Project: Dabble

Play is not just for kids. It can add more joy to your daily routine, support your mental health and supercharge learning. Here are simple ways to add more playfulness and fun to your life.

Think back to how you played as a child.

For me, some of my happiest memories happened outside. My best friend and I spent long summer days searching for fairies in the mossy woods behind our house. After dark, we caught fireflies and stayed up late telling ghost stories under the stars.

Those moments were completely spontaneous. I felt free and alive, swept up in whatever adventure was unfolding.

Fred Rogers said that play “is the work of childhood.”

Play comes naturally to children. They have an intense drive to explore, pretend, move, create and make sense of the world. But as we get older, that kind of free-spirited play can begin to slip away.

One of the first times I remember feeling the joy of play start to fade was in fifth grade, when I picked up my favorite Barbie doll and waited for the old magic to return. It didn’t. I remember thinking, “I wish I still wanted to play with you,” and feeling a pang of sadness for outgrowing something I had loved so much.

By the time you settle into adult life, moments of spontaneous play can become fewer and farther between. You may feel guilty for playing or worry that it is a waste of time. You might feel self-conscious about looking silly, clumsy or inexperienced. Even when you do make time for play, you may find yourself turning it into a self-improvement project. You train for a race to lose five pounds. You pick up golf to network with a client.

Those activities can be worthwhile, but they can also feel a lot like work. True play is different. It is done for its own sake, without pressure to produce, perform or achieve. It gives you a break from constant striving.

“The self that emerges through play is the core, authentic self,” writes psychologist Stuart Brown, author of Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul.

That may be one reason play feels so restorative. Play nurtures this authentic self and reconnects you with the spontaneous part of yourself that gets buried in the responsibilities of adulthood.

But play does more than feed your soul. A growing body of research shows it’s good for you, too. Play supports cognition, creativity, connection, problem-solving and adaptability, not just in childhood, but throughout life.

My previous post, “Play Is Not Just for Kids: Why Adults Need It, Too,” explores the science of play and how it supports your well-being. In this post, I’ll share tips for bringing more play into your grown-up life.

Reflect on your play history

First, think about how you liked to play as a child. Did you enjoy romping through wooded trails? Reading comic books? Dressing up in costumes and putting on shows? Building forts? Collecting stickers or baseball cards? Riding your bike until dinner?

According to Brown, your childhood play history can offer clues about what still brings you joy. Look for patterns of engagement. Were you drawn to movement, nature, storytelling, performance, competition, collecting or making things with your hands?

Then use those memories as a starting point for finding grown-up ways to play. If you loved exploring, try walking in a new park or reading about a part of the world you’ve always wanted to visit. If you enjoyed dressing up, performing or making people laugh, put on music and do a goofy dance in the kitchen while washing dishes, tell a joke at the dinner table or get some friends together for a night of karaoke. If making things absorbed you as a child, keep a small sketchbook nearby or leave out a puzzle so you can work on it little by little.

If you need help reflecting on your play history, visit the National Institute for Play, founded by Brown, and take the quiz to discover your play style and learn practical ways to add more fun to your life.

Find play in small moments

There are small opportunities for play all around us, but we often miss them because we are focused on being efficient and productive.

To put yourself into a more playful mindset, Brown recommends simple sensory acts, such as savoring how the air smells after a rainstorm or kicking through a pile of leaves. 

If you’re worried about what others will think, give yourself permission to be silly during private moments of play. Jump in a puddle on a rainy walk. Belt out a song on your drive home. Skip a stone. Doodle on a napkin while drinking your morning coffee instead of scrolling your phone. Let yourself daydream. Take a different route home and see what you discover.

“You can’t be truly open to spontaneity if you don’t feel comfortable testing novel ways of expressing yourself,” Brown writes. “Play is exploration, which means that you will be going places where you haven’t been before.”

Move your body

One of the quickest ways to feel more playful is to get up and move.

Body play is one of the earliest forms of play. Babies discover their fingers and toes. Toddlers climb chairs and jump on cushions. Children chase and tumble, dance and leap because movement itself feels joyful.

Adults need that kind of release, too. Try this: Put on one upbeat song and move badly on purpose for 30 seconds. Wiggle your shoulders, march around the kitchen, spin in a circle or make the most ridiculous dance move you can. You might feel silly and self-conscious at first, but give it 30 seconds. Often, that awkwardness begins to give way to laughter and ease.

Other ways to get moving include tossing a ball with your kids, taking a walk outside, stretching, playing fetch with your dog or trying a new sport without worrying whether you are any good at it.

Give yourself permission to be a beginner

Being a beginner can be uncomfortable for adults, but it is also one of the most direct paths back to play.

Being silly and carefree may have come naturally to you as a child, but by adulthood, you may have learned to keep those impulses in check. You want to look competent, respectable and in control.

That fear can become one of the biggest barriers to play. You may worry about looking ridiculous, being bad at something or seeming frivolous.

One way to begin is to lower the stakes. Choose something you do not need to be good at. Try an activity with no plan to post about it, monetize it or master it. Let yourself be awkward. Let the first attempt be messy. Let enjoyment be enough.

Being a beginner can feel uncomfortable, but it is also one of the most direct paths back to play.

Say ‘yes’ to play

“Want to play?”

Remember when that question was all you needed to start a new friendship? As an adult, you may not hear it stated so plainly, but you still get invitations to play all the time.

Your child asks you to jump on the trampoline. A friend suggests taking a Zumba class together. Your partner starts a silly conversation while you’re making dinner. Someone pulls out a board game after a family meal. Your dog drops a ball at your feet. A neighbor invites you to play pickleball.

Often, you may say no because you are too tired, depleted or overwhelmed. And sometimes, you really do need rest. But the next time you get an invitation to play, consider saying yes before you talk yourself out of it. Try one class. Toss the ball for five minutes. Join the game for one round. Let yourself be pulled into the moment.

And don’t be afraid to invite others to play, too. Not everyone will say yes, but that’s OK. Kids are remarkably persistent about asking others to join the fun. You can borrow a little of that courage. Send the funny text. Challenge someone to trivia. Invite a friend to explore a bookstore or museum with you. Play is contagious. When you make room for more joy and lightness in your own life, you may inspire others to do the same.

Prioritize play

Play is not a reward you earn after all the work is done. It’s something you need to actively protect and prioritize.

“Play is nourishing, but you have to take time out for play, just as you would take time for a meal,” Brown writes. “A lack of play should be treated like malnutrition – it’s a health risk to your body and mind.”

That does not mean every free moment is equally renewing. Brown warns against the “fast food” of play, or passive distractions that may numb us for a while but do not truly restore us. Binge-watching, doomscrolling or zoning out online might offer escape, but these activities do not provide the deeper nourishment that comes from active play.

Restorative play involves curiosity, movement, imagination, social connection or hands-on engagement. It makes you feel more alive, not more depleted.

It also helps to surround yourself with people who support your playful side. Healthy relationships can make play easier, and play can strengthen those relationships in return. Even if your partner, children or friends do not share all your interests, your own playfulness can change the emotional tone of your life. When you make room for play, you also make room for more lightness, patience and joy.

As Brown writes, “Play is the purest expression of love.”