“The true object of all human life is play.” – G. K. Chesterton
It’s the most wonderful (and possibly stressful!) time of the year! For many of us, the holiday season is a time of joy and wonder, but also (unfortunately) a time of rushing around and serious pressure. In recent years, self-reported stress levels in the United States have skyrocketed. Studies have shown that more than 75% of American adults experience stress related symptoms like headaches, fatigue, difficulty sleeping, and more than 50% have said the stress has “negatively affected their behavior.”
The hard fact is that we face a daunting number of worrisome topics these days, all fighting for the brain power and physical attention of modern day adults. Alas, this has reinforced the notion that we’d all better “get serious” as grown-ups and set aside childish activities like play; an activity that not only lifts our spirits but is also crucial for creativity, healthy relationships and especially for problem solving. If we could only give ourselves the license to play more, we’d likely stress less. Playtime can open the door to us having better connections with others and help us find creative solutions to our most ominous challenges!
“A person’s maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
As adults we are often made to feel as though certain playful activities are unproductive, frivolous or even labelled as “guilty pleasures.” As such, we feel guilty scheduling time for them and certainly don’t dare prioritize them. We often judge our own actions solely by their potential for material gain. Most of us are actually aware of how much better we feel when we’re able to schedule an effective dose of fun in our lives, but it’s still difficult to silence the voices in our heads that constantly call out professional and personal responsibilities.
Fortunately, scientific research continues to reveal that prioritizing so-called childish activities does not actually detract from our ability to be more functional and productive. Instead it helps us perform better as happier, healthier adults. Although still in its infancy, research like this one, “The importance of having fun: Daily play among adults with type 1 diabetes,” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8158911/) is helping us feel a lot better about continuing to insist on prioritizing time for play.
Defining play in the context of supporting a healthier grown-up lifestyle can be surprisingly difficult. Unfortunately the only type of play which is readily honored by most adults is the competitive and very goal oriented kind. Gambling or highly competitive sports and e-sports are examples of activities that carry heavy doses of associated stress and can easily override the benefits we’re trying to achieve in their performance. It’s interesting to note that those are examples of much more societally acceptable, “big business” forms of play than activities like taking part in a “just-for-fun” bowling league or a tabletop gaming group, isn’t it?
So what might the hallmarks of a truly positive play experience be? The psychiatrist and author Stuart Brown, MD, sums it up quite succinctly in saying that it is a “state of being,” “purposeless, fun and pleasurable.” Perhaps more importantly, he emphasizes that the focus should remain on the experience and not on accomplishing a particular goal. The kind of play we’re looking for here is its own reward and should be inherently enjoyable (not just enjoyable because we win something or make money).
With all this in mind, I believe we can and should seek out and prioritize forms of play that reduce stress, improve our relationships, restore vitality and energy, inspire creativity, increase brain function, lift confidence and help us sleep better.
Consider these categories of play:
Physical; moving our bodies – Hiking, yoga, martial arts, surfing, dancing, gardening, horseback riding etc.
Imaginative; moving our minds – Making music, storytelling, painting, crafting, acting, writing etc.
Ritual; activities with defined rules – Board games, video games, puzzle solving, etc.
Now consider the forms of play that might cover more than one of the above categories and we start to see some serious potential. Recreational sports (not the highly competitive, stressful kind!), dance classes, jam sessions, escape rooms, these are just a few wildly different expressions of play that combine the benefits of physical and imaginative pursuits, or imaginative and ritual undertakings, or physical and ritual activities. These apparently purposeless endeavors carry such powerful potential for positive interactions and experiences that we must insist on them being a part of our increasingly stressful lives!
It’s important to note that for play to be a regenerative and restorative activity for us, it must be strictly voluntary, there should be no obligation or duty to take part in it, and we can effectively “lose ourselves” in it. Playtime must feel unconstrained and self consciousness should slip away in the performance of the activity so that we can simply feel good while relating with others. The release of endorphins, the regulation of cortisol and the general sense of well being that comes from this type of play is a sure boon to stem the rising tide of stress.
At Breakthrough Strength & Fitness, we endeavor to provide our members with both a productive training experience but also a positive play experiences as well. Although our training can be highly focused and goal oriented at times, it is never at the cost of better health and wellness. As such, an element of playfulness remains a key component. Special programs like our Adventure Team and particularly this fall’s recent Winter Warrior Challenge have aimed to emphasize play and fun over competition or hardship. And we try to include a solid dose of fun in every class and semi-private training session that we coach, of course!
In a world where there’s just no shortage of hard work and “responsible” demands on our time in many aspects of our lives, we really could all use a little more time for recess. Hopefully, my dear readers, you are able to schedule some seriously frivolous holiday playtime this season and we here at Breakthrough hope we can even do some of it together. We certainly wish you joy in it, whatever form it takes!
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” – George Bernard Shaw