Lainy's Team Blog
Playing for Keeps
On Thursday night, I attended the screening of a documentary called, Playing for Keeps.
In the movie, we see the importance of play as it relates to our physical, but more importantly, our mental health. It addresses the epidemic of depression, anxiety, and stress that have plagued our country. People feel isolated, detached and lonely. They are trying to connect and unplug but they don’t know how…and yet, innately, our brains do.
Play comes from the most primitive parts of our brain. The same areas that regulate sleep, breath, hunger. Consider the three-year-olds that meet each other at the park. Do they need to be told to play? Usually, they don’t. Usually, they jump right in and within seconds the games and the laughter begin.
One woman in the film finds her joy in the unexpected, wide embrace, of a hula-hoop, another with a paddle-board, and another with her dog. Although the play is different, the result is the same: joy, peace, blissful distraction. Serotonin levels go up. Connections with nature, our pets, or other players, is formed. The science on this is clear and yet as we get older, we resist play, we do not carve out time for it.
As I heard this, I felt a sense of pride come over me, not only because I literally teach play, foster play, and generate play with our gymnastics students every single day of my life, but that I was raised in a family that has always valued play. We played card games, board games, ran outside for night games. We played in the rain and in the snow. We rode big wheels and later bikes and learned to flip on a trampoline, volley with a tennis racket, and bump a volleyball. If there were sidelines, no one in my family would be on them. We were encouraged to “get in the game,” to try something new, to dive right in. (And did I mention we could dive too?!)
And now, through Jewart’s, we get to pass this on to our students and hopefully to their families. You are never too old to play and it is perhaps the very best medicine for staying young at heart. Play is a not-so-secret key to happiness that has been right in front of us all along. So pick up a mitt, a paddle, a ball, an instrument, or even a hula-hoop. Find your passion for play and then make time for it. I promise you won’t regret it.