Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul [Hardcover]

Stuart Brown (Author), Christopher Vaughan (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 5, 2009 | ISBN-10: 1583333339 | ISBN-13: 978-1583333334 | Edition: 1

From a leading expert, a groundbreaking book on the science of play, and its essential role in fueling our intelligence and happiness throughout our lives.

We’ve all seen the happiness in the face of a child while playing in the school yard. Or the blissful abandon of a golden retriever racing with glee across a lawn. This is the joy of play. By definition, play is purposeless and all-consuming. And, most important, it’s fun.

As we become adults, taking time to play feels like a guilty pleasure—a distraction from “real” work and life. But as Dr. Stuart Brown illustrates, play is anything but trivial. It is a biological drive as integral to our health as sleep or nutrition. In fact, our ability to play throughout life is the single most important factor in determining our success and happiness.

Dr. Brown has spent his career studying animal behavior and conducting more than six thousand “play histories” of humans from all walks of life—from serial murderers to Nobel Prize winners. Backed by the latest research, Play explains why play is essential to our social skills, adaptability, intelligence, creativity, ability to problem solve, and more. Play is hardwired into our brains—it is the mechanism by which we become resilient, smart, and adaptable people.

Beyond play’s role in our personal fulfillment, its benefits have profound implications for child development and the way we parent, education and social policy, business innovation, productivity, and even the future of our society. From new research suggesting the direct role of three-dimensional-object play in shaping our brains to animal studies showing the startling effects of the lack of play, Brown provides a sweeping look at the latest breakthroughs in our understanding of the importance of this behavior. A fascinating blend of cutting-edge neuroscience, biology, psychology, social science, and inspiring human stories of the transformative power of play, this book proves why play just might be the most important work we can ever do.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An Interview with Dr. Stuart Brown, MD

Q: How do you know play is important to both adults and children?

Dr. Brown: In my career I have reviewed more than 6000 life histories, looking specifically at a person’s play experiences over his or her life. In studying these histories it has become vividly apparent that play is enormously significant for both children and adults. I began thinking about the role of play in our lives while conducting a detailed study of homicidal males in Texas. What I discovered was severe play deprivation in the lives of these murderers. When I later studied highly creative and successful individuals, there was a stark contrast. Highly successful people have a rich play life. It is also established that play affects mental and physical health for both adults and children. A severely play deprived child demonstrates multiple dysfunctional symptoms-- the evidence continues to accumulate that the learning of emotional control, social competency, personal resiliency and continuing curiosity plus other life benefits accrue largely through rich developmentally appropriate play experiences. Likewise, an adult who has “lost” what was a playful youth and doesn’t play will demonstrate social, emotional and cognitive narrowing, be less able to handle stress, and often experience a smoldering depression. From an evolutionary point of view, research suggests that play is a biological necessity. There is evidence that suggests the forces that initiate play lie in the ancient survival centers of the brain--the brain stem--where other anciently preserved survival capacities also reside. In other words, play is a basic biological necessity that has survived through the evolution of the brain. And necessity=importance. But one of the strongest arguments for the importance of play is how strongly we identify ourselves through our play behavior. Just look at the eloquent memories of 9-11 victims the New York Times published. The headlines—the summation of a life---were lines like “A Spitball-Shooting Executive,” a “Lover of Laughter.” Play is who we are.

Q: What are the areas of our culture most in need of “play hygiene?”

Dr. Brown: Most adults have “forgotten” what it was like to engage in free play when they were kids. And truthfully, they may have not had much experience with free play when they were young. Beginning in preschool, the natural mayhem that 3-5 year olds engage in (normal rough and tumble play) is usually suppressed by a well meaning preschool teacher and parents who prefer quiet and order to the seeming chaos that is typical of free childhood play. We need adequate play hygiene in preschools so that both parents and preschool teachers recognize the difference between dangerous out of control boundary-less anarchy, and normal play-- diving, screaming, chasing, even some punching. When there are smiles and continuing friendships, rambunctious play is healthy. The awareness on the part of parents and teachers of the value of free child-organized--meaning lightly supervised--play for elementary school children at recess is another area where greater insight about play hygiene is needed. Play should also be used with teachers in their classroom, and by parents when they help their child with homework. Learning should not be drudgery. Play promotes true intellectual curiously. It has been shown to increase lifetime performance, just as adequate recess time leads to increased long term academic accomplishments. Also, parents need to control their anxieties about maximizing every minute of their child or young adult’s time to increase their competitiveness and performance so that their college resumes will be strong. With every moment scripted by adult ambitions for them, kids cannot become naturally attuned to their innate talents.

Q: How can a review of one’s own life history of their play help?

Dr. Brown: If adults can begin to reminisce about their happiest and most memorable moments, they can capture the emotion and visual memories of those moments and begin to connect again to what truly excites them in life. Generally, a person’s purest emotional profile—temperament, talents, passions-- is reflected in positive play experiences from childhood. If you can understand your own emotional profile when it was in its purest form, you can begin to apply it to your adult life. Going through this process may encourage someone to give serious consideration to shifting to another job that may bring them more joy, or to infuse their current life with those elements that once brought them enlivenment but may have been left behind as they conformed to cultural stereotypes of success.

Q: If you could only cite one discovery you have made about play that continues to excite you what would it be?

Dr. Brown: It is that we, as homo sapiens, are fundamentally equipped for and need to play actively throughout our lifespan by nature’s design. While most social mammals have a life cycle that involves dominance and submissiveness (as in Chimpanzee troops or wolf packs) with play diminishing significantly as adulthood arrives, we retain the biology associated with youthfulness despite still dying of old age! By this I mean that our overall long period of childhood dependency, which is dominated by the need for play, does not end with our reaching adulthood. Our adult biology remains unique among all creatures, and our capacity for flexibility, novelty and exploration persists. If we suppress this natural design, the consequences are dire. The play-less adult becomes stereotyped, inflexible, humorless, lives without irony, loses the capacity for optimism, and generally is quicker to react to stress with violence or depression than the adult whose play life persists. In a world of major continuous change (and we are certainly facing big changes economically now) playful humans who can roll with the punches and innovate through their play-inspired imaginations will better survive. Our playful natures have arrived at this place through the trial and error of millions of years of evolution, and we need to honor our design to play.

Q: Who is your favorite player? Why?

Dr. Brown: The exuberance that is my grandson Leo makes him my current #1 play companion. His innate humor, constant curiosity, ability to make life a playground is so contagious and pure that he sweeps me away. He takes me out of a sense of time, brings me joy, engages me fully, and does so in a climate of love. But I guess I can also muse that my favorite player is God, who somehow put this marvelous divinely superfluous process into the cosmos for us to embrace.

From Publishers Weekly

Brown, a physician, psychiatrist, clinical researcher and the founder of the National Institute for Play, has made a career of studying the effects of play on people and animals. His conclusion is that play is no less important than oxygen, and that it's a powerful force in nature that helps determine the likelihood of the very survival of the human race. Having studied thousands of people's play histories, from murderers to Nobel Prize winners, Brown reveals that play is an essential way humans learn to socialize. Beginning with the very first play interactions between mother and child, and working up to adult relationships between couples and co-workers, Brown describes how play helps brain development and promotes fairness, justice and empathy. Work and play are mutually supportive, he argues, noting that play increases efficiency and productivity (playful folks, he claims, are also healthier). Sprinkled with anecdotes demonstrating the play habits of subjects as diverse as polar bears and corporate CEOs, Brown and co-writer Vaughan (The Promise of Sleep) present a compelling case for promoting play at every age. The authors include helpful tips for bringing play back into grownup lives, including being active, spending time with others who are playful and rethinking the misguided notion that adult play is silly or undignified. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Avery; 1 edition (March 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1583333339
• ISBN-13: 978-1583333334
• Product Dimensions: 5.7 x 0.9 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #79,192 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 60 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Play is the key to a successful life March 5, 2009

By YUKARI VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This is one of the best books I have read recently. If I could give more than 5 stars, I would!
I've always believed "play" is the key to a successful life. The successful people I know enjoy playing( including my husband who is "the Kinesthete", "The Explorer", "The Collector", "The Artist/Creator", and "The Storyteller" according to Dr. Brown's play personality) even though they are busier than average Americans. On the other hand, the people who have rigid attitude towards "play" (they even make family members feel guilty about it!) are not as successful as above, even though they "earned highest grades at the best schools". This contrast becomes even more prominent when we become middle age. People who enjoy playing are not only more successful, but also happier.

Dr. Brown explains why this "'nonproductive activity can make one enormously more productive and invigorated in other aspects of life" with scientific evidence and full of interesting anecdotes. It will persuade you not to feel guilty pursuing your dream or enjoying your life because it will make you and your kids more successful and happier.

44 of 49 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Very little new information for a popular science book. April 9, 2010

By Inon Zukerman

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I've got some mixed feelings about this one. The basic premise of the book is a very interesting one, as the subtitle says it discusses "how play shapes the brain, open the imagination and invigorates the soul". The author, Dr. Stuart Brown, is the founder of the National Institute for Play and seems like a prominent researcher in that field. The book is divided into two parts: part one "Why Play?" and part two "Living a Playful Life" and is well written, fluent, and easy to follow.

However, the main problem of the book, at least for me, is that most of the information in the book seems like typical common knowledge that I've already saw and read before in other places: newspapers, parenthood magazines, popular TV shows, etc. For example of so called common knowledge I can give the importance of cubs play in the animal kingdom to the development of hunting skills or social status. In addition, as the definition of "play" in the book is an extremely general one, basically almost every day activity, under some assumptions, can be classified as "play". As such the author can interpret almