Flow
The concept of flow can be defines a “highly focused mental state associated with happiness, a send of being carried along by and completely absorbed in what you are doing” (Gross, 2018). There is an idea of “time passing without you being aware of it” (Gross, 2018).
The original behind the idea for flow was derived from observations of how artists created paintings and noticed that the painters were not driven by the idea of the completed artwork, but rather the process of painting the artwork itself. The happiness painters experienced stemmed from the activity of painting and expressing their identity through art, while doing something that they were good at (the concept of self-efficacy). Psychologically, people experience flow “for its own sake”, a form of intrinsic motivation and reward.
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The description of painters experiencing flow in the process of painting an artwork strongly resonates with many gardeners’ experience with flow during the process of gardening: “I don’t think of anything else at all, you just concentrate on what you’re doing and it’s a totally different world” (Gross, 2018). They are both very much related to ideas of personal identity and artistic/creative expression, which can be done both in an art studio, or in the garden. With the painting study, painters were so absorbed in their work that they would sometimes even forget to eat or sleep: the process could even be considered to have “taken them over.” The perception of time was “immaterial” or meaningless, so psychologically, they had completely distances themselves from other aspects of their lives, similar to the idea of “being away” in Attention Restoration Theory.
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In order for flow to occur, the activity must a a clear goal that is attainable and consistent with the individual’s personal skills and capabilities. The task has to be at a level of difficulty where it is challenging enough for it not to be boring, but also not too hard that the person would give up on it. These ideas are very similar to those of “extent” and “compatibility” in Attention Restoration Theory, and very evidence in the process of gardening.
Many other aspects of flow coincide with gardeners’ descriptions of their experiences in the garden, including concentration and focusing attention, as well as a “loss of self-consciousness and a merging of action and awareness” (Gross, 2018). This is the idea of a growing sense of control within the activity and a warped perception of time.
Flow is often used in the real-world to explain people’s enjoyment of different activities, such as playing instruments or sports. Flow can occur in a variety of tasks, from work to sport, and even to video games. The process of how exactly people achieve flow is not entirely clear, but the main method seems to be that people behin engaging in the actions required by the task, focus their attention on the activity itself and ignore outside distractions. In doing so, people often get sucked into the actions of the task and become completely asbored in the process, hence achieveing flow.
Flow is also one of the only psychological theories that explicitly mentions pleasure, which is why it can also be used to explain the popularity of activities like gardening. Unlike other psychological theories and experiences related to gardening that restore other functions in order to improve mental and emotional well-being, the experience of flow is enjoyable in itself. The idea of happiness is valuable to restoration as they are key motivators for partaking in an activity. The idea of restoration implies a previous feeling of mental fatigue or emotional depletion/ overload. As restoration “requires an interaction between place and person,” gardening is a great example of achieving flow in an activity that is restorative and pleasurable (Gross, 2018).
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References:
Gross, H. (2018). The psychology of gardening. Routledge.