Once in a while you have to do something that makes no sense.
At least to your logical mind. However for you creative mind this will feel like a long run, eating candy, yoga, or great sex! And if you don’t do it there will be serious consequences.
It’s called PLAY. You used to know how to play without any instruction. I fear the tech advances have squashed our natural playfulness. Have you heard that schools now hire play experts to instruct students and teachers how to play and enjoy recess? Have we forgotten how to play in a few generations? More important can we get playtime back?
In my googled research I instantly found statistics that oddly related play to smartphone use and electronic games.
Next came sports referred to as the form of “real play” and then weirdly listed was a glut of information about the amount of exercise needed to qualify our activity as play because we are all too fat? Well heck, what happened to the native state of our ability play? With all the misinformed marketing bombardment about real play, it’s no wonder play is challenging for most. Playtime’s been high jacked!
And it’s no wonder adults spend more time on smartphone tasks and social networks than playing electronic games. It’s easier on many levels. And while these games are form of play, they represent a small fraction of the kinds of playing and the actual ways people need to play.
I’m shocked to see kids sitting outside looking at an electronic device instead of the plants and animals. However before we “save the children” we have to rescue ourselves.
Here’s five facts to persuade you to play again:
- Fact: There are actual play personalities we humans typify. You’re one of them.
- Fact: There are specific activities that define each personality’s style of play. You have to play this way.
- Fact: Your brain needs to play in order to remodel its tissue and grow. Use it or lose it.
- Fact: You were born wired for play. That’s why baby’s laugh and smiling takes fewer muscles.
- Fact: You need to play.
I imagine we came with a small tag that read: WARNING – person must play or they will explode!
Schedule a regular time and play and bring toys to work and share them.
Sandy Nelson is a contributing blogger for JenningsWire.
JenningsWire.com is created by National Publicity Firm, Annie Jennings PR that specializes in providing book marketing strategies to self-published and traditionally published authors. Annie Jennings PR books authors, speakers and experts on major top city radio talk shows that broadcast to the heart of the market, on local, regionally syndicated and national TV shows and on influential online media and in prestigious print magazines and newspapers.
