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Play has a wide variety of physical, mental, emotional, and social health benefits. Far from being a frivolous, purposeless activity, it’s crucial to the development of our physical bodies and brains and our cognitive, emotional, and social well-being—which is why it’s a core component of ancestral health.
Play is essential to the development of a robust, healthy body in childhood.
When kids play, they develop reflexes and learn fine and gross motor skills, flexibility, and balancing skills that will serve them throughout their lives. Outdoor play benefits children’s physical health by exposing them to sunlight, natural environments, and fresh air, which contributes to bone formation and a robust immune system.
By increasing physical activity, play also:
The rates of U.S. children suffering from chronic health conditions, including asthma, obesity, and diabetes, are rapidly rising. This research indicates that increased playtime should be a frontline intervention in our strategy to combat the chronic disease epidemic in children.
Play is an integral part of neurological growth and development in young animals and children. Research indicates that rates of play in mice correlate strongly with the rate of growth of their brains, particularly the cerebellum, a region associated with motor control. This seems to suggest that play performs a crucial role in shaping a mature brain capable of optimizing muscle control.
In mice, play also promotes the secretion of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDNF is a protein that mediates the growth, differentiation, and survival of neurons and establishes neuronal connections in the prefrontal cortex, a brain region intrinsically involved with cognition and emotion.
Conversations between adults and children occurring during play also strengthen neuronal connections in brain regions critical for language.
In other words, play is essential for the growth and development of a healthy, fully functional brain. The brain health benefits of play don’t stop with children; in adults, play keeps the brain sharp and reduces stress. These effects may help stave off dementia, which could have a huge impact on the last 10 years of your life.
Imagine that you are four years old and building a block tower. Suddenly, another child runs up to your prized tower and knocks it down. What do you do? Tell your teacher? Inform the child that her actions are against the rules? Cry?
Situations such as this frequently occur in unstructured play situations and are crucial for helping children learn how to feel and control and express their emotions. Less verbal children can express their views, experiences, and frustrations through play. The emotional intelligence forged during playtime will help a child navigate social situations and relationships throughout her life.
In addition to creating emotional intelligence, play helps children develop healthy self-esteem. That endows a child with the confidence and resiliency she needs to find her place in the world and face future challenges.
The ability of play to forge emotional intelligence goes hand in hand with its ability to help children establish peer relationships and make friends. The unstructured nature of free play builds neuronal circuits in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which helps the brain (and child) navigate complex social interactions.
Friendship has a tremendous impact on our well-being. Preschool friendships help children develop social and emotional skills and promote a sense of belonging, while adult friendships provide a strong support network and help reduce stress.alth issues, and a shorter lifespan. Adult romantic partners who frequently engage in play experience reduced relational conflict, increased intimacy, and accumulate more “emotional capital,” which refers to collections of positive experiences that can be drawn upon in times of conflict. Play also sparks feelings of excitement in romantic relationships and combats relationship boredom over the long run.
Play serves as a bridge that connects us to other people, helping us develop healthy relationships that will sustain us throughout our lives.
The developmental trajectory of children is mediated by relationships with parents and caregivers, and one of the primary ways these relationships develop is through play.
When parents play with their children, they are sending the child a simple message: you’re important to me. The undivided attention a parent gives his child during playtime lets a child know that he or she is valued, teaches the parent how to communicate more effectively with the child, and affords the opportunity for parents to offer nurturing, gentle guidance. Play can serve as a cornerstone in the foundation of a healthy, enduring parent–child relationship.
When children engage in free play, they gain critical knowledge about how to cooperate with others. Rather than relying on rules and regulations to govern their experiences, they must work together with their peers to create and achieve mutual goals. That cooperation may involve sharing, negotiating, and resolving conflicts.
The ability to cooperate with others, a skill learned through play, helps individuals navigate interpersonal interactions throughout their lives in school, work, and family settings.
In children, free play encourages the development of a concept called divergent thinking, which refers to the ability to generate ideas by exploring many possible solutions. Convergent problem solving, on the other hand, involves solving a problem that has a single solution.
While convergent problem solving is emphasized in the classroom and on conventional intelligence tests, divergent problem solving is linked to creativity and is more applicable to the complex, nuanced world we live in. The ability to problem solve divergently, developed through the process of play, may help a child navigate the “real world,” as opposed to merely encouraging good performance on standardized tests.
Many people consider creativity to be a special skill only possessed by a few fortunate individuals, such as artists and musicians. However, the truth is that all humans can be creative, and play is one method we can use to stimulate our innate creativity.
The ability to be creative serves as a healthy outlet for children to express their emotions and reflect on their experiences. In adults, play can water the seeds of creativity that may have been dormant since childhood. This may foster success at work, as they expand their ability to think “outside the box.” Enhanced creativity may also help adults better manage the stress and emotions drummed up in day-to-day life.
Imagine having the opportunity to play a pickup game of soccer over your lunch break, or the freedom to take 30 minutes out of your workday to dabble on an instrument or build a Lego structure at a designated “play” area in your company’s corporate office. For many adults, this situation sounds like a fantasy; for others, it is a reality.
A growing number of organizations, including Facebook and LinkedIn, are embracing the idea of play at work because it can have beneficial effects on a variety of work outcomes.
For example, research has found that play at work:
Psychologist Dr. Stuart Brown, the founder of the National Institute of Play, has personally observed the positive effects of play on work performance:
When employees have the opportunity to play, they actually increase their productivity, engagement, and morale … Not only does having a playful atmosphere attract young talent, but experts say play at work can boost creativity and productivity in people of all ages.
Based on these studies and observations, office “playtime” may soon become the new-and-improved 21st-century version of the “water cooler break”!
Unfortunately, modern-day life is fraught with psychological stress, and it can quickly overwhelm us if we fail to engage in stress-reduction activities.
While contemplative practices such as meditation have their place in stress management, play serves a crucial but underappreciated role as a buffer that dampens the impact of daily stressors on health and modulates our interpretations and reactions to stressful events.
Studies on the benefits of play and its impact on stress have revealed some profound findings. A study comprising nearly 1,000 students recruited from three universities found that those students who described themselves as more playful reported lower levels of perceived stress than their less-playful counterparts. The “playful” students also demonstrated better coping strategies in stressful situations and were less likely to engage in negative behaviors commonly triggered by stress.
A study of older women involved in the Red Hat Society—“a playgroup for women created to connect like-minded women, make new friends and enrich lives through the power of fun and friendship”—also found that playfulness fostered resilience. It enabled the women to be more flexible in the face of adversity and bounce back quickly from difficult conditions.
Play is a hallmark of the human species and a strong predictor of our health and well-being. Play creates the optimal developmental milieu to prepare children physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially for the experiences and challenges of life. In adults, it nurtures faculties that may have been lost over time, such as creativity and emotional expression, while:
While researchers have taken a keen interest in the abundant health benefits of play, many have also observed and come to understand the profound health consequences of a lack of play, referred to as “play deprivation.” Just as play is an index of health, play deprivation is a strong predictor of numerous adverse health outcomes.
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