Natural Life Magazine

The Power of Fun
by Wendy Priesnitz

Play helps us learn, keeps us stress-free and healthy, helps create sound relationships, encourages workplace productivity...and is just plain fun.

The power of fun
Photo (a) Aletia/Shutterstock
I enjoy – truly love, most days – my work. In fact, you might say my work is my fun. At least that’s how I excuse working all the time and avoiding play.

I realized in midlife that I didn’t really know much about playing and being silly. As the only child of serious parents who were middle-aged with health issues when I was born, I grew up with few role models for having fun. We hardly ever laughed out loud in my house, and I was encouraged to be quiet and unobtrusive. Maybe choosing the work of a writer, researcher, and editor was my unconscious way of ensuring I’d have an enjoyable life, even without play (which I found I couldn't avoid once I had my own children). And maybe because I had so little of it as a child, I’ve always been interested in observing and researching fun and play – as they relate to all ages.

Does play always have to be fun? No. It can be spontaneous and silly, but it can also be focused and goal-oriented...not that those things aren't necessarily enjoyable. However, play is usually associated with pleasure and enjoyment, and should be voluntary.

Play and Learning

As the parent of young children, and later in my work advocating for independent, informal education, I discovered the importance of play to learning. Everything children do teaches them about the world, their place in it, and how to relate to it. Psychology professor Alison Gopnik calls children “scientists in the crib” because of their natural instinct to educate themselves. In their case, there is no difference between play and work, between learning and life. Psychologist and author Penelope Leach puts it this way: “For a small child there is no division between playing and learning, between the things he or she does ‘just for fun’ and things that are ‘educational.’ The child learns while living and any part of living that is enjoyable is also play.”

And, if children are allowed the freedom to continue to explore and experiment – to play in an unstructured manner – they will also learn the things we consider to be “academic” in nature through play. Homeschooling parents are familiar with this way of informal learning. In his book Free to Learn, Dr. Peter Gray presents research about how and why this works…and why the decline of play in our schools is harming children’s education. The same could be said for adult education, which is a high-stakes, expensive industry.

Play and Health

Play is also healthy. It offers a natural and satisfying sense of joy and calm, and re-learning to play can help motivate adults to adopt a lifestyle of health and wellbeing. Stress is one of the most prevalent health complaints of our time, and it can be managed and alleviated through appropriate play.

Stuart Brown, a physician, psychiatrist, founder of the National Institute for Play, and author of Play: How it Shapes the Brain, has made a career of studying the effects of play on people and animals. His conclusion is that play is no less important than oxygen. His study of thousands of people’s play histories, from murderers to Nobel Prize winners, has also convinced him that play is how humans learn empathy and to socialize – from the very first play interactions between mother and child to adult relationships between couples and co-workers.

Play and Work

Brown also believes that work and play are mutually supportive. Just as laughter is necessary for a healthy lifestyle, it is also necessary for a healthy workplace. People who enjoy their work and are able to play (appropriately) at work are more effective, efficient and productive, according to Canadian author and therapist (and cancer survivor) Catherine Fenwick. When we are feeling relaxed and positive, we get along better with others and do better work. She notes that a healthy sense of humor at work helps to keep things in perspective, facilitate change, build confidence, and boost morale.

An increasing number of companies are getting that message. In its July, 2012 trend report Play As a Competitive Advantage, the marketing communications firm JWT highlighted how companies are injecting the idea of play into their business models and how marketers are promoting adult play in their messaging. High tech companies are at the forefront of that trend, and most of have read about how Google and its ilk have incorporated play into their facilities, with pool tables, lounges, cafés, patios, and even bowling alleys for employees’ use.

Unfortunately, many of us adults either don’t take the time to play or, like me, worry about looking silly while we’re having fun. That is the topic of the next article, about how one group of friends has created the opportunity to be silly and foolish. And I think that’s something we could all do with more of.

Learn More

Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life by Peter Gray (Basic Books, 2013)

The Curriculum of Play by John Taylor Gatto in Life Learning Magazine, May/June 2010

Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown (Avery, 2009)

Reaching Their Potential Through Mud by Ann Schuster in Natural Child Magazine, September/October 2011

The Power of Play: Learning What Comes Naturally by David Elkind (Da Capo Press, 2007)

The New Game Plan for Recovery: Rediscovering the Positive Power of Play, by Tobin Quereau (Ballantine Books, 1992)

Where Does Spontaneity Go? by Wendy Priesnitz in Child's Play Magazine

The Art of Play: Helping Adults Reclaim Imagination and Spontaneity by Dr. Adam Blatner and Allee Blatner (Brunner/Mazel, 1997)

Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work by Leslie Yerkes (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2001)

Wendy Priesnitz is the co-founder and editor of Natural Life Magazine, and the author of 13 books.

 

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