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When you pick up a pencil and start drawing, or let your fingers dance across the guitar strings, do you feel at one with your body and mind? While some people call this sense of immersion ‘being in the zone’, in the world of psychology, it’s commonly referred to as the flow state.
Regardless of whether you find your flow through gardening, swimming or baking, we all have a special hobby that helps us feel a euphoric rush, a sense of clarity and maybe even a little bit of peace.
This lift in mood is what makes flow state (and the hobbies that spark it) so beneficial to our sense of wellbeing. That lovely uplifting feeling is all made possible by a wonderful cocktail of neurochemicals in your brain that sharpens your senses, stabilises your mood, and keeps you coming back for more. But what are these magical neurochemicals?
Your recipe for a Flow State Cocktail
Step 1 - A splash of norepinephrine for focus
This is the key ingredient you need if you’re lacking motivation and interest. In 2026, researchers highlighted how important norepinephrine is for keeping your brain engaged and allowing you to enter your flow state. This handy neurotransmitter doesn’t stop there though! It even tunes out distractions, allowing you to fully concentrate on your hobby.
Without norepinephrine, you would struggle to be absorbed in whatever it is you love to do. It allows you to feel a sort of tunnel vision, helping you to climb that hill or paint that picture without being tempted to pick up your phone or switch on the TV.
Step 2 - A drop of dopamine for passion
You’ve all heard of this one before — dopamine! While this feel-good chemical is at the centre of all positive emotions, it isn’t actually the cause of happy feelings, rather, it helps to reinforce them through reward. Research suggests that this reward system is important in achieving your flow state as it creates an incentive for you to keep at your hobby. When you do something you enjoy, like your morning yoga or getting crafty with mosaic, dopamine is released. This then causes your brain to push you towards that activity again and again so you can experience that warm and joyful feeling.
Dopamine can even help with problem-solving skills as it fine-tunes your brain for pattern recognition. This strengthens your capabilities, helping you to become better at your hobby. Whether that’s figuring out your next chess move or coming up with a new crochet project, dopamine can give you a little boost.
Step 3 - A sprinkle of endorphins for bliss
The phrase “flow state” is a great name as you feel just that: flowy. Your movements, decisions and thoughts perfectly cascade from one to the other. Part of this is related to the final ingredient in the Flow State cocktail: endorphins. This neurochemical reduces pain signals, helping you to release tension or stress in your body. That’s why a potter may feel that they can keep throwing on the pottery wheel even when their wrist is weak, or how a dancer might forget about their sore ankle when they’re on the stage.
But that’s not all! Endorphins not only help you manage pain, they also promote feelings of pleasure. In 2018, researchers noted that high concentrations of endorphins produced a sense of bliss and happiness, while low concentrations resulted in stress and feeling troubled. No wonder endorphins are so vital when it comes to the flow state cocktail!
Step 4 - Shake and enjoy
While all these ingredients are amazing alone, they need to work together in the right ratios to get you into that coveted flow state zone. For a real cocktail, you would need a good cobbler shaker and a spoon to get all those yummy ingredients mixed together. To enter the flow state, all you need is your creative spark! And this is why it’s so important to indulge in your hobbies. They stimulate your brain, flooding it with neurochemicals that make your worries disappear, allowing you to live in the moment.
Whatever you love to do – from wood carving and creative writing to painting and sewing – there is a flow state to be found wherever you go.
