Make Time and Space for Play in Your Life Now: What’s Your Play Personality?
Play: A Way to Live Better
The science doesn’t lie. Play is good for us. I think most of us can accept that it is healthy to incorporate play activities into our lives. But what really constitutes “play”? And how do we change our habits to actually incorporate enough play to make a difference?
Most of us want to have more fun, sure.
But we also have STUFF to do. Play is something we can get to AFTER the list is done, we rationalize.
Well, as I get older, I think more about how to get the most out of life, realizing that WE make the daily decisions that shape our lives, for better or worse. And if we don’t decide on purpose, other outside demands are going to decide for us. Personally, I don’t want that. Billy Joel’s “My Life” comes to mind, which I used to sing loud in the car as a teenager. Don’t judge.
ANYway, that desire to get the most out of life and all its infinite possibilities is what got me curious about the actual brain benefits of play. By the end of this short blog, you’ll see how literally minutes a day (of REAL play, which is not what I thought!) can change your brain and the way you approach life in general. Read to the end for a free resource I made for you to get you started.
What “Counts” as Play?
I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word “play”, I picture kids running on the playground, screeching joyfully and just irrationally running up and down the slides, through the tubes, laughing and being ridiculous. Turns out, I’m right - but not for the reasons I thought. It has nothing to do with the playground itself, and everything to do with what’s going through the kid’s head at the time.
Play, according to established play expert Dr. Stuart Brown, is defined as “an absorbing, apparently purposeless activity that provides enjoyment and apparent suspension of self-consciousness and sense of time.” (Emphasis mine). So, if there’s a kid involved in the game of tag that is nervous because she doesn’t know the others, so she’s sheepishly ducking behind the trash can, she’s not playing, not really. But once another kid joins her there and they team up, laughing and running to the top of the slide, she’s moved into a playful state of mind.
This really helped me think through what it would mean to bring more play into MY life, as a grown adult. It probably will not include playgrounds. But it does reveal how often I THINK I’m playing, when I’m really sneaking work-based achievement or self-judgement into my head.
Art can be so much fun, but it can also slip into negativity pretty easily, like when we compare ourselves to other artists, or beat ourselves up for not knowing how to do something well right away.
The same thing can happen with sports or other games. In pure form, the exhilaration of just playing the game is so joyful. And it’s okay to take our activities seriously, too. We just have to find that mindset of play somewhere in our lives. Science says so! Neuroscientists believe that the play response initiates in the brain stem, where our most basic functions like breathing and consciousness arise. They say what really qualifies it as play is that once the play response initiates, it activates positive emotions.
Choosing an Activity that Feels Like True Play
So let’s think about the impulse to do something, like the impulse to splash paint around, smush clay into a pleasing shape, or chase your dog around the yard. It’s just for the fun of it! Not for any purpose. Not to achieve a certain result. You just like doing it.
What constitutes play for one person may feel stressful to another. Over his many years of studying play, Dr. Brown has noticed 8 different “play personalities.” Check out his book for more details on that, but I’ll list them here: The Joker, The Kinesthete, The Explorer, The Director, The Competitor, The Collector, The Storyteller, and (my favorite) The Artist/Creator. Of course we can find playful moments in several of these categories, but we often lean towards one particular area. Thinking about it this way can help you find ways you are already enjoying play, and remind you of other ways you might enjoy bringing more play into your life.
But back to The Artist/Creator. One way we can discover our play personality is to think back to childhood. I have a distinct memory of this big book I had with hundreds of art projects and craft activities, one per page, and the pages were the colors of the rainbow, like red paper for the paper crafts, orange for building, yellow for clay, green for making snacks, and so on. I could “make things” for hours, just poring over the book to pick out what I’d make next, then scouring the house for the supplies.
What about you?
Did your 8 year-old self love games where you kept score, and played to win, like The Competitor? Or the thrill of collecting pretty rocks, or different colored superballs, like the Collector?
I’m a big Julia Cameron fan, who I would call the Queen of Creativity, and she outlines a practice she calls “Artist Dates”, where you take 1-2 hours once a week and go off by yourself, engaging in some type of playful activity, for the purpose of just nurturing your inner artist, and filling the well. She gives examples of trying on hats, photographing flowers close up, and do a finger painting. She says to set the date on your calendar, and then watch your “inner killjoy” try to wriggle out of it. That made me laugh out loud. I can hear it now. “Wellll I could skip it just for now, until I can finish x, y, and z…”
The Bottom Line
But here’s the deal. Dr. Brown and others studying this topic have shown that play is as vital to human health as sleep and nutrition. It is not only going to make you just a happier, less stressed person, but it helps us to solve problems and manage life’s inevitable challenges with more resilience.
To summarize why we need to weave play into our lives, it provides us a lightness, an ease, even as we go through other parts of our day. We can so easily lose that lightness if we forget to play, or push through to get more done.
Start where you are, and just add a playful activity here and there. See what changes for you! I know I can do better at this, and I want to make sure to be an example for my teenagers as their school, sports and achievement demands increase.
WHICH NEXT ACTION FITS YOU?
Here are three easy ways to add more play into your life. You know which one you’re more likely to do, so start there!
Quick Win:
Take 10 minutes to write up a little “play history” for yourself, as Dr. Brown calls it. List all the ways you can think of that you used to play as a child. Then circle three you’d like to do this month. Put an asterisk by the one you’ll try today.
Solid Solution:
Go on a weekly “Artist Date”, or just pick one activity from your list and think about a longer term way to incorporate it into your schedule without wiggling out of it. This might be something like setting up an art space in your house so you can easily access playing creatively for 10 minutes in between tasks. Grab my FREE WORKBOOK for setting up your home art space to get started right now! I actually don’t have a home studio space, but as you’ll see in my workbook, I have active plans to set one up - I’ll keep you posted!
Treat Yourself:
Do something that feels decadent or silly or frivolous, like buying yourself stickers, or an ice cream cone, or spending $10 at the local arcade playing Skeeball. So simple, and it can make your day!
I do believe that WE make the daily decisions that shape our lives, for better or worse. So now that we know how much play can benefit us, how can we NOT level up our game and add more play into our days?
With enthusiasm for art & life,
Heidi
Key References & Resources:
FREE WORKBOOK:
Create Your Own Studio: A Workbook for Setting Up Your Home Art Space, Written by Heidi Sensenig [>>CLICK HERE FOR INSTANT ACCESS<<]
BOOKS:
Stuart Brown, M.D. with Christopher Vaughan. Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. Avery, 2009.
Julia Cameron. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. TargerPerigee, 1992 (original edition).
Julia Cameron has a whole slew of other amazing books. She’s amazing.