5 Reasons We Should Embrace Playing As Adults
At some point in our childhood, we all came in from playing outside with our friends and didn’t realize that that would be the last time we would ever play outside with them. It is a sad thought, but it is the truth.
As we grew up, we stopped playing and didn’t even realize how much of an impact play had on our lives. Everybody benefits from playing in a myriad of ways, even as adults, and it is time that we all started playing again.
Here are some of the reasons that even as an adult, you should be playing as much as possible.
Stress Relief
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Perhaps one of the most obvious benefits of play as an adult is stress relief. When you are engaged in play, it is likely that you will not be thinking about other, more stressful situations that are going on in your life.
If you are going through a particularly stressful time in your life, a little play could help you calm down and relax your mind enough to find new solutions and ways of doing things that haven’t been tried before.
Brain Power
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We know that it is beneficial for a child’s brain function to engage in all types of play, but those benefits do not dissipate after you have reached adulthood. Playing is still an excellent way to stimulate your brain.
Playing games of chess and other such games is an excellent way to give your brain a workout and ensure that your memory stays sharp as you age, but simply engaging in imaginative play is also beneficial.
Energy
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It might seem counterintuitive that expending your energy during play would improve your energy levels, but it is one of the benefits of playing and one of my favorite ones at that. Getting energy from simply having fun is a win in any situation.
Play improves our energy levels because it will remind us of all of the things that we love to do, and thinking about these will ensure that we feel revitalized and full of energy at all times.
Social Skills
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As children, playing helps us develop our social skills and make friends healthily and safely. You might think that you don’t need this benefit of play as an adult, but you do still need it, and it will benefit you at any stage of life.
When you get older, you no longer need to develop social skills, but you do need to hone them to assist you in building and maintaining new friendships that you have not had since you were a child.
Healing
Even if you had one of the best childhoods that anybody can think of, you would likely have some sort of trauma from your childhood that you will need to heal from and that you may have been ignoring up until now.
Playing is an excellent way to ensure that you heal without putting in too much work. It might not even feel like you are doing the healing work while you are playing, but you will be, and you will notice the changes slowly over time.