Play by Stuart Brown
“Once people understand what play does for them, they can learn to bring a sense of excitement and adventure back to their lives, make work an extension of their play lives, and engage fully with the world.”
3 Main Messages:
All mammals learn and grow through play.
Various forms of play are vital in reducing stress and maintaining brain health.
Parents, schools and employers have a responsibility to encourage play everyday.
This book has a lot to answer for: I sit here with my right (dominant) hand in cast and am clumsily typing this out with my left. More on this later. While I blame this book entirely for my current predicament, I still highly agree with its messaging and am happy to share my learning with you here.
Play is written in two parts, and the first is centred around why we need to play. Brown shares examples of when people have flourished through play, how connections can be built and what research tells us. He tells us that “life long play is central to our continued well-being, adaption, and social cohesiveness,” that playing is a way of connecting with ourselves, our surroundings and each other.
Brown explains the promise and the purpose of play and describes play as “what lifts people out of the mundane,” as well as a way of experiencing “diminished consciousness of self.” He quotes Scott Eberle, from the Strong National Museum of Play, as identifying that play involves: anticipation, surprise, pleasure, understanding, strength and poise. Interestingly, he also references research from Monash University, which reported that “there is a strong positive link between brain size and playfulness in mammals in general.
We know that children and young mammals play in order to explore their worlds, but this book focuses more on the need for adults to play in order to relieve stress and just generally enjoy life more. As Brown points out, the word ‘recreation’ derives from the Latin word ‘recreare’, meaning to create again and renew - which is exactly what we do when we down tools and play. We also know that those who do continue to socialise and play into their later years tend to stave off dementia and reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s. So this play is a serious business!
Brown’s definition of play is “an absorbing, apparently purposeless activity that provides enjoyment and a suspension of self-consciousness and sense of time.” This is behaviour that we encourage in young children but which often seems frivolous and a waste of time once we get beyond a certain age - usually secondary school. But is it that we no longer need to play, or that we need to play in a different way?
Brown believes that there are different types of play personalities: jokers, kinesthetics, explorers, competitors, directors, collectors, artists/creators and storytellers. Reading this list, I’m sure that you will identify with a few of these types, as did I. They probably reflect how you enjoyed playing as a child and so are an indication of the type of play you should look to engage in as an adult. Afterall, as Brown tells us: “The people who stay sharp and interesting are the ones who continue to play and work.” Perhaps more direct is his claim that “when we stop playing, we start dying.” So what are we to do?
The second half of the book is more of a guide, with sections dedicated to giving advice on how to best play as a parent, the importance of play and breaks in work culture, different ways that we can play together, and stories about the history and necessity of play in human evolution. Brown ends by giving us a set of directives, including:
Look at your play history
Expose yourself to play
Give yourself permission to be playful, to be a beginner
Be active
Free yourself of fear
Which brings me bang up to date: sitting here with my painfully broken wrist, fixed with a metal plate and 8 screws, following a roller skating date at the beach with a mate.
I’m interested in people’s responses when they hear how I have injured myself; they range from admiration to humour to “I hope you’ve learned your lesson and are selling those skates,” - which is code for ‘time to act your age’.
Not a chance.
