral Newton International Fellowship by the British Academy. Her new book The Pathway to Flow is about the science of flow, why our brain needs it and how to create the right habits in our brain to get it.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
When we look at nature, we see the true flow in the natural world: Take like the murmuration of starlings, there are tens of thousands of birds moving together in beautiful harmony. Or the synchronization of fireflies. Or the schools of sardines that move in like one shimmering mass. Those jellyfish blooms where their bodies are pulsating in perfect unison. You’re a neuroscientist, but you come originally from the world of dance world where you were able to tap into this kind of collective intelligence that we see in coral reef ecosystems and all throughout the natural world, this expression of living harmoniously without effort. Human beings are living in this increasingly complex world where data is being collected, doubling every two years, and we're bombarded with images, text, and social media news. It can be difficult to find that natural flow, and people are struggling, finding it hard to relax and have that balance. Our minds are become trapped in a cycle of overthinking.
I also dance, and I find it frees my mind, and I don't have time to overthink. It’s a way to kind of escape oneself. Today, as people are living with these constant inner, interior monologues of rumination and self-doubt, how can people reconnect with that sense of flow? What are the pathways we can take to free ourselves from overthinking and experience that greater grace, energy, and creativity?
JULIA CHRISTENSEN
While you were talking, I already got into a state of flow of just imagining all these beings being in perfect sync and harmony. As we know from some anthropological and archaeological work, we humans, with the special edition brain that we have between our ears, have been admiring this sort of synchrony for a very long time. So drawings of beings moving in synchrony on cave walls, like cattle, for example. These swarms of beings that are with us on this Earth inspire us to look at them.
And why do we look at things? Because the human brain will usually only attend to something that is relevant, either because it's dangerous. So we need to attend to get away. Or because it is good, and we need to have more of it for some reason or another for survival. So, our brain is structured around very deep-seated systems that are important to keep us alive and those they tell us to approach or avoid. It seems very much that we approach synchrony and harmony and visual and auditory and tactile and taste and smell, so there's something. When we're exposed in our senses to these cues that attract us, we know from modern neuroscience that our physiology, our heart rate, will synchronize with external cues, for example, other people.
Now you mentioned dancing. So with the people who dance when we dance with them, our breathing rates might synchronize without us willing to. We're joining in, and this synchrony basically has a very special effect on us. Other people that we're synchronizing within dance and people who have been found to be synchronous in movement and physiology, afterward show more empathy towards each other, and they like each other more. And when they're asked to do a task, then they are more creative, and more efficient in solving that task together than people who've maybe also been together in a room but moving asynchronously or not moving together at all.
So there's something about this flowy synchronousness in nature and us as part of that nature that has been efficient, for example, for the social connectedness of beings. So if I feel more connected to you, I will be more willing to do something for you to collaborate with you and funny enough, we seem to be more coordinated and also solving problems.
So, there are loads of advantages on the social side of being in synchrony and how that relates to flow. I guess that is a broad question because it depends a bit on how we. It might define the flow. So now I'm a scientist today. I was not always a scientist. I used to be a dancer, so I definitely am speaking to you with my two hats. As a scientist, I will always have to define phenomena in a way that I could test them with an experiment. We would distinguish between the state of flow, this feeling of being completely absorbed into an activity so that time and space disappear, somehow compress, or expand.
We do it for our intrinsic motivation, and we feel that skill and our depth, the challenge of what we're doing, are in perfect harmony. So it's neither too difficult nor too easy. and we have a clear goal in what we're doing. We know what we want to achieve. There's no competitiveness. We're just doing it because of the pleasure of doing it. That is a state that has been studied extensively by a Hungarian scientist for decades, Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who coined the term flow. And that really his work took this to the stage of empirical scientific research, so to speak.
The state of being in flow and seeking out that state, sort of disappearing from the here and now... it must have been something that has been part of human cultures for many millennia. We know that, for example, dancing can bring you into these states. And we know from many anthropological works that people dance themselves into trance, a type of flow. So, there is that flow in this scientific sense of a state of well-being. And we will speak about what that does to our brain and our broader wellbeing, but also the flow in what cues enter into our senses. So that would be a scientific field that looks at brain synchrony, physiology synchrony, these waves that we see that sort of connect with us.
