Laughter, play and joy are the best medicine

Playfulness enhances the capacity to innovate, adapt and master changing circumstances.  It can show us a way out of our problems.
Stuart Brown, National Institute for Play

This week in our exploration of The Healthy Mind Platter I have chosen my favourite platter – Play – the joy of experimenting with life.

I love this platter because it means fun, laughter and joy to me.  Just think about how you feel after a really good belly laugh when you have enjoyed some fun time with your friends.  It can be almost euphoric.  Your body and mind feel light and happy and you feel trouble-free.  Your problems and the angsts of living in this world disappear for a bit.

You will be pleased to know that neuroscientists are discovering the value in play for our minds. Research reveals that play-joy is a basic emotional system and essential in child development and adult creativity and learning (Panksepp & Biven, 2012). 

Play-joy stimulates the reward centres of the brain releasing dopamine, which facilitates the establishment and consolidation of new neuronal pathways (creativity) and memory (lasting connections).

The elements of play are 

• Play Is Self-Chosen and Self-Directed.  You want to do it rather than feeling you are obligated to do it.
• Play is intrinsically motivated—means are more valued than ends. It’s not goal driven. The journey is more important than the destination.
• Play is guided by mental rules, but the rules leave room for creativity.  There is an element of spontaneity with the activity.
• Play is imaginative.
• Play is conducted in an alert, active, but relatively non-stressed frame of mind.

Every-day life can be very serious with lots of decisions that need to be made to achieve what you want and dream for your life.  Sometimes life poses challenging events too.  Play-joy offers another way of lessening the seriousness of it all as well as helps us to be resilient.

At another difficult point in my life, when my marriage became untenable, I discovered Laughter Yoga.  No, we don’t stand in poses and laugh!  We use laughter as an exercise for a prolonged period.  Laughter yoga is based on the belief that voluntary laughter provides the same physiological and psychological benefits as spontaneous laughter. Laughter yoga is done in groups, with eye contact and playfulness between participants. Forced laughter soon turns into real and contagious laughter.

The practice of Laughter Yoga helped me cope with the difficult emotions that come with a long-term precious relationship breakdown.  After a session of Laughter Yoga, I felt some ease with the pain of losing a loving relationship, the sense of failure and the dislocation for my daughter and me.  It didn’t mean the pain disappeared.  It just meant that I could deal with it and function.  The solutions to my problems appeared more easily to me.

So, I would encourage you not to see play-joy as frivolous or a waste of time but see it as essential to deal with the demands of life as well as an opportunity to practice spontaneous and novel motor and social skills that will allow you to laugh at your present saber tooth tigers.

Laughter, play and joy are definitely the best medicine for mind and body.

Find what play-joy you like and practice it regularly.  If you don’t know what to choose, I can recommend finding a Laughter Yoga Club near you.  You will definitely find me laughing for no reason somewhere most weeks. http://laughterclubsqld.com.au/

Remember all of this and much, much more is provided in my Women’s Empowerment and Leadership Program.  The next program is on 10th and 11th May, 2018.