I was in St Albans, England, walking through the sunny park leading up to the cathedral, when I saw a small boy rolling down the hill in the grass. I felt something unexpected: jealousy. I wish that were me. Followed immediately by a second thought: Why couldn’t it be?
I could, in theory, roll down that hill. But at what expense? Dirtying my clothes? Looking like a lunatic? In about three seconds, the case was closed. I kept walking.
What unsettled me wasn’t that I didn’t do it but rather how fast I didn’t, how automatic the verdict was. I was no longer someone for whom rolling down a hill was even an option.
Somewhere along the way, I, like many adults, became so aware of how others might perceive me that I stopped allowing myself to play freely. The problem is that play isn’t frivolous — and by denying playful impulses, I could be holding myself back.
Play is not just for kids
Neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp found that the desire to play isn’t a behavior we learn or a phase we’re destined to grow out of. It’s one of seven core emotional systems hardwired into the brains of all mammals, and engaging it is essential for healthy development.
While play might seem frivolous, underneath the fun of running, pretending, and tumbling down hills, something serious is happening. Play is how children rehearse skills they may need as adults. It teaches the developing brain how to navigate social hierarchies, manage stress, and regulate emotions.
Employees who bring a playful orientation to work are measurably more creative, and athletes who introduce playfulness into their training experience more flow.
When researcher Stuart Brown studied adults who were deprived of play as children, he found they had “virtually omnipresent emotional dysregulation” — this manifested as trouble developing healthy relationships, higher rates of addiction, and a sense of rigidity about themselves. When life changed around them, they struggled to imagine how they might adapt.
But play isn’t just a powerful force during childhood — making time for it as an adult can help you excel at other, more serious pursuits. Employees who bring a playful orientation to work are measurably more creative, and athletes who introduce playfulness into their training experience more flow. Both groups tend to perform better in their chosen fields.
Different domains, same pattern: A playful attitude helps bring out the best in people.
Why is play powerful?
Had the park been empty, there’s a much higher chance that I would have indulged my desire to roll down the hill. I could always wash my clothes. What deterred me was the thought that other people would judge me negatively.
This is an example of self-monitoring — the act of evaluating and adjusting your behavior based on how you think others perceive you. In small doses, it functions as a useful social compass. In large doses, it becomes a cage. A 2019 study determined that people who are high in self-monitoring performed significantly worse on cognitive tasks. The mental energy spent managing their image left less energy for the task itself.
When we’re playful, our attention shifts away from how we are doing and toward what we are doing.
Conversely, according to research by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, when people are absorbed in an activity for its own sake — a state he called “flow” — self-consciousness falls away.
Play is one of the most reliable ways to achieve flow. When we’re playful, our attention shifts away from how we are doing and toward what we are doing.
You may have experienced this yourself. When you overthink what to say in a meeting, worried about what others will think of you, the words come out stiff and wrong. The moment the pressure lifts and you start to let yourself have fun, they start flowing again.
Bring back play
When adults decide they want more play in their lives, their first instinct may be to book a pottery class or sign up for flag football. But play has almost nothing to do with what you’re doing — the same activity can be play for one person and quiet suffering for another.
A musician rehearsing anxiously for a performance is not playing. The same musician losing track of time improvising in their kitchen is. The difference is the internal orientation.
The most playful adults don’t have a separate “play time” carved out in their schedules — they let it leak into everything.
The key to play is what psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan call intrinsic motivation: doing something because the activity itself is the reward. In contrast, when motivation is extrinsic — and the activity becomes a means to an end, like getting a grade or approval — your brain shifts into evaluation mode, and you’re no longer playing.
The most playful adults don’t have a separate “play time” carved out in their schedules. They let it leak into everything: the way they run a meeting, approach a problem, or have a conversation. It’s not about what they’re doing. It’s the orientation they bring to it — curiosity instead of approval.
In practice, that can look like saying the thing you’d normally keep to yourself. Taking a different route home. Ordering something on the menu you’d normally scroll past.
Or, if you get the impulse, rolling down the hill.
This article The hidden cost of taking yourself too seriously is featured on Big Think.
