Fasting and Flow

Hey friend,

I hope you've been well! Happy New Year! 

The past week for me has been a little strange, to say the least!

I just finished a 7-day water fast, eating nothing more than a banana one time in a week. 

Really looking forward to getting some food back in me tomorrow, but it's funny, I've hardly even been hungry at all since about day 3 or 4.

I think I would do a 3-day fast a couple of times a year moving forward, it really is a nice reset on the gut microbiome and it's not easy psychologically so it's a nice little test of your willpower.

The other thing is I can’t believe how much stuff I have gotten done!

I finished 2 remixes, started this blog, took 3 online courses, filmed 2 weeks worth of short form content, and honestly so much more.

My latest single “Oh My Love”

My new single Oh My Love is the song I wrote during my online course that I released on Studio.com 

Documenting the entire process of this song from start-to-finish was a really cool experience!

I love that I can look back forever and see the exact moment when I came up with certain ideas in that song.

A lot of producers write their music from the drums, bass line, melody, etc and build up an entire instrumental song, then they will look for a vocalist to write and record some vocals over their song, or they will use a sampled vocal they found online where anyone else can as well. 

My favourite process of writing music is to have a finished a capella from a vocalist with all the vocal layers and effects there, and build an entire song around that vocal. 

This process always ends up with my best work and I had so much fun making a course on this exact subject!

That, however, is another story.

For now I would love if you could take a listen to the song I wrote that day, it's called Oh My Love! 

1 Cool Insight on Creativity and Psychology

The flow state is badass

I've been making a bunch of content lately on my socials about the flow state and how cool it is that we creatives have an outlet where we can just sit down and access this incredible state any time we wish.

When you really understand that it is being in a flow state that causes your worries to fade away, your sense of time disappears, and your work feels effortless, it means that getting into flow is your antidote.

In the book Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (say that 3 times fast 😂), I learned that the term flow state was one that he actually coined!

He is a psychologist who was interested in studying the positive sides of the mind, as he came up at a time when B.F. Skinner was showing how rats can be controlled and manipulated in various ways.

The sad truth is a lot of our technology today is designed with the ideas Skinner developed and this is why our phones and apps are so addictive. 

However Mihaly was unique and he wanted to study creativity, artists, musicians, and athletes and understand what was happening in their minds when they were performing at their peak.

What he found is what we now know as the flow state.

He not only says that we access it as artists or musicians, but also daily in our regular life.

When we have a job that can put us into a state of flow, we are luckier than we realize.

Being in flow, whether at work, at the gym, or in the studio, results in a feeling of satisfaction, our worries fall away, and we feel like what we are doing is meaningful. 

Meaning can be found in pursuing things you love that provide flow.

Seek out moments of flow and you will be happier! 

1 Cool Thing I Learned This Week

I was reading this book called The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben and it talks about how trees have very interconnected communities in the forest. They have families, children, and friends.

They share nutrients and help warn against pests using scents, and have even been recorded making noises barely perceptible to our ears.

The wisdom of nature is something that has always mesmerized me. 

There is so much about our world that we do not understand, so many processes happening around us all the time that we barely notice.

This information deepens how I look at the forests that I walk through all the time!

Book Recommendation

Why I love this book

I spoke about this book quite a bit already above so I am featuring it as my official recommendation this week.

This book goes deep into the psychology of flow states, creativity, and athletic performance, referencing many interesting stories and studies along the way.

It gives you a new appreciation for some of the things that we take for granted sometimes.

The book Flow is one of those books that forever changed my perspective on many things in my life!

Key Takeaways

Flow as a source of happiness

When we build our life around finding flow in all that we do, we live a much more happy, meaningful life

Flow can happen while you are at work

Having a job that you are good at often leads to being in flow, which makes your day fly by. These are some of our favourite days at work for a reason. 

Flow leads to loss of self-consciousness

When we are in flow, all of our worries fade away, time flies by, and we whip through our work. We become fully present, and more focused than in most areas of our lives. Flow is our hyper-focus. 

If you want to check out the book i'll leave a link below!

Flow - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

 Take care my friend,

- Niko

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