Consider This Your Reminder to Play

It’s summer. At least it is where I am, here in the Northern Hemisphere.

And I’m here to remind you to play.

“Play”, you say? What do you mean Amy?

As adults, we often forget to play. We forget to laugh, and have fun, let loose, and just PLAY! We get stuck in the rat race of work, sleep, work again, and just forget to stop and have fun!

For me, I see summer as a wonderful time to remember how to play- the warmer weather & kids home from school. Pools, lakes & oceans begging us to come and cool off and swim in their cool waters. People come out of their houses and take day trips, and have picnics in parks. What’s not to love about all that?

Maybe you have a hard time pausing. I get it. Pausing can be hard when it might guide you to think about stuff that maybe you’ve been trying to put out of your mind. Or- maybe you just like to feel like you’re “getting stuff done” so you just keep running on that hamster wheel and don’t know how to get off.

But here’s the thing. I’ve got a secret for you.

Taking time to pause, rest, and play could actually make you MORE productive! When we take time off of work, and we remember how to play, we are actually giving our brain time for a reset. A time for our brain to stop thinking for a while and just BE. After all, we are Human BEINGS, and not Human DOINGS after all- lol.

Connecting with ourselves (time alone) or with other people (NOT SCREENS!) can help us to remember what it means to be a Human Being. It can help us to remember how FUN it is to share ideas, create games, use our imagination, play, and laugh!

I’m lucky in some respects, since I get to play as part of my job with kids, but I also am doing my best to remember to play outside of work too! Finding time to go in the pool with my kids, play with my cats, rest in the sunshine, or read a magazine are all types of play that I currently enjoy. And of course, any type of movement can be a great form of play, although I am currently limited by my still-healing knee injury. For all of you who have freedom of movement, however, I urge you to add that into your “ways to play” list.

Listen, like I said at the beginning, I’m just here to remind you to play.

Just as the Nike logo states- JUST DO IT!