3 ways to build in play (as resistance) to a busy academic life

Pretending to be all chill about trying a new thing (Image description: Vicki and a surf board on Fistral Beach)

I don't play. Let me rephrase - I officially don't like playing. I never have. The only game I enjoyed as a kid was 'schools'. I wasn't narcissistically desperate to be the teacher, quite the opposite. I wanted to be set work to do. I understood how to be good at school. I knew how to navigate the comings and going of the day. The rules made sense in my (probably quite neurodiverse) brain. I liked the order and structure. I could 'settle in' to the task safe in the knowledge that I was doing the 'right' thing. No energy or confidence or social skills needed for informal interaction. I found that exhausting. So play was also exhausting. With its pointlessness and lack of clarity. This didn't change much as I sought to excel at school, college, university and then work. Overachieving beats playing every day of the week, right?

Fast forward about 30 years and i'm just about coming out the other side of decades of chronic stress causing my nervous system to be in constant fight or flight and ultimately causing a big fat episode of burnout (on which more another time). After much reflection, slowing down, therapy, kindness and a renewed (found?) ability to listen to, and respect my body and myself, I have somewhat changed my mind. Note to a friend: there is nothing like being forced to stop and rest to catapult a chronic over-worker into a Demon Face Off. Once I came to make my peace with the pesky demons, I found myself earlier this year face to face with another realisation. Apart from rest, maybe there needs to be joy. Not the hedonistic time (level, completed!) but the small, everyday fun type. Perhaps, playing is a good, worthwhile, brilliant thing. What if the apparent painlessness is the point? Horror!!

So this summer I tried something new, and playful. Something I didn't understand; probably wouldn't be very good at (correct!); but might enjoy (also, shockingly, correct!). Surfing. It turns out that being absolutely terrible at something and allowing myself to laugh and fall into the sea looking ridiculous a million times, was a tonic. Not only did I stop thinking about absolutely everything else except "will I drown in this wave?" , but I also laughed. A lot! And I know it might seem obvious to many, but to me the idea that there is something beyond stopping, beyond rest, that didn't have any real 'point', but would turn out to be fun for me, is a revelation. Don't get me wrong, I know how to have fun. But I think I learned this really involves usually eating or drinking out with friends or something similar. And most of those things don't end up adding to you wellbeing the day after.

Its this idea of play, as something slightly different from fun, something beyond rest, that has really struck me. I have come to realise something about its pointlessness is the point. As soon as it becomes something with a structure and achievements around it it ceases to be play. I reflected also on my journey with Yoga, which started off as play and fun, then became a pretty lifesaving mental health journey with a really deep spiritual connection for me. During my burnout phase I did my Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) with the most wonderful group of humans and it healed part of my soul. But in coming YTT qualified, I then didn't actually teach, because I wasn't as good as my teachers (obviously!!) so I was afraid to be bad at it. Somehow it turned from fun and play to a different way to over-achieve. Its taken me a couple of years to wrestle my personal practice back from these particularly shapeshifty demons.

Of course this idea about play isn't new. Now I ask them a lot of my parents-friends have been (re)introduced to play sooner than those of us who are child free. But it is important. In the US the National Institute for Play did a big review, led by its founder Dr Stuart Brown, which highlights that play reduces stress, enhances creativity, fosters emotional resilience. Their study also found that in flow state, where we are intrinsically motivated the activities we do can help us understand our strengths and talents. In fact the definition of play NIP use, relates to getting into this 'flow state'. So its not about completing an activity, but totally forgetting everything except what you are totally engaged in at the present moment. Who knew? Well, Stuart and his team did. But this tallies with my own experience out on the waves, trying not to drown: I was 100% not thinking about the book I was not writing.

Yogi the Dog is expert at the art of playing [Image description: kicking a ball for the dog on the beach at sunset}

There is also an aspect of play that is less often discussed. Following the wonderful work of the Nap Ministry, and in particular Rest is Resistance (highly recommended) by its founder Tricia Hersey, play too - I think - is resistance. Refusal to ignore the calls of our bodies and minds for play and joy is a rejection of the Late Capitalist Culture's call for us to work, rest to work, and then work again. Choosing play can be a powerful political means to reject striving. Now, I'm down for that.

I tried to build some playtime into the rest of my trip to lovely Cornwall. The dog was happy.

But summers end, and term starts again, and the real question is how can I build play into my everyday, busy academic life? And, desperate not to let go of what i've learned, I've come up with these three things to try. I'm going to give it a go. Perhaps you'd like to too? I'd love to hear from you how they work for you or any others tips and tricks that work?

Five Optimistic Tips to Build Play into a busy Academic Life

1. Know what play is , and what it is not

   So the first big thing is to know when you are playing or you have played. A couple of years ago we put in a 'moonshot' bid to the Lego Foundation and almost got $15m. (Here is the awesome gang that won.) I like Lego's eir understanding of the characteristics of play: that is should be meaningful, joyful, socially interactive, iterative and actively engaging. But actually I prefer something less hard to understand. I am playing when I am not working, resting, consuming or sad (or miserably managing my mental health). I have decided that I playing when I'm doing an activity for the sake of it. I have also decided that play does not involve screens.

   
   

2. Allow for micro playtime and intentional playtime

   Second for me is not to expect playtime to be a huge extra thing to add to an already bulging to-do list. Lots of people build playful ideas into their research and teaching and that can be great. But for me that is enjoyable work, not play. So micro playtime can to be as short at 5 or 15 minutes. Things I have so far tried include: chasing the dog around (fun), playing cards (not that fun on my own), trying to draw (surprising fun, unsurprisingly bad at it), singing along to albums I used to love (why did I ever not do this!). I am also trying to think about when in my day play could happen. Its also - for me - about not saying no when people (usually my wife) ask me if I want to play. That's not quite the same as scheduling it, but I am trying to be intentional about play in my life.

3. Record how this feels (before and after)

   Journalling has been one of the most powerful tools in my own personal growth. You can get all the advice, listen to all the clever people, read all the blogs, but ultimately you are the expert on you. For me this has meant getting to really listen to how I feel. What is the reticence to playing before it? How did it feel to do it? How do I feel after (almost always lighter). Next time the natural instinct to say no to play comes up, might I remember a little bit more of the truth: play helps me feel better. Ultimately that is all we are all trying to do, most of the time, right? Well, and maybe make the world a tiny bit better too.

   
   

   Have fun!