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Dear Bandhus,
PLAY=SUCCESS IN LIFE!
This is my message of Health today.
As a Doctor and a Healthcare professional, I am going to periodically provide a message that is applicable to our Health.
Plenty of play in childhood makes for happy, smart adults -- and keeping it up can make us smarter at any age. We all know that play is fun, even joyful. It refreshes and energizes us. Play is a central element of life, throughout life, not only for children, but for working and retired adults. In play our burdens feel lighter and we are opened to new possibilities. But play goes even deeper – it shapes our brains to make us smarter and more able to adapt to situations.
Our success as an innovative culture rests first, on our recognizing the importance of play, then on our allowing play into daily living. The National Institute for Play believes that play woven into the fabric of social practices will dramatically transform our personal health, our relationships, the education we provide our children and the capacity of our corporations to innovate. I see play as an un-realized power that can transform our social and economic lives. It is a pity that most adults have lost the fun of play. Is this because we are too engrossed in work? I think of some activities that should be completely natural; but some of them are becoming more difficult, because we intellectualize them too much. Play, eating (diet), sleeping etc. - should be easy and natural for a healthy person. But it seems that for many, an unnatural life-style leads to problems. Let us look to the animals for a less self-conscious, but more fulfilled existence!
I challenge you to see beyond our adulthood and social constructs into the world at play that surrounds us, especially children and its impact on them. I saw recently in New York Times that Play is vital not only to kids but also to adults. It’s got to be serious if the New York Times dedicates a Sunday Magazine cover story to play, right? Then I found Dr. Stuart Brown articles and his web site about his research on play. His initial research was supposed to be on motives of murderers but what he found was unlikely as that seems is-- a stunning common thread in killers' stories: lack of play in childhood. Since then, he's interviewed thousands of people to catalog their relationships with play, noting a strong corelation between success and playful activity. He has observed animals play in the wild, where he first conceived of play as an evolved behavior important for the well being -- and survival -- of animals, especially those of higher intelligence. Play is so strong that it can override the carnivorous instincts of a polar bear to frolic with the would-be-dinner husky. And so too does the lack of play, as Dr. Brown learned in studying the Texas Tower Murderer, leave humans dangerously vulnerable to tragedy. Brown illuminated the eruption of joy and elation that can come from a mother and child locking eyes, or the random, purposeless body play. “If you’re having a bad day try this, wiggle around and you’ll feel better. [But] if it’s purpose is more important than the act of doing it, it’s probably not play.” Play informs our social constructs. If you want to belong, you need social play, a by-product of the play scene. Rough and tumble play develops our social, cognitive, emotional and physical traits. Spectator play, ritual play, imaginative play, the list goes on. Perhaps most stark was the experiment suppressing rats’ play time: if you place those rats in the presence of cat odor, at first both groups hide out, but the non-players never venture away, dying. Meanwhile the player rats will emerge to explore their environment, testing things out. “That says play may be pretty important for our survival.” And yet you don’t hear anything like cancer or heart disease associated with play, but Dr. Brown sees it just as basic and key to survival long term.
“The opposite of play is not work, it’s depression,” asserted Dr. Brown. No humor, no flirtation, no games, no fantasy. “Try to imagine a culture or a life with play and the thing that is unique is that we are designed to play throughout our life time.” Dr. Brown’s class at the Stanford Design School investigates the state of play and its importance in creative thinking to explore play as its basis, to encourage play in the corporate world and to work in real life situations. He so encourages us not to engage in the work-play differential we are accustomed by setting aside time to play, but where life becomes infused with body, object, social, fantasy, transformational kinds of play.
Have a great Play Day!!
Morarji
President BI
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