The Importance of Playfulness in Our Lives
Excerpted from THE OPTIMISM CURE
Play is the universal language of childhood. It is through play that children understand each other and make sense of the world around them. As we grow older, we put aside our affinity for play and replace it with people and activities we consider to be more “adult” and reflective of our age. By doing so, we make our life duller and less interesting. It’s only when we reconnect with our inner child that we once again experience the joy of play and all the satisfaction it can bring.
Play as an Antidote for Boredom
I was having a difficult day and it was only 8:00 am. I needed a shower, but there would be no hot water in my building until after dinner. My blender had stopped working a few days ago and I couldn’t make my daily breakfast smoothie. I turned on my computer and checked my credit card balance. I discovered that I had been charged $115 for some biking gear that I didn’t order. And to top it all off, my new dishwasher decided to take a nap and left me with a sink full of dirty dishes.
None of these inconveniences were life-threatening, but nevertheless they were a pain in the butt. I decided to leave this mess behind and have some fun. For me that usually means going for a bike ride. However, just as I put my bike on my car, it started to rain. This scrubbed my morning ride along the Hudson River. The 1940 song “Everything Happens to Me” started playing in my head.
By then it was nearly noon. I needed to have some fun. So, I called my friend Peter who lives in my building and works from home. He is my ping pong partner, and we often play during his lunch hour.
“Can you play today at 12:30?” I asked. “Sure Mike,” he said. “I’ll see you then.” I grabbed a banana and a cup of coffee to prepare for the coming hour of intense exercise.
And we had fun. Just a few minutes into the game my head cleared up and my negative attitude disappeared. I was in a flow state. I smacked a hard drive into the corner of the table, out of his reach. I broke into laughter.
“Nice shot, Mike,” he said. He then hit a hard forehand smash to my left that I couldn’t possibly return, and he won the game. The hour had passed in what felt like only a few minutes.
Entering a Flow State
A flow state can occur when you’re totally absorbed with the present task, completely immersed in an activity. A flow state can happen in many contexts. It can happen when you’re being creative, dancing, taking a walk, listening to music, participating in a sport or meditating. During flow, we tune out distractions and become unaware of the passage of time. It is a time when we can fully experience the process of having fun.
Playing a game that I love puts me in a flow state in which I don’t notice the passage of time. My mind’s usual self-talk disappears, and I automatically tune out thoughts of the future. I can perform difficult maneuvers with little thought, such as a hard ping pong slam that my opponent cannot return or playing a difficult piece of music on the piano. I experience having fun without thinking about it. As I play, I find myself spontaneously laughing when I make an exceptionally good shot. When the game is over, I re-enter my day-to-day life refreshed and ready to resume whatever the ping pong game had interrupted. And I look forward to my next game.
The Many Benefits of Fun and Play
Want to stay young longer? Play enables us to maintain our cognitive abilities and physical health into our later years. It is built into our biology. Neuroscientists believe that all mammals have the capacity for play.
If we are challenged during play, such as I am when playing ping pong, we keep our brains active and engaged. We also reduce the memory loss that frequently accompanies our senior years. Play gives us a feeling of well-being by releasing endorphins, our “feel good” hormones. By playing we can improve our brain function and reduce memory problems. Having fun and laughing lowers blood pressure and relieves pain.
I believe that cultivating a playful nature can also improve your social life and strengthen your relationships. Play can heal disagreements and resentments. Sharing laughter makes us feel closer to each other It helps us to trust one another. Best of all, playing and having fun takes us out of ourselves. Our concerns and fears recede into the background, and we can relax into a flow state.
Playing with Animals
When I got married after college and move to New Haven to start my graduate work at Yale, I was alone for the first six months. My wife was finishing college in New York and visited only on the weekends. I was not used to living alone, so we adopted a stray cat. We named her “Muffin.” She was tiny and cute. and we were delighted to have made her a member of our new family.
One weekend my wife left a hair roller on her dresser, and on a whim, I threw it down the hall to see if the cat would fetch it. I knew that cats don’t fetch. Yet Muffin ran down the hall, skidded to a stop, picked up the roller with her mouth and returned to me. She deposited at my feet and looked up at me. I threw it again and same thing happened. I was astonished that the cat was playing. And I was aware that I was playing too.
We had an apartment in New Haven in a three-family house, a few blocks from my research lab. There was another similar house next to ours, and we would open the window so that Muffin would jump from one roof to the other. One day we opened the window when Muffin was gone. We couldn’t sleep that night. I was supposed to give a talk on a thesis project at 9:00 in the morning, but it was raining and I was worried about the cat.