And we then have incredible social benefits. And it seems that humans who did that to themselves often might have had a competitive advantage over maybe other species that did not. unite synchronously and did not have these advantages from doing that. So we should all synchronize.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
I wonder how you feel living in cities affects our natural flow and sense of connection to ourselves. You know, these man-made environments with too much cement and great infrastructure with not enough green spaces can disconnect us from the Earth and our own creative expression. So, how can we make our outer worlds better reflect our inner needs for calm and connection and design those spaces and communities that foster our creative flow?
CHRISTENSEN
You are touching on incredibly important points. Actually, one of the seven important points regarding how we can live a life that is conducive to flow and point one is this connection with our body and our physicality. Our body needs around 150 to 180 minutes of aerobic exercise per week. So aerobic means that the heartbeat goes over 140 beats per minute. This number is due to research that shows that if we don't have it, the risks we have of developing heart disease, diabetes type two, some cancers, and some infectious diseases increase statistically significantly if we do not have movement in our, like, body movement in our daily life. So 150 to 180 minutes of moderate exercise per week is nonnegotiable. Why? For a still mind, you're asking me what is important for a still mind. Why? If we take such behavior like sitting, which a lot of us do in our modern urban spaces. Most of us adults in Western world sit around 9 to 10 hours per day. This increases heart disease risk by 34%, and it is a health hazard.
This brain-body connection is incredibly important to understand. We don't have one brain for art and one brain for all other life; it's all one. Through the behaviors that we enact, whether good or bad for health, it's all one. We have a say in how our brain activates. One final thing you said about natural spaces: impressive work on the neuroscience of human-nature interaction has shown that when we are among trees, among birds, in nature, there is a biophilic effect. Our body and brain like it, and it manifests in a specific activation pattern in the brain—alpha band activity—and it is a restorative activation pattern. When we are in nature, something in evolution does that when we're there, our brain resets. Restoration means we get rid of toxins; it means that our brain gets this default mode network activation that is so good for resetting us, taking us out of the here and now. If we are in urban landscapes, even if they are very beautiful to look at—architecture, I love it, and we must look at it, and it is awe-inspiring—we do need to make sure to be in nature regularly because otherwise, our body cannot relax.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Why is reconnecting with flow important in today's world, which often values outcome over process?
CHRISTENSEN
As children, we naturally embody this state, but we unlearn it because it is no longer part of our culture to encourage play... The science shows if you do this often, you will be healthier.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
How does engaging in creative activities impact our mental and physical health?
CHRISTENSEN
Intervention studies show creative writing can be conducive to better health. People who write expressively, just 20 minutes, twice a week, for a period of time have better health indices. It’s important to give people back this joy of playing, focusing on the pleasure of whatever you have in your hand.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
Can educational practices support creativity and flow in students?
CHRISTENSEN
The way we encourage play and creativity, it's about focusing on the process and the joy of creation, rather than the outcome. Encouraging these practices maintains both creativity and wellbeing.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
How can people find moments of flow in their busy lives?
CHRISTENSEN
We don't have time to submerge ourselves for hours every day, but we might need flow every day. It’s about understanding our mind hooks... and finding five minutes to create a habit in our brain.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
What are your reflections on how AI is changing creativity and the way we communicate with each other?
CHRISTENSEN
So, syncopation is now the big thing. It will induce people to groove and to like your music more. So let's have a lot of syncopation inside your music and you'll sell a lot. By chasing superficial beauty, which is what AI gives us at the moment, it aims for perfect outcomes. Not that anything these models produce is perfect, because how do you evaluate perfection? But they are based on the data that most people want to see again. That's extremely important to bear in mind. When you say 'cluttered mind,' it's actually also a cluttered brain in terms of the neurotransmitters out and about. As we strive for that perfect coding and external beauty, our brain releases dopamine signals. Dopamine is good; it's a learning signal to the brain, but we need to know how to use it. Constantly swiping our phone and getting this beauty into our brain via our eyes or via the syncopations in the music teaches our mind to seek that all the time because that's a dopamine signal. It's a learning signal. So, striving after these shapes and sound cues repeatedly clutters your brain. That's why your mind is full.
THE CREATIVE PROCESS
What excites you about future collaborations between arts and sciences?
CHRISTENSEN
Opening up to work with non-Western and Western artists and scientists across divides is very rewarding. You discover stuff about yourself and about others. We become this oneness when we synchronize physiological rhythms and ideas.
