by Lisa Forbes

I’m sitting here trying to think about how to write this blog without coming off too dramatic. However, I can’t figure out how to do that when talking about the book Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown because it’s that good. If you are a playful person or think you might be a playful person or just lost it somewhere along the way, read this book and it will all come rushing back. 

This book isn’t geared directly toward play in education, although he touches on it. This book describes play and the vitality of it within every facet of our lives. If you read this book and aren’t inspired when you put it down, there’s seriously something dead inside of you. (There’s the drama). It will make you approach your job, your parenting, your relationships, everything, from a new perspective. 

You just have to read this book to see for yourself but here are just a few benefits of play that Dr. Brown lays out (these aren’t infinite!):

• It enlivens us and erases our burdens
• Opens us up to new possibilities
• Generates creativity and innovation
• Makes us a fulfilled human
• Vital to sustaining relationships
• Lifts us out of the mundane
• Make us more productive and happier
• Experience diminished consciousness of self
• Allows us to be fully in the moment
• Gives us a different perspective
• Acquisition of new skills and knowledge
• Make new cognitive connections
• Learning is enhanced by play
• Memory lasts longer when learned in play
• Allows for multiple centers of perception
• Gives us emotional distance to tackle hard things
• Increase efficacy and productivity

See the quotes below from Stuart Brown and also check out his website The National Institute for Play.

“If we stop playing, our behavior becomes fixed. We are not interested in new and different things.” 

“When we stop playing, we start dying.” 

“Play isn’t the enemy of learning, it’s learning’s partner. Play is like fertilizer for brain growth. It’s crazy not to use it. As we grow older we are taught that learning should be serious, that subjects are complicated. Serious subjects require serious study, we are told, play only trivializes them. Sometimes the best way to get the feel of a complicated subject is to play with it.”