Without play, adults may end up getting burned out from the “hustle-bustle busyness that we all get involved in

Although researchers usually emphasize the positive effect of play on the developing brain, they have found that play is important for adults, too. Without play, adults may end up getting burned out from the “hustle-bustle busyness that we all get involved in,” says Marc Bekoff, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Adults who do not play may end up unhappy and exhausted without understanding exactly why.

So how can adults get more play into their lives? Stuart Brown, psychiatrist and founder of the National Institute for Play in Carmel Valley, Calif., suggests three ways:

  • Body play
    Participate in some form of active movement that has no time pressures or expected outcome (if you are exercising just to burn fat, that is not play!).
  • Object play
    Use your hands to create something you enjoy (it can be anything; again, there doesn’t have to be a specific goal).
  • Social play
    Join other people in seemingly purposeless social activities, “from small talk to verbal jousting,” Brown suggests.

If you are still not sure what to do, try to remember what you enjoyed doing as a child. “Find your childhood play’s ‘true north’ ” and try to translate those memories into activities that fit the current circumstances, Brown says. You might even spark your memory better if you spend a little time around kids, notes Gordon M. Burghardt, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Tennessee.

Ultimately, what matters is not how you play but that you play. And to make sure you do, schedule time in your day for it, Bekoff suggests. “Work will always get done,” he says. “In fact, I know that if I don’t play, I really don’t get more work done.” And, Burghardt adds, the happiness and renewed energy you will experience from playing will “more than compensate for the time ‘lost.’ ”

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