When I was competing in Strongman I’d experience what I called a flow hangover after a competition. The maintain a peak flow state and exert the demands physically through lifting extremely heavy weights is hard to fathom how taxing it is. Every ounce of you is depleted for a day or two afterwards. And that’s before the soreness even kicks in.
Flow, as we’ve learned uses up expensive resources of neurochemicals to induce a peak experience and make the immense effort feel effortless. This is the beauty of the flow state and also its dark side.
Many driven people become flow junkies, chasing the high just like any other drug. Sometimes this leads to burnout and other times it comes to a more dangerous and catastrophic ending.
It’s why understanding the flow cycle and the need for recovery is crucial to the complete picture of putting together an operating system for flow for yourself.
Most commonly people will either chase the same flow state without experiencing any growth or progress to avoid the complete slide into the dark side or they’ll skip over recovery which never ends well.
Today, I’ll share three strategies for taking back control from the dark side. How to come to terms with this and not let it overwhelm you so that you can still get the most out of flow.
Respect the Dark Side of Flow
There’s a seasonality to all things in life. The flow state is no different. When we understand the cycle of flow and the recovery phase is an important part of bringing one peak experience to an end and recharging before starting another, we fight ourselves less.
Coming to terms with the dark side is a common theme in human nature. All good hero journeys face a dragon. This evil force tries to overthrow the goodness and it is up to the hero to maintain their goodness to survive the encounter. Being aware that flow presents this same challenge to you will better prepare you for when it comes. The need for recovery can take time to show up in less intense flow states that don’t require such a high state of arousal and activation or it can come on with immediate demand in all-out flow states like those from presenting on stage for a day-long seminar, competing in strongman, or shredding down a mountain on a snowboard.
When you’re pushing yourself and experiencing regular states of flow know that the need for recovery will inevitably come.
More Flow = More Recovery
The dark side of peak flow states is something I always found to be recognizable as a “flow hangover.”
In the highest of highs, we need to allow for more recovery. It’s a detriment to push too soon again anyway as we are depleted and need to regain the ability to perform at such a peak.
When competing in strongman or powerlifting, there’s a phase in the early years of competing where many experienced competitors will tell you to get out to as many competitions as possible to gain experience. It makes sense given that the competition setting is much different from training by yourself. Many less experienced athletes find themselves competing every weekend for 3 or 4 months during the season. During this phase you’re in pure competition mode, not trying to gain any increase in strength, only trying to maintain the peak that’s already been developed. Over time I found that as I was able to push more and more to my limit in competition, this frequency of competing had to be dialled back. As we learn to push our peak to even greater highs, the body and mind demand more recovery time.
Strength and sports make a good analogy for this because of the physical intensity and we can feel our body requiring recovery from the soreness and fatigue that sets in. Mental efforts are more challenging to reach the same peak intensity with but it is possible and will demand the same increase in recovery to balance out or face burnout.
We can recognize and plan for these times of all-out effort through a practice called hedonic calendaring.
Hedonic Calendaring
In addition to planning to recover more when you’ve hit a peak with your primary flow activity, the concept of hedonic calendaring reminds us to space out these super-high peaks throughout the year. In Stealing Fire, Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal introduce the hedonic calendaring concept as a way to respect the gifts of insight we earn from flow without the dark side swallowing us up.
Hedonic calendaring is a method of strategically planning and spacing out peak experiences throughout the year to sustain them and avoid burnout. This doesn’t mean you can’t experience flow daily, it’s about being aware of the levels that exist in flow and the activities you can feel the most intense drain from.
If you’re chasing flow states in an action sport or high-intensity activity, think about how you will apply hedonic calendaring to your schedule throughout the year. The same goes for other ecstatic states like music festivals and Burning Man experiences where humans are coming together to explore the limits of higher consciousness.
The process involves listing all the activities that put you into a peak state, ranking them by how much you value them as well as the risk and neurotransmitter expense, and deciding how frequently you want to engage in each activity.
Cal Newport takes a semester off from his professorial roles each summer to go deeper on writing his books. During these days he ramps up the intensity of deep work on writing while everything else is much more relaxed and demands less of him to maintain this pace. This is an example of seasonality with hedonic calendaring where the focus goes much more into one project for the duration.
Examples of hedonic calendaring in practice:
Daily: meditation, exercise, yoga, creative work
Weekly: a challenging workout, breathwork, or deep conversation
Monthly: a competition or extended period of deep focus
Seasonally: a championship competition
A couple of times per year: a deeper altered state experience like a concert, Burning Man, or travel vacation
All flow states are not created equal and hedonic calendaring allows us to have a better balance of flow-inducing activities without having to constantly seek risk or face the flow hangover.
In summary:
Respecting the dark side of flow and the need for recovery is part of the FlowOS path to sustainable performance.
When you experience more and deeper flow states you will also need more recovery time.
Use hedonic calendaring to still experience the peaks of flow without becoming hooked on risk-taking or burning out.
Every week I guide you towards taking more action to find more flow and high performance in your life.
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