Neuroimaging study shows how being “in the zone” requires intensive practice first and then learning to surrender

Post­doc­tor­al researcher Yong­taek Oh plays gui­tar while his EEG is record­ed in Drex­el University’s Cre­ativ­i­ty Research Lab. John Kounios/Creativity Research Lab/Drexel Uni­ver­si­ty, CC BY-ND

Flow, or being “in the zone,” is a state of amped-up cre­ativ­i­ty, enhanced pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and bliss­ful con­scious­ness that, some psy­chol­o­gists believe, is also the secret to hap­pi­ness. It’s con­sid­ered the brain’s fast track to suc­cess in busi­ness, the arts or any oth­er field.

But in order to achieve flow, a per­son must first devel­op a strong foun­da­tion of exper­tise in their craft. That’s accord­ing to a new neu­roimag­ing study from Drex­el University’s Cre­ativ­i­ty Research Lab, which recruit­ed Philly-area jazz gui­tarists to bet­ter under­stand the key brain process­es that under­lie flow. Once exper­tise is attained, the study found, this knowl­edge must be unleashed and not over­thought in order for flow to be reached.

As a cog­ni­tive neu­ro­sci­en­tist who is senior author of this study, and a uni­ver­si­ty writ­ing instruc­tor, we are a hus­band-and-wife team who col­lab­o­rat­ed on a book about the sci­ence of cre­ative insight. We believe that this new neu­ro­science research reveals prac­ti­cal strate­gies for enhanc­ing, as well as elu­ci­dat­ing, inno­v­a­tive thinking.

Jazz musicians in flow

The con­cept of flow has fas­ci­nat­ed cre­ative peo­ple ever since pio­neer­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal sci­en­tist Mihá­ly Csík­szent­mi­há­lyi began inves­ti­gat­ing the phe­nom­e­non in the 1970s.

Yet, a half-cen­tu­ry of behav­ioral research has not answered many basic ques­tions about the brain mech­a­nisms asso­ci­at­ed with the feel­ing of effort­less atten­tion that exem­pli­fies flow.

The Drex­el exper­i­ment pit­ted two con­flict­ing the­o­ries of flow against each oth­er to see which bet­ter reflects what hap­pens in people’s brains when they gen­er­ate ideas. One the­o­ry pro­pos­es that flow is a state of inten­sive hyper­fo­cus on a task. The oth­er the­o­ry hypoth­e­sizes that flow involves relax­ing one’s focus or con­scious control.

The team recruit­ed 32 jazz gui­tarists from the Philadel­phia area. Their lev­el of expe­ri­ence ranged from novice to vet­er­an, as quan­ti­fied by the num­ber of pub­lic per­for­mances they had giv­en. The researchers placed elec­trode caps on their heads to record their EEG brain waves while they impro­vised to chord sequences and rhythms that were pro­vid­ed to them.

Jazz impro­vi­sa­tion is a favorite vehi­cle for cog­ni­tive psy­chol­o­gists and neu­ro­sci­en­tists who study cre­ativ­i­ty because it is a mea­sur­able real-world task that allows for diver­gent think­ing – the gen­er­a­tion of mul­ti­ple ideas over time.

The musi­cians them­selves rat­ed the degree of flow that they expe­ri­enced dur­ing each per­for­mance, and those record­ings were lat­er played for expert judges who rat­ed them for creativity.

Train intensively, then surrender

As jazz great Char­lie Park­er is said to have advised, “You’ve got to learn your instru­ment, then, you prac­tice, prac­tice, prac­tice. And then, when you final­ly get up there on the band­stand, for­get all that and just wail.”

This sen­ti­ment aligns with the Drex­el study find­ings. The per­for­mances that the musi­cians self-rat­ed as high in flow were also judged by the out­side experts as more cre­ative. Fur­ther­more, the most expe­ri­enced musi­cians rat­ed them­selves as being in flow more than the novices, sug­gest­ing that expe­ri­ence is a pre­con­di­tion for flow. Their brain activ­i­ty revealed why.

The musi­cians who were expe­ri­enc­ing flow while per­form­ing showed reduced activ­i­ty in parts of their frontal lobes known to be involved in exec­u­tive func­tion or cog­ni­tive con­trol. In oth­er words, flow was asso­ci­at­ed with relax­ing con­scious con­trol or super­vi­sion over oth­er parts of the brain.

And when the most expe­ri­enced musi­cians per­formed while in a state of flow, their brains showed greater activ­i­ty in areas known to be involved in hear­ing and vision, which makes sense giv­en that they were impro­vis­ing while read­ing the chord pro­gres­sions and lis­ten­ing to rhythms pro­vid­ed to them.

In con­trast, the least expe­ri­enced musi­cians showed very lit­tle flow-relat­ed brain activity.

Flow vs. nonflow creativity

We were sur­prised to learn that flow-state cre­ativ­i­ty is very dif­fer­ent from non­flow creativity.

Pre­vi­ous neu­roimag­ing stud­ies sug­gest­ed that ideas are usu­al­ly pro­duced by the default-mode net­work, a group of brain areas involved in intro­spec­tion, day­dream­ing and imag­in­ing the future. The default-mode net­work spews ideas like an unat­tend­ed gar­den hose spouts water, with­out direc­tion. The aim is pro­vid­ed by the exec­u­tive-con­trol net­work, resid­ing pri­mar­i­ly in the brain’s frontal lobe, which acts like a gar­den­er who points the hose to direct the water where it is needed.

Cre­ative flow is dif­fer­ent: no hose, no gar­den­er. The default-mode and exec­u­tive-con­trol net­works are tamped down so that they can­not inter­fere with the sep­a­rate brain net­work that high­ly expe­ri­enced peo­ple have built up for pro­duc­ing ideas in their field of expertise.

For exam­ple, knowl­edge­able but rel­a­tive­ly inex­pe­ri­enced com­put­er pro­gram­mers may have to rea­son their way through every line of code. Vet­er­an coders, how­ev­er, tap­ping their spe­cial­ized brain net­work for com­put­er pro­gram­ming, may just start writ­ing code flu­ent­ly with­out over­think­ing it until they com­plete – per­haps in one sit­ting – a first-draft program.

The take­away for musi­cians, writ­ers, design­ers, inven­tors and oth­er cre­atives who want to tap into flow is that train­ing should involve inten­sive prac­tice fol­lowed by learn­ing to step back and let one’s skill take over. Future research may devel­op pos­si­ble meth­ods for releas­ing con­trol once suf­fi­cient exper­tise has been achieved.

– John Kounios is a Pro­fes­sor of Psy­cho­log­i­cal and Brain Sci­ences at Drex­el Uni­ver­si­ty, and has pub­lished cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science research on insight, cre­ativ­i­ty, prob­lem solv­ing, mem­o­ry, aging, and Alzheimer’s Dis­ease. Yvette Kounios is an Adjunct Instruc­tor of Eng­lish and Pro­fes­sion­al Writ­ing at Widen­er Uni­ver­si­ty and a Philadel­phia Press Asso­ci­a­tion Award recip­i­ent. This arti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished on The Con­ver­sa­tion.