Can laughter and playfulness be the missing links to a healthier, stress-free life? Join us as we explore this idea in a captivating conversation where we delve into the profound impact of play on our emotional well-being. Drawing personal experiences and insights from a compelling author, we challenge traditional health and fitness paradigms that often overlook the importance of fun. Discover how engaging in purposeless, playful activities can rejuvenate your spirit and alleviate stress, bringing a much-needed sense of freedom and joy to your daily life.
But our exploration of fun doesn't stop there! We also take a nostalgic journey through the whimsical worlds of teen shows and campy 80s horror. These genres offer a delightful escape from the mundane realities of adulthood, providing endless opportunities for laughter and creativity. Embrace the silliness, indulge in the cheesy charm, and let yourself be inspired by the vibrant playfulness of these entertaining escapes. By the end of this episode, you'll be ready to add a splash of color to your routine and rediscover the joy of being playful, no matter your age.
Can laughter and playfulness be the missing links to a healthier, stress-free life? Join us as we explore this idea in a captivating conversation where we delve into the profound impact of play on our emotional well-being. Drawing personal experiences and insights from a compelling author, we challenge traditional health and fitness paradigms that often overlook the importance of fun. Discover how engaging in purposeless, playful activities can rejuvenate your spirit and alleviate stress, bringing a much-needed sense of freedom and joy to your daily life.
But our exploration of fun doesn't stop there! We also take a nostalgic journey through the whimsical worlds of teen shows and campy 80s horror. These genres offer a delightful escape from the mundane realities of adulthood, providing endless opportunities for laughter and creativity. Embrace the silliness, indulge in the cheesy charm, and let yourself be inspired by the vibrant playfulness of these entertaining escapes. By the end of this episode, you'll be ready to add a splash of color to your routine and rediscover the joy of being playful, no matter your age.
Hello everyone, I wanted to chat about play today, and this is important, so please hear me out, because I know a lot of the times, the tangible, actionable type things like hey, this is how you lose five pounds, do X, do Y, do Z, and you will get the results. And let me tell you, the longer that I've been in the health and fitness space and I've been navigating my own journey, the things that we often don't see and can't put numbers to or data to is often the most overlooked and the most important. The most overlooked and the most important. And two of those I will say is stress and play. Now, stress could be a whole other podcast episode, because stress isn't just worry, stress, there's just stressors and stress in general that comes into our lives and again, it's not tangible. A perfect example of this would be maybe you know someone, or this has been you. You go into the hospital because your heart is racing, it's pounding, you feel like you're having a heart attack. You don't know what's wrong with you, or maybe you have some other weird symptom. Right, you've been really stressed out, you're feeling run down. You go to the hospital, you go to the ER. They run tests, blood work, all the numbers are normal, right, explain this. I don't think I think more data is coming out to support this, but I just don't think there's enough science, science-y, official published medication or published published studies, I guess, is what I'm trying to say about this, because they can't really attach a numerical value to it, so they can't scientifically prove it, but it is there. That's stress, 100% stress. When you, when you go to the hospital and you're having these weird symptoms that manifest, but everything shows up, quote-unquote, normal. That's stress, okay.
Speaker 1:
Well, and and we're gonna talk about this in the aspect of play, all right, and where this stemmed from was I was actually listening to a podcast today and it really wasn't about play. Like the whole thing wasn't about play, but the guy he wrote a book about it and he was chatting and the way he said it, it just automatically clicked with me. He was saying that he was so anxious and sick he did not want to talk to people. He felt outside of himself, outside of his body. He was trying everything, he did everything, perfectly. He did, you know, all the juices, all the cleanses, all the, everything that needed to be done, and he still felt the same. And he read a book on play and he was like, oh, he's like, this has been missing from my life, like having fun and playing. And when he started to incorporate that into his everyday life, his symptoms magically went away.
Speaker 1:
Now, I'm not going to say this is the case for everybody, but, just like you know, drinking enough water will definitely help, whatever situation you have. If you're only drinking like 10 ounces a day and you start drinking like 40 or 50. That's the same with play like it can't hurt to have fun, right. Um, that's the same with play, like it can't hurt to have fun, right. Okay, so, and I will say that I was in this space as well Um, for many reasons, when I was going through my thyroid thing, which was definitely it was more an effect of my thyroid, but I felt the same way, um, miserable, did not want to be around people I was so anxious, I thought the world was going to end.