I walked around the neighborhood and found her perched high up on a telephone pole, with a half dozen male cats circling below. I realized that she must be in heat. She was determined to stay there all day until her “lovers” went away.
I called my thesis advisor and told him I would be late because my cat was lost. He said, “Mike, don’t be ridiculous. We’re all waiting for you to give your talk. Get over here right now!” So, I did, leaving Muffin stuck on the pole in the rain, surrounded by her admirers.
When I finished my talk, I left the building and went to rescue Muffin. One of our neighbors had a large ladder and I asked if I could borrow it. He held the bottom while I climbed up and retrieved the cat. She was a mess and, as we later discovered, pregnant.
When her four kittens were a few months old, they discovered that if they climbed up on a bureau, they could jump to the top rung of a folding table that held three tiers of houseplants. They took turns jumping on the top shelf, hurling the plants to the floor. Since it was too late to save these plants, I put a few others on the folding table and called my wife to watch what was going to happen. One of the kittens climbed on the bureau and as before, leapt onto the top tier of the folding table. The plants scattered over the floor. We laughed and applauded, caught up in the playfulness of the moment. “They actually know how to play!” my wife said.
I realized that not only were the kittens playing, but so were we. At the beginning of our marriage which lasted fifty-seven years, we had few cares and could take time for a good laugh. What if there was a mess on the floor? It was easy to clean up. The kittens had given us the gift of laughter.
How to Bring Play into Your Life
It’s easy to do. Cultivate friendships with playful people. You can tell in few seconds if you are speaking with a playful person or a curmudgeon. Become friends with those who like to play and forget the others. Play with kids as often as you can, and with those relatives that you like or love.
About a month ago, I invited few friends and a new acquaintance for an evening of ping pong. He asked if he could bring his five-year-old daughter, and I said sure. She was a beautiful child, with a Chinese mother and Venezuelan father. Her dad told me that she was trilingual, speaking Chinese, Spanish and English. She didn’t utter a word to me all evening.
He set her up with a Dr. Seuss book and planted her in a chair in front of the television. I decided to make friends with her. I had a lot of experience with my own children and grandchildren and remembered how much I enjoyed playing with them. I grabbed a handful of ping pong balls and sat down on the rug next to her chair. I showed her the balls, one at a time. She observed this without comment. I put a bowl on the floor, stood up and started dropping the balls into it. The balls rebounded and flew across the rug. I saw that I had her interest when she put out a hand requesting a ball.
When I gave it to her, she stood up and dropped it on the bowl as I had been doing. She motioned for another ball, then another. The balls bounced out of the bowl and went all over the living room. She gave me the faintest of smiles, grabbed the bowl and loaded it with balls. I was starting to have fun with this silly game.
She motioned that I should sit down on the floor. I got two soup spoons from the kitchen and gave her one. Then I sat down and batted a ball across the rug. She caught it between her outstretched legs. Then she batted it back to me with her spoon. Her smile got a little wider. She was having fun too.
Her father came out of the ping pong room and said it was my turn to play. I said, “Not yet. I’m having fun with your daughter.” She motioned him away and he left with a small smile. Late in the evening everyone left, and she gave me a real smile and a wave goodbye. And she left her Dr. Seuss book on my living room, which I took to mean we would meet again.
Easy Ways to Play and Have Fun
— Try new activities, especially those that so fully absorb you that time passes without your noticing. Join the large number of people who have started playing pickleball. Soon this group will contain everyone on the planet who can hold a racket. It is popular because sports that involve hitting a ball are fun, and pickleball is among the easiest for a beginner to learn.
— Find ways to play every day. If you cannot find a human to play with, play with an animal. Throw a ball for a dog and it will run after it and bring it back so you can throw it again.
— Make someone laugh. Memorize jokes and tell them to people. It’s fun to hear them giggle and laugh. I call my 92-year-old sister every day and read her a joke. She lives in southern California, so we don’t get together often. She loves hearing my jokes and its fun for me to hear her laughter. It brings us closer.
As I write these words, I look out my window at the Hudson River a hundred feet below my apartment. It is 3:00 PM on a sunny but cold November day. I was tired of writing. I wonder, what can I do to make the rest of this afternoon fun? I know, I’ll invite my girlfriend for a walk along the river, then dinner and ping pong. Perhaps we’ll first dance for a few moments when she enters my apartment. Then we’ll play Wordle. She will get the answer first, as usual. Whatever happens, it promises to be lots of fun.
