How to bring more play into your life
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What is the importance of play for adults?
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Hey, it's Marielle. When Whitney Bay was growing up in Illinois and her mom would tell her, go outside and play, she knew what that meant.
Play for us was going outside, climbing trees. It was making mud pies. It was, we used to, like, reenact a lot of, like, current events. Like the Olympics, the 1996 Olympics, I believe.
The 1996 Olympics were an iconic moment for young girls. The dream team for us was made up of gymnasts. Dominique Mochiano, Carrie Strug. We little ones were obsessed.
We'd set up like this little bench and I'd run and I'd like jump over it like it's a vault. And it's literally just like a sitting bench. So just like use our imagination. And it was fun. It really felt, I mean, of course it wasn't real, but it just, it felt like I was somebody.
Like a lot of kids, Whitney was fluent in play. You probably have an idea of what play is, but here's a definition I think really rings true.
I define play as any joyful act where you forget about time. It's where you're like fully immersed in the moment. It's when you're your youest you.
That's Jeff Harry. He's a play coach. Companies hire him to get their employees to play more.
I like to say I make work suck less.
How can play help us adapt to difficult circumstances?
Because work sucks right now and it really doesn't have to.
And he says play looks different depending on who you are. It could be whitewater rafting or pickleball. It could be making a podcast. It could be cooking. As adults, we often stop playing. Sometimes we even forget how to do it. Dr. Stuart Brown, a play researcher and physician psychiatrist by training, says that is a problem because play is a central part of our existence.
It's as basic as sleep and nutrition. It just doesn't necessarily produce the same outcome as hunger or fatigue. But the need to play is there in all of us, and we all have deficits when we don't experience it sufficiently.
On this episode of Life Kit, why we should play as adults and how to do it. We'll help you figure out what feels like play to you using the concept of play personalities and how to work it into your life, even if you don't have a lot of free time.
Before we get into the how of play, let's talk about the why. First off, you should know that humans are not the only animals that play. Obviously, domesticated animals like dogs and cats do it, but so do bears and leopards and bison and ravens and dolphins, and the list goes on. And from an evolutionary perspective, play might not make sense at first. It often seems to have no purpose, and it can come at a cost. You know, it uses up energy, and it can even be dangerous. But animal play scholars and biologists argue that play does serve a number of purposes. That it can help us adapt to difficult circumstances, to practice skills that we need to survive, to problem-solve, and to collaborate. Stuart Brown, whose voice you heard just before the break, says there's a lot of research on how animals play and also on how humans play when we're kids.
But there aren't as many studies on play in adult humans, for now at least. We have learned a lot, though, from watching other social animals. For example, there's research on rats, who are highly playful creatures. The researcher prevented them from playing and then after watched them run a maze and also socialize with other rats.
The play-deficient rats have the inability to socialize as well as those who have played, so that play itself is seen as a necessity for rat health and rat pack socialization.
He says the same seems to be true for humans and other social animals. As you can see, there are a lot of reasons you might want to incorporate more play into your life. Also, come on, feels good, right?
What are the different play personalities and how do they affect us?
So let's move on to the how portion of this episode and get back to Whitney Bay, our make-believe Olympic gymnast.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the importance of play for adults?
0:00–1:54
2
How can play help us adapt to difficult circumstances?
1:54–4:54
3
What are the different play personalities and how do they affect us?
4:54–6:44
4
Why do adults often forget how to play?
6:44–8:32
5
What are the psychological benefits of incorporating play into daily life?
8:32–10:14
6
How can we reconnect with our inner child to find joy?
10:14–11:47
7
What practical steps can we take to add play into our busy schedules?
11:47–13:28
8
How does play foster connections with others?
13:28–19:29
Speakers
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