TED Talks Daily
Why having fun is the secret to a healthier life | Catherine Price (re-release)
23 Aug 2025
Have you had your daily dose of fun? It's not just enjoyable, it's also essential for your health and happiness, says science journalist Catherine Price. She proposes a new definition of fun -- what she calls "true fun" -- and shares easy, evidence-backed ways to weave playfulness, flow and connection into your everyday life.This episode originally aired on July 20, 2022.For a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch.Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDSports: ted.com/sportsTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-viennaTEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Full Episode
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. We all know what fun feels like, especially after we've had fun. But what makes an activity or an experience actually fun? That's what science journalist and author Catherine Price helps us unpack.
In her archive talk from TED 2022, she breaks down the elements that have to come together to have a truly fun time and why it's so important to our wellness and overall happiness.
You know what's a lot harder than it seems like it should be? Actually feeling alive. And what I mean by that is that we are all constantly doing, or at least we're constantly scrolling. But we're not necessarily living. You know, we keep ourselves busy to the point of exhaustion, but we're also languishing. We feel a little bit dead inside. And I think we know that on some level.
I think that's part of the reason we keep ourselves so busy and distracted to begin with, but we don't know what to do about it. So I am here to tell you, I figured out what to do about it. We need to have more fun.
So you might think that you're already having plenty of fun, and that's because in our everyday speech, we often use the word fun to describe anything we do with our leisure time, even if it's not actually enjoyable and in fact a waste of time. So for example, we scroll through social media for fun, even though doing so often makes us feel bad about kind of everything.
Or we'll say, that was so fun, we should do that again soon. In response ... in response to things that weren't that fun and that we don't want to do again, ever. But it's not really our fault that we're a little bit sloppy about how we use the word fun, because even the dictionary doesn't get it quite right. You know, it says that fun is amusement or enjoyment or lighthearted pleasure.
It's something for kids to have in play areas. It makes it sound like it's frivolous and optional. But if you think back on your own memories that stand out to you as having truly been fun, and I really encourage you to do this, the memories that you would describe as, and forgive me for my scientific terminology, so fun, you're going to notice that there's something much deeper going on.
I've collected thousands of these stories from people all around the world, and I can tell you it's amazing, because when people recount the memories in which they had the most fun, They tell you about some of the most joyful and treasured memories of their lives. So in reality, fun is not just lighthearted pleasure. It's not just for kids, and it is definitely not frivolous.
Instead, fun is the secret to feeling alive. So today, I want to propose to you a new, more precise definition of what fun is. I want to reveal some of the ways in which it is astonishingly good for us, and I want to give you all some suggestions for things you can do, starting right now, to experience its power for yourself.
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