The Flow State Formula—ancient wisdom meets modern work

Welcome to Stretch—I’m Charlotte, a certified breathwork facilitator and online writer. My goal is to inspire you to be curious about your body and how you can use it to be more focused, motivated and energized.

⏪ Last time was all about the neurochemical power of short and moderate runs. It’s not just endorphins that create that famous brain-buzzing runner’s high. There’s another natural “cannabis-like” compound at play…

⏩ Today, I’m talking about how we can use Tai Chi martial arts wisdom to transform our modern workday. The four key skills to cultivate: focused mind, body sensing, breathing and releasing all resistance.

I've been obsessed with this book ChiRunning, a running philosophy inspired by the ancient Chinese martial art form Tai Chi.

ChiRunning is all about turning running into a form of meditation—being present, embodied and relaxed while moving. This has completely changed my approach to running in ways that go beyond the realms of farther or faster.

The book shares four important Tai Chi-based skills to develop. As I've been practicing these skills while out running (10 days until my first marathon, ahhh!), I’ve realised they apply to pretty much everything I do, including work. Whenever I’m able to:

• Focus my mind,

• Listen to my body,

• Control my breathing,

• Drop all resistance,

I feel satisfied and content by the time I close my laptop—no matter what happened that day.

Let’s take a quick look at how each of these ancient skills can unlock new ways to work and focus:

Skill 1 - Focusing Your Mind 

This is all about turning off the chatter and focusing on whatever's right in front of you.

• Pick a clearly defined task

• Remove all distractions

• Set a timer

• Don't do anything else but that task until you're done.

Resist the urge to check emails, respond to messages or do a quick Google search. It's unfortunate but true: our brains can't multi-task. All we're doing is very rapid task-switching, interrupting our focus every time.

If you can do this in blocks of 90 minutes, interspersed with breaks, you'll be amazed by a) how much you can get done in a day and b) how much clearer your mind is.

The irony is that a focused mind is more relaxed than a mind that wanders aimlessly through the details and minutiae of the day. You either want to be deeply focused or deeply relaxed, and avoid the in-between as much as possible. 

Focusing your mind takes real effort and discipline but it is a skill we must all train if we want to do meaningful work. It’s been a priority for me personally, and I wrote more in a previous newsletter about my “focus toolkit”:

Skill 2 - Body Sensing: High Speed Access 

Body Sensing is the act of feeling what's going on with and inside your body.

The more scientific term for this is ‘Interoception’—the skill of sensing and accurately describing our inner body sensations. Some common interoceptive body signals are heart rate, breathing rate, muscle tension, temperature, tickling sensations, and so on.

Why should you care about this?

Well, there’s a constant flow of communication between our bodies and our brains, and it’s not just the brain calling the shots and the body doing its bidding.

Most people don’t know this, but there are 80% afferent nerves (from the body to the brain) versus 20% efferent nerves (from the brain to the body). So there’s A LOT of information coming from our body that influences the brain. And it’s important to learn how to tap into this stream of information, and actually listen to it.

When we're focused on our work, we tend to lose awareness of anything below-the-neck. Are your shoulders relaxed? Are you sitting up straight? Are you getting fatigued? Are you holding your breath? Are you thirsty?

Research suggests that the more sensitive you are to your body signals, the better you get at dealing with stress and other emotions.

So pay close attention to the subtle nuances of what your body is telling you. Drop your shoulders. Stand up regularly. Get some water. Take a few deep, slow breaths. Stretch your body. Do a couple of sit-ups or squats in-between calls.

Just like focus, interoceptive awareness is a skill you need to train. Practices like yoga and breathwork help with this. A fun exercise to start with is seeing if you can detect your heartbeat, which I wrote about here.

Skill 3: Breathing—Tapping Into Your Chi 

Yes, we breathe automatically and unconsciously, but there is a lot of power in becoming aware of your breathing.

Notice whether your breathing is slow, light, and deep. This calms your nervous system and improves oxygenation of all your cells and tissues (including your brain!)

There’s also a phenomenon called screen apnea where we unconsciously hold our breath as we’re working. This shift can be subtle, and it's not always for long, but it can be enough to disrupt our regular flow of oxygen and unwittingly kick our stress response into gear. 

Learn to pay attention to this and keep breathing, softly and deeply.

Oh, and related to Body Sensing: pay attention to your posture. Sit up straight. Hunching over essentially robs all the organs and muscles within your core of the space they need to perform. Breathing suffers, and when you can’t breathe properly, you perform at a suboptimal level across the board.

Skill 4 - The Path of Least Resistance 

When you start to pay attention, you’ll notice how much you’re bracing and holding tension.

It’s possible to learn how to shift this and move from bracing to relaxing. It’s not that there’s no effort—there’s just no unnecessary effort.

If I feel stressed, stretched thin, or overwhelmed, it's usually because I'm overcomplicating something or failing to take the simple/easy path because I feel I should be trying “harder”.

I’ve noticed that for me, this particularly shows up in moments of fatigue. Instead of listening to my body, I resist and I try to push through. But I’m learning to take the path of least resistance and lean into the dip.

Our bodies naturally go through states of high and low activation. These are called ultradian cycles.

Throughout the day, there are hours where I’m highly alert, focused, motivated and energised. And then there are hours where I am feeling fatigued, distracted, low, where I procrastinate and want to hide.

That’s totally normal, and the best thing I can do is just move between these states fluidly and smoothly, without any resistance. Move with my body (Body Sensing!), and allow all these states to happen.

Instead of resisting or being annoyed about the low moments, I take a break. I nap. I do an NSDR session. I go for a walk. I do some easy tasks that don’t require lots of brain power.

This path of least resistance also applies to strong emotions and stress. Don’t resist it. Observe it, acknowledge it, and move through it.

What else I’m up to…