The escape game is just fun for many. However, serious scientific theories also prove why you feel so good in the escape rooms. The concept is called flow experience.
As a matter of fact, the flow theory of a well-known Hungarian psychologist, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, also greatly contributed to the spread of escape rooms and the 2011 escape room boom in Budapest. According to the flow theory, one provides the best performance when the duties are so distracting that the outside world disappears. However, the flow experience not only improves performance, but we are also the happiest. According to Csíkszentmihályi, those who often have flow experience, their quality of life is also better.
Surely, you have come across the refreshing feeling in your life when a hobby is so engaging that you forget to notice that you are hungry and thirsty. You only pay attention to one thing for several hours. If you’re lucky enough, this has already happened during your work, and even if you’re even luckier, this condition is permanent.
Flow means such a state where you are completely immersed in what you are doing. This is when time and the outside world disappear and your needs are pushed into the background.
This is good because in this condition, people can perform outstandingly without effort. It's like a flow - hence the name of the theory -. This is when everyone is focused, efficient, and feels in control. Thus, almost like maniacs, the greatest scientists and artists work. Flow provides the driving force that sets them apart from the ranks of the average person.
The flow experience can be triggered by any kind of activity, as it does not depend on the content, but rather on the quality of the activity and the immersion in it. The key is to have a specific goal or vision in front of us. Or a dream we want to realize, as Martin Luther King said.
Sounds good, of course, but it is not that simple. Repeated to boredom, mechanical, monotonous work will not activate flow, not even the functioning of our brain. There is a price to be paid for the happiness provided by the flow experience, and that is to look for challenges that require serious efforts from you.
Mihály Csíkszentmihányi developed the flow theory when he was looking for the secret of happiness, using scientific methods. In his research, he conducted plenty of in-depth interviews with a lot of successful and happy people to find the point they had in common.
Csíkszentmihányi found that they feel best in their situation when they can immerse themselves with full devotion in the activity in which they feel best and approach the limits of their performance. Successful elite athletes, company executives, artists, scientists all agreed on this. What’s even more special is that, regardless of their area of operation, they all reported a completely similar experience.
The average person most often encounters tasks to be solved in their workplace, so they also have the best chance of enjoying the flow experience there. Unfortunately, this is by no means guaranteed. Most work easily becomes a routine task or a compulsion, which can be a burden rather than a source of happiness.
If this happens and, moreover, general play in childhood also disappears from our lives, the flow experience will also be missed. Between monotonous, repetitive tasks and duties, there is simply no area left where the flow can catch us.
Escape rooms offer a great opportunity to enjoy the flow experience because everything is given there so that players can focus exclusively on the very specific task ahead.
The escape rooms create an atmosphere and mood that helps players, to exclude all other thoughts and fully enjoy themselves in what they are doing. It is all the more appreciable because it is seldom given that someone can experience this captivating feeling in 60 minutes. Moreover, the escape room gives a bit more than that, because here we can have a flow experience together with our friends. We can surely say that it is worth trying the escape rooms, because it has now been scientifically proven that you will be happy in the escape rooms!