Speaker 1:
I thought my husband was going to die in a car crash every single day. I thought I was going to die every single day, like I thought the world was just going to come to an end, like truly, like seriously. I thought it was going to happen, like right now like a feeling of impending doom. It was absolutely miserable and I believe that there's probably people in those situations that can relate and having fun helps, and when I find that I'm in a kind of drained emotional state and I just feel blah, it's like it's because we don't have fun.
Speaker 1:
Once we become adults, we take fun out of the equation. Um, I will say also I think what is associated with being fun as an adult is, uh, not good for health and fitness, right, like the only fun that's associated with adults usually is partying, drinking. So like all horrible habits, right, things that are going to leave you like waking up with a hangover, you're going to gain a ton of weight. They're bad habits for your health. They make you feel like garbage. But you know what, if we took fun, just like we went back to being a kid and had some fun, like play, where can you add play into your day? You know, it doesn't have to cost money. Maybe you and your partner just do a little game. You and your friends dance and goof off and like it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:
And I think a part of this is the reason that adults don't play is because it doesn't have a purpose in their brains you know, oh well, there's no outcome to play. You literally just play to play. But isn't that the beauty of it? The beauty of it is that we play just because there's no strings attached. There's no, you don't have to perform for anybody, there's expected outcome, you just do it. And I think that's so freeing and that kind of gave me goosebumps. Just saying that, because, I'm gonna be honest, this podcast episode just came to me and I wanted to get it out there for you guys, because I believe those are the most important ideas, the ones that just need to be said. And it's just it, the fact that we don't attach anything to it, we think it's not important, but at the same time that makes it even more important because now we could just do it, just because, and that gives us that freeing feeling.
Speaker 1:
And something that this man said in the podcast to that I think relates on a scientific level, is when we play, we're kind of subconsciously telling our bodies that we're safe. And when we're stressed, we're telling our bodies we're not safe, we're in that fight or flight mode, so we shut down. But once we play, we're safe. If we can have fun, we're safe. And I will tell you me personally after quitting my job and running my own business. It comes with its own things, but I felt trapped in a 9-5. And this isn't the case for everybody. Some people love, you know, the 9-5s, so I'm not crap-talking 9-5s, but I am saying that I personally felt trapped because I'm a creative person and I don't like being held to schedules, because the way I feel day to day differs, right, and I kind of mold my schedule to fit. That which I love I absolutely love that about my job is that each day is different and I can kind of cater my schedule to fit my needs. If I need more rest one day, that's fine. As long as I get what needs to be done tomorrow done today, that's fine. Some days I just zone in and I put my headphones on, listen to music and I get to work on really deep, creative work. But the luxury that me quitting my job has allowed me to introduce more play Taking walks in the middle of the day for me is play.
Speaker 1:
I'm out in nature, I'm watching animals. It's a great time for me. I'll actually play video games. Okay, as downtime I found that I like to work in, you know, two to four hour bursts and after that my cognitive function tends to decline and if you look at research, that's actually how humans function best in two to three hour bursts, really. But for me personally, I usually do two to four in the morning. I'll take about a two hour break in the middle of the day to eat, do something for myself, go go for a walk, play video games, whatever it needs to be, and then I will work for an additional usually three to four hours, right. So I love that, I love the flexibility of it, but I think the element of me adding in play has been keeping me going.
Speaker 1:
Now you might be going well, tina, that's all well and good, but I don't own my good. But I don't. I don't own my own business. I didn't. I don't want to quit my job. Um, how do I have more play in? You know, cause a lot of you are probably working long hours. You may be at a job you don't like, but you kind of feel like you got to stay there. Um, you know you can't leave for one reason or another. Maybe you have kids to deal with, animals to deal with, whatever it may be. You feel stuck. That doesn't mean that you can't play, because isn't it beautiful that we can just play whenever we want. Play can be created. You can pull it from yourself, right.
Speaker 1:
And I think back to when I was really really happy as a kid. And I often think about this a lot as I get older. Pretty much when I hit like 25, which I know is not old at all but when I hit 25, I started to reflect more on my childhood and try to kind of revisit. I know they say like in your 30s you kind of revisit your childhood and try to recreate things that you did as a child. And I personally I was out in nature a lot, so my, my walks are very important to me because it reminds me of that.
Speaker 1:
And um, when I was with friends, we were always just joking around and playing like I remember you know we'd play these games. We'd make up stuff. You know the floor is lava. We'd be climbing on our equipment and be like don't touch the ground. You know you gotta step on the swings because if you touch the ground it's lava. We'd make little forts out of our couch, even just jokes. We'd talk back and forth, make silly voices. We'd speak in a British accent. You know, whatever it is. We would do just weird stuff, and it was fun. I felt great, I felt alive, I had energy, and I think that's probably the element of our lives that are missing.
Speaker 1:
Right, like, where, where can you start? Maybe you just start by watching comedy. Find a comedian that makes you laugh, that you would love. Maybe a podcast, maybe stand up on Netflix, whatever. Look more into comedy. It could be something as simple as finding, like, really good TikToks or memes that really make you truly laugh. Right, maybe you go to a comedy club. Those are always fun too, and that's something fun to make you laugh. You know, aside from the laughing part, play Can you just like, maybe, start painting. You don't have to be good at it. Or you get an adult coloring book and you color for 10 minutes. Put on some good music. You're jamming out. Be silly, you know, don't hesitate in being silly.
Speaker 1:
Even when I heard this today, I will say that I was like I need to implement this right now. Even though I have play in my life, I want to make sure that I keep it there, because I think it's easy for us to drift away from play and get really serious really fast. But I was like well, wednesdays, we're trying to implement like a date night on Wednesdays to break up the week, which is a great way to have fun. Me and my husband and I told him. I said, you know, let's have some fun tonight. Like, why does it have to be a restaurant? Like can we go to Dave and Buster's, or something we love, arcades. Like can we go to Dave and Buster's? Or, you know, maybe we go to the casino, we play some games. You know, I just want something that's a little bit different, that isn't just bland and boring. That's going to be a little fun.
Speaker 1:
And I want you to think too if you're still not buying it or you're like, yeah, whatever, that's cool, tina, it's not for me. I do want you to think of the times that you do maybe have a little bit of fun and you get that rush, that rush of feeling good. You know, do you? Maybe it was when you get off of a roller coaster I love amusement parks like you get off of a thrill ride and you have that rush. Or maybe like just something happened and everybody, like started laughing and you got into whatever it was, like a silly situation and you just are laughing. You know something like that, you know you can create throughout your life. You know, through the days, through the weeks. It doesn't have to be a rare occurrence or a one-off thing. So I encourage you to think of how you can add more play For those of you with kids or who work with kids.
Speaker 1:
Look to them, look to see what they do. Kids are amazing with play. Humans are actually meant to be playful creatures. We're the most playful creatures. We're so playful when we're kids but, like, for some reason, I say it's the human world. You know, our world recreated. We kind of just for some reason took it out. Once you become an adult, it's like bye, no, like. Look at kid shows compared to adult shows. Bye, no, like. Look at kid shows compared to adult shows.
Speaker 1:
You know I've watched kid shows, not like little kid shows, but I've watched like teen shows because they're fun. You know they're fun. They're all about fun and color and creativity and it's like when we become an adult, everything becomes serious. That's actually why I like for horror. I actually like campy 80s horror where it's cheesy, versus modern horror, because sometimes I'm not always in the mood for like dark, serious horror. The thing I loved about the 80s horror is that it's fun, like they don't take themselves too seriously, like it's almost meant to be, like wow, did this really just happen? Because this looks fake and you laugh, and the colors, and like it's just silly. They have some fun with it. So, you know, find more ways to have fun. All right, I think that is all I have for you today. That is my message for you today Be a little silly, add a little splash of color, look to your children, look to the children around you, play, have fun. All right, and with that, have a wonderful day. Talk soon.