走进巅峰工作状态背后的科学

    有没有体验过这样一种感觉：当你正在从事或启动一个项目时，时间开始飞逝，杂念迅速消融，你觉得你正处于巅峰状态？

    这是一个真正的生物学进程，为数众多且数量还在增长的研究机构正在设法搞清楚这种状态的形成机理。

    这个概念被称为“心流”(flow)，一个由心理学家米哈里•米哈伊普在上世纪90年代普及开来的术语。（据说美国前总统比尔•克林顿是他的粉丝。）在一本名为《超人的崛起：解读人类终极效能的科学》(The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance)的新书中，记者史蒂芬•科特勒透过极限和冒险运动的视角为我们呈现了心流领域的最新研究成果。科特勒主要探讨从事高风险运动时的心流活动——比如冲浪，你究竟是一飞冲天还是跌入水中，关键取决于你能否保持专注度和注意力——但这个概念也有可能对商业世界产生重大影响。近日接受《财富》杂志(Fortune)专访时，科特勒畅谈了心流背后的科学，它推动职场生产力的潜力，以及如何让你进入巅峰状态等问题。

    下面是这次采访的摘要：

    《财富》：你为什么要研究心流？

    史蒂芬•科特勒：30岁时，我得了一场重病，卧床3年。医生们不知道我究竟是哪里出了问题。正是冲浪和心流状态让我恢复了健康。

    我原以为我精神错乱了，因为我在冲浪时不停地产生这些准神秘色彩的体验。我是一位科普作家，以前从来没有过这种感受。开始的时候，我一直在想，我到底是怎么回事啊？我后来才知道，心流过程产生的神经化学物质可以促进免疫系统，重置神经系统。这就是它为什么有助于形成一种自身免疫性状态，也是让我产生超凡脱俗之感的原因所在。

    前后的差异令人惊叹。我开始意识到，帮助我将身体机能正常运作的时间比重从10%（真正的次优级别）提升至80%（这是6个月的冲浪，频繁体验心流状态的成果）的事物，也能够把一个正常人的身体机能提升到越来越高的水平。

    你能给心流下个定义吗？

    心流是意识的一种最佳状态。在这种状态下，我们的感受和表现都处于峰值。你需要了解下面这些知识：像任何情绪一样，心流是一连串体验。要形成心流，需要10个条件，其中包括专注，自我意识消失，时间的扩张，或者当一切都减慢或加速的时候。你可以处在“微流”状态（在这种状态下，你只具备这些条件中的少数几个），或者你可以处于“宏流”状态。

    当我们说某人在工作时进入心流状态，他或她通常进入的是微流状态。如果你不知不觉地跟某人非常尽兴地谈了一下午，或者心无旁骛地从事一个工作项目，仿佛其他一切都消失了，那就是心流。你的感受从那里提升至这些带有准神秘色彩的体验。

    Know that sensation when you're working out or cranking on a project, and time starts to pass quickly, distractions melt away, and you feel like you're in the zone?

    It's a real biological process, with a large and growing body of research dedicated to figuring it out what makes it work.

    The concept is called flow, a term popularized in the 1990s by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. (Bill Clinton is reportedly a fan.) In a new book called The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance, journalist Steven Kotler takes on the latest research on flow through the lens of action and adventure athletics. Kotler writes primarily about flow in high-stakes sports like surfing -- where focus and concentration can be the difference between a tubular ride and a watery death -- but the concept could also have big implications for the business world. Kotler spoke to Fortune about the science behind flow, its potential to boost workplace productivity, and how to get yourself in the zone.

    Edited excerpts of the conversation follow.

    Fortune: Why study flow?

    Steven Kotler: When I was 30 years old I got very, very sick. I spent three years in bed. The doctors didn't know what was wrong with me. It was surfing and flow states that brought me back to health.

    I thought I was losing my mind because I kept having these quasi-mystical experiences out in the waves, and I was a science writer, and I don't have quasi-mystical experiences. In the beginning I thought, What the hell is going on with me? What I learned later is that the neurochemical experiences produced during flow all boost the immune system and reset the nervous system, which is why it helped with an autoimmune condition, and which explained my otherworldly sensations.

    The difference was amazing. And I started to realize that the same thing that took me from really sub-optimal -- I was functional for like 10% of the time -- to 80% functional after six months of surfing in frequent flow states, is something that could take somebody who's at normal to higher and higher levels.

    Can you define flow?

    Flow is an optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best. Here's what you need to know: Flow is a spectrum of experience, like any emotion. There are 10 conditions that describe flow psychology, and they include concentration, the loss of self, and the dilation of time -- or when everything slows down or speeds up. You can be in "micro-flow," where there's only a couple of those things, or you can be in "macro-flow."

    When we talk about people at work getting into flow, they're usually getting into micro-flow. If you've ever lost an afternoon to a great conversation, or gotten so sucked into a work project when everything else goes away, that's flow. The experience goes from there up to these sort of quasi-mystical experiences.