Stop Allowing Stress to Steal your Flow

The path of the modern creator requires states of flow and being able to do deep work.

Think about it.

If you are not able to produce and synthesize your own knowledge, blending it with the unique magic of your experience, passion and curiosities, then there’s a big risk of being replaced in the next few years by artificial intelligence.

Let me introduce you to or refresh your memory of the Csikszentmihalyi’s flow channel.

Flow occurs at the peak of our capacity.

The edge of our nervous system, where our capabilities tightly meet the demands of the challenge at hand.

You can also think of it as the edge of our nervous system.

The ridge between the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches.

The rider's ability to ride the ridge is reflected in our HrV.

The better our HrV is, the more challenging tasks we can take on, and for longer.

HrV is directly correlated with how much-perceived stress our nervous system is under.

And I say perceived because we’re all built and adjusted differently.

All of our stressors are processed by the autonomic nervous system.

As these stressors pile up, that’s when our ability for performance and flow decreases, and that’s precisely when our body signals that it has taken on more than it can chew.

Consequently, it needs time and space to chew it.

For simplicity, we can visualise this at three levels: green, yellow and red.

Red indicates a tired and fatigued nervous system with little capacity for flow and deep thought, yellow is a definite warning sign, and green is a healthy nervous system that is resilient to stress.

Most people are in the yellow and beyond.

It is accompanied by fatigue, fleeting focus, and poor emotional resilience, which are the entryways to more symptoms.

So coming back to the initial point.

The path of the creator requires deep states of flow, concentration, and vital energy.

We are setting the new standard of the creator economy by proposing an alternative to the status quo of living and work.

We synthesize our knowledge and experience to improve people’s lives, and we are an example of a happy, harmonious existence.

The thing is that someone starting out has to encounter a mountain of little energy thieves, stealing away from their potential.

They are little (or big) annoyances to the nervous system that pile up and decrease our potential for flow.

Leading to longer-term, more severe health consequences.

So allow me to repeat, all stressors are funneled into and processed by the nervous system.

So it doesn’t matter what the origin is, which could be in the form of:

• Psychic

• Nutritional

• Chemical

• Thermal

• Electromagnetic or

• Physical stress

They will all be perceived by the body as a lack of safety, thus increasing the feeling of anxiety and stealing potential that could have been otherwise devoted to a more challenging and fulfilling task or activity and thus a more fulfilling life.

This is the case for biological optimisation as a prerequisite for the creative path.

While everyone is under constant psychic, chemical and electromagnetic “attack,” there are definite actions that need to be taken.

There is an antidote to fatigue, anxiety, a fried dopamine system and many more hindrances stopping people from turning into their potential and benefiting multitudes of others in the process.

The antidote is biological optimisation, sovereignty and discernment.

Which is not necessarily found in biohacking and the quick-fix trends that most people seek to avoid doing the work.

But in coming back to the first principles of health that allow for a healthy, happy and flow-full life.

And I hope you get this as early as possible.

-Aris