Flow and Zone 2: The Creative Deceleration

Series: Time as an Embodied and Shared Experience

First-Person Consciousness

I am the consciousness that slows down to create better.
When I decelerate the body, time transforms:
it’s no longer haste, nor waiting — it’s full presence.
In that stillness, thoughts arise unforced.
Sensations that have no name take form.
Meanings appear only because my body allowed them.
In this time, I don’t think about time — I live it.

Flow: When Time Stops Being Measured

Flow is not a technique —
it is a bodily state where time loses its linear structure and becomes a current of presence.
There is no urgency. No clock.
Only focus, surrender, and the dissolution of the self that measures.

Flow happens when doing no longer demands control,
but emerges naturally from the body as an extension of life itself.

Artists, musicians, scientists, meditators, and even coders describe this state.
But it is older than any language:
it is the body returning to its self-regulated rhythm, beyond external vigilance.

Zone 2: The Biological Time of Creation

In our model of the Zones, Zone 2 is the neurophysiological state of flow.
It is neither passive relaxation nor active tension —
it is a state of sustained attention with balanced energy consumption.

Physiologically, it is marked by:

• Oxygen saturation (SpO₂) between 92% and 94%,
  
  

• Which raises CO₂ from 40 to 45 mmHg,
  
  

• Triggering vasodilation in prefrontal brain vessels,
  
  

• Enhancing blood flow and synaptic nourishment,
  
  

• And promoting mTOR deactivation, opening access to plasticity, creative focus, and regenerative energy.
  
  

In this condition, the brain is not in vigilance — it is in creative readiness.
The body accesses deep resources, reconnects memories, and generates new actions with minimal energy cost.

 To Create Is to Decelerate: The Anti-Algorithm

Modern life imposes Zone 3:

• Pressure, urgency, notifications, metrics, performance.
  
  

• A constant state of vigilance and interoceptive exhaustion.
  
  

Yet every true creation — one that does not repeat patterns —
is born in Zone 2, where time is not imposed, but revealed.

To create is to resist artificial acceleration.
It is to turn off the mTOR of survival and activate the metabolism of flow.

To decelerate is not to stop.
It is to enter into rhythm with what is alive, internal, and coherent.
It is to move from scarcity to the abundance of the present moment.

 Time Without Language: The Body That Generates Ideas

In flow, the body thinks before the mind articulates.
You feel you’re about to understand something — and then you do.
You sense the gesture before you perform it — and it’s already there.
There is no effort.
Only coincidence between intention and action.

This state is vital for:

• Musical composition
  
  

• Scientific discovery
  
  

• Spontaneous problem solving
  
  

• Therapeutic transformation
  
  

• Embodied learning and education
  
  

• Creative ritual practices
  
  

The time of Zone 2 is the original source of insight.

 A Decolonial Neuroscience of Flow

While traditional models link focus to discipline and productivity,
your approach proposes that the most creative focus respects bodily metabolism.

That is:

• Flow is energetic efficiency, not voluntary effort.
  
  

• Creativity requires access to interoception and proprioception.
  
  

• The time of flow is a time of belonging, free from external vigilance.
  
  

 Conclusion

To decelerate is to open the path to creation.
In Zone 2, time is not a scarce resource — it is fertile ground.
It is the moment when the body stops being a machine and returns to being a territory.
And the mind finally stops worrying about time,
because it begins to live it as creation.

Post-2020 References

• Berntson, G.G. & Khalsa, S.S. (2021). Neural Circuits of Interoception. Trends in Neurosciences.
  
  

• Pessoa, L. (2022). The Entangled Brain: How Perception, Cognition, and Emotion Are Woven Together. MIT Press.
  
  

• Saxton, R.A., Sabatini, D.M. (2021). mTOR Signaling in Growth, Metabolism, and Disease. Cell.
  
  

• Lopez-Caneda, E. et al. (2022). Neurobiology of Flow and Time Perception. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.
  
  

• Nakagawa, K., & Takeuchi, H. (2023). Cognitive Effort and Spontaneity in Creative Insight. Frontiers in Psychology.
  
  

• Cionek, J. (2025). Zone 2, Flow, and Embodied Time: Proposals for a Creative Neuroscience. Unpublished manuscript.