At the moment of writing this post, we stand at the precipice of summer. With Memorial Day behind us and the long stretch of warm months ahead, comes a little tinge in the brain, a little skip in the soul. For some of us it’s more like a loud gong of a bell – for others it is the slightest whisper of a long ago memory. You see on some level summer means play. Summer is about a shift in our mental state. Summer has a call to our deeper, more playful selves. Are you listening? Will you answer the call this time? Or will you, like so many of us, put your head back down to your desk and get on with the work at hand ignoring the impulse to play and the call of fun?

In my work, the most referenced thing lacking in people’s lives is fun. This got me thinking about fun and more importantly, play. What is the power of play and why is fun so freaking important to people? I did a little research and get this, it turns out that play is as important as sleep. Read that again. What?? It’s true. We’re biologically programmed to play. It supports memory, creativity, reduces stress, and builds trust and safety between individuals and within groups. A playful brain is a happy soul. And we’re talking about play that is not driven by a purpose; it’s simply the act for the act’s sake. In his work on play, Stuart Brown says that if its purpose is more important than the simple act, it’s probably not play. He also says that the opposite of play is not work but depression. Yikes. (Check out his talk on TED). Folks this is huge. Play is not simply fun, it’s kind of essential to almost everything we do! Read more…