How to Reach the Flow State in Gaming

The state of flow can be a truly life-changing experience. Not only is it lots of fun at the moment (in fact, it seems to be the only thing that matters at the moment), but it’s also a key to maximizing performance and improving your skills. 

While many of us have sometimes unintentionally slipped into the flow state while doing something fun, like gaming, it’s possible to consciously make flow more likely to happen.

If you want to get into the flow state more often while gaming, you’re in luck! Gaming has a lot of built-in flow triggers that make it easy to disappear, but there are also a few actions you can take to make you get into flow easier, faster, and deeper. Here’s what any serious gamer needs to know about reaching the flow state while gaming.

The Known Flow Triggers

Flow feels effortless. That may be why many people assume that flow is something that just happens, but that’s far from the truth. On the contrary, there are pre-conditions you can purposely create that make it more likely – and, eventually, inevitable – that you’ll slip into flow.

There are a total of 22 of them that have been discovered so far, and many can be applied to gaming. Let’s take a look.

Internal triggers

Let’s start off by looking at internal triggers, meaning they are intrinsic conditions rather than external ones. The internal flow triggers are the following:

1. Clear Goals. One of the most important flow triggers is having clear goals, meaning you need to have a clear understanding of what you're trying to accomplish.
2. Immediate Feedback. To get deep into a state of flow, you need to receive feedback that allows you to evaluate your performance and course-correct in real time.
3. Balanced Difficulty Level. One well-known flow factor is that the difficulty of the task should just about exceed your ability, meaning it will slightly strain you without paralyzing you. Too low difficulty, and you’ll get bored and lose focus.
4. Focus. Intense concentration is both a requirement for and a consequence of the flow state. This means that nothing around you should be distracting, letting you fully concentrate on the task at hand.
5. Internal Motivation. Passion, purpose, or curiosity – that is, a personal interest – is another flow trigger. This means your goal shouldn’t be extrinsic alone, and the activity should be rewarding in and of itself.
6. Control. You need the autonomy to be able to completely control how you do things in order to really get into the flow state.

External Triggers

While internal triggers may be the most important factor for triggering flow, we can also increase its likelihood by optimizing the circumstances around us.

The external triggers for flow are:

• Physical, social, or emotional risk. An element of risk – no matter what kind – can increase our ability to concentrate and get truly invested in a task, which also increases flow. This is one of the reasons why it’s so easy to get into a flow state when playing games where something is at risk, such as top slots at crypto casinos in Australia, which often come with free spins and other bonuses.
• Novelty. Our brains are wired to pay attention to anything that’s novel, and by incorporating novelty into our activity, we effortlessly increase our focus.
• Complexity. An activity needs a certain level of complexity in order for the brain to truly pay attention and not start mindwandering.
• Unpredictability. Just like novelty, the brain is attracted to that which it can’t predict. Something unpredictable could be important, so the brain pays attention.
• Embodiment. True embodiment means you forget your sense of awareness because you’re so deep into the activity at hand – one of the signature signs of the flow state.

The Creative Trigger

In the category of creativity, there’s just one trigger that’s been discovered so far. It’s the trigger or pattern recognition, or creativity. It’s about making novel connections, like what happens when you’re learning something new, gaining a new perspective, or coming up with unique ideas.

Group Flow Triggers

While there are also triggers for group flows, we’ll skip these for now. After all, you likely won’t be holding a workshop with your friends, so it’s best to focus on just the state that you can control. But if you’re curious, you can read about all 22 flow triggers here.

3 Ways to Apply It to Gaming

As mentioned in the introduction, gaming is in many ways perfect for flow. The novelty, unpredictability, and increasing difficulty level are all elements that increase the chances of moving into flow.

You might have already come up with a few tricks of your own while reading about the flow triggers, but here are three tips you can try right away:

1. Make Sure Your Skills Match The Challenge

Don’t play on a level that’s too difficult for you, but don’t make things too easy for yourself either. While games often make it easy to find the sweet spot, you might sometimes need to put in some extra effort to increase difficulty through personal challenges or goals.

2. Get Rid of Any Interruptions

You can’t disappear into flow if you’re distracted and constantly being pulled back into the now. By turning off your phone, hitting full screen mode, and making sure people know you’re unavailable for the next few hours, you’ll greatly increase your chances of your brain fully engaging with the game in front of you.

3. Risk Something

One element video games often lack is risk. By adding a risk – maybe a social one by gaming with friends, or a financial one by paying to take part in a tournament – you can make it easier for yourself to enter flow without much effort from your side.

Conclusion

Reaching flow as often as possible is really a win-win situation. You’ll both have more fun and get better results! Intentionally learning to enter the flow state is a valuable skill to have in life, and after applying it to gaming, you can also learn to use it in professional parts of your life. Whether work or play, the flow state improves your experience and makes doing your thing truly effortless.

Now that you know how to purposefully increase your chances of getting into flow, try it out! Many adjustments you might want to make are individual, so make sure you understand the triggers and then apply them in the way that makes sense for you.