This is the fourth blog in my current series – helping you to become ready in mind and body to reach success! The topics are:
• Eat your way to success
• Move your way to success
• Rest your way to success and
• PLAY your way to success
In the first week – EAT your way to success we talked about healthy diets to promote a healthy body and a healthy mind.
The second part – MOVE your way to success – talked about how exercise can benefit mind and body.
In week three – SLEEP your way to success – I talked about sleep – and how it is essential to our health and wellbeing, physical and mental.
This week I want to talk about Play – and about how it benefits the brain and the mind.
What do I mean by PLAY?
Play is essential for our well-being. Oh and again – this was planned in from weeks ago and then I read Brene Brown’s Dare to Lead where she talks passionately about this topic!
So many people wear “hard work” and “busyness” as a badge of honour – as a way of measuring their own self-worth. Look at me and how hard I work! – they are wanting approval. This often stems from their childhood where they were told they would never amount to anything if they didn’t “knuckle down” and “work hard”.
However – we need to value rest, play and recovery time – We talked about sleep last week and how essential it is to our physical and mental wellbeing.
We need to get away from the idea that going for a walk or a run, reading a book or playing with our kids is somehow “bunking off” or a waste of precious time.
All that productivity (which it isn’t, really) just leads to exhaustion and burnout.
If we want to live life to the full then all that work just doesn’t cut it – we need to make time for rest and play – and let go of exhaustion and productivity as measures of self-worth. Some people can even be quite competitive about it – and we have probably all worked in an office at some stage where people competed to see how much longer hours they “worked”.
Play shapes our brain (it’s worth mentioning here that I wrote a paper on Play for my Psychology degree – that was some time ago and I am enjoying catching up on the latest research!). We learn through play as children (and animals do it too).
It also helps us to learn to cooperate and work with large social groups – so playing team sports is much more than just physical exercise – and it fosters creativity and innovation.
Our brains need Play!
We need to shut off our emails and devices early in the evening – and not be beholden to our bosses or our clients. We need to find ways (and again it’s different for everyone) to use our brains in different ways – and there is evidence that there is a huge benefit in performing mental and physical exercise at the same time.
So – learning a new dance routine is fabulous for us – mentally and physically. Even just listening to a podcast as you run or use the exercise bike will help. (I don’t recommend listening to a podcast on a road bike). Learning a new skill – it was crochet for me – is also a great way to switch off from work and use your brain in an entirely new way. Learning a new piece of music to play or sing, or learning a language – these are just some ideas to get you thinking! Just let your hair down and be silly.
Play is usually thought of as some activity that has no purpose beyond itself – having fun. Rough and tumble with the kids, imaginative play and making up stories – and it is proven that it helps the brain and memory.
So – simply switching off and spending time with others having fun is good – as long as we are fully present.
Brene finishes by quoting Dr Stuart Brown
The opposite of play is not work – the opposite of play is depression.
So think back to a time – when you were at play and you were joyful – and think of how you are now – what do you need to change in your life to experience that emotion again? What can you do in your life to prioritise play?
What are you going to do to switch off and play this weekend?
Let us know in the comments below what you do you find your inner child?
Get in touch if you would like to discuss further.