ikigai is the reason we get up in the morning.

“mens sana in corpore sano” (“a sound mind in a sound body”): It reminds us that both mind and body are important, and that the health of one is connected to that of the other. It has been shown that maintaining an active, adaptable mind is one of the key factors in staying young.

Presented with new information, the brain creates new connections and is revitalized. This is why it is so important to expose yourself to change, even if stepping outside your comfort zone means feeling a bit of anxiety.

Many people seem older than they are. Research into the causes of premature aging has shown that stress has a lot to do with it, because the body wears down much faster during periods of crisis. The American Institute of Stress investigated this degenerative process and concluded that most health problems are caused by stress.

Researchers at the Heidelberg University Hospital conducted a study in which they subjected a young doctor to a job interview, which they made even more stressful by forcing him to solve complex math problems for thirty minutes. Afterward, they took a blood sample. What they discovered was that his antibodies had reacted to stress the same way they react to pathogens, activating the proteins that trigger an immune response. The problem is that this response not only neutralizes harmful agents, it also damages healthy cells, leading them to age prematurely.

They found that stress promotes cellular aging by weakening cell structures known as telomeres, which affect cellular regeneration and how our cells age.

“charged up” and allows us to face challenges.

Stress has a degenerative effect over time. A sustained state of emergency affects the neurons associated with memory, as well as inhibiting the release of certain hormones, the absence of which can cause depression. Its secondary effects include irritability, insomnia, anxiety, and high blood pressure.

in logotherapy the patient sits up straight and has to listen to things that are, on occasion, hard to hear.”

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. —Aristotle

“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That is relativity.”

Albert Einstein, “a happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell on the future.”4

Concentrating on one thing at a time may be the single most important factor in achieving flow.

Other studies indicate that working on several things at once lowers our productivity by at least 60 percent and our IQ by more than ten points.

Designate one day of the week, perhaps a Saturday or Sunday, a day of technological “fasting,” making exceptions only for e-readers (without Wi-Fi) or MP3 players.

the key is always having a meaningful challenge to overcome in order to maintain flow.

we’re not truly being challenged, we get bored and add a layer of complexity to amuse ourselves.

Our ability to turn routine tasks into moments of microflow, into something we enjoy, is key to our being happy, since we all have to do such tasks.

Richard Feynman, one of the most important physicists of all time, also took pleasure in routine tasks. W. Daniel Hillis, one of the founders of the supercomputer manufacturer Thinking Machines, hired Feynman to work on the development of a computer that could handle parallel processing when he was already world famous. He says Feynman showed up on his first day of work and said, “OK, boss, what’s my assignment?” They didn’t have anything prepared, so they asked him to work on a certain mathematical problem. He immediately realized they were giving him an irrelevant task to keep him busy and said, “That sounds like a bunch of baloney—give me something real to do.” So they sent him to a nearby shop to buy office supplies, and he completed his assignment with a smile on his face.

What is indisputable, though, is that finding flow in a “ritualistic workplace” is much easier than in one in which we are continually stressed out trying to achieve unclear goals set by our bosses.

As a rule of thumb, remind yourself: “Rituals over goals.”

The happiest people are not the ones who achieve the most. They are the ones who spend more time than others in a state of flow.

Flow is mysterious. It is like a muscle: the more you train it, the more you will flow, and the closer you will be to your ikigai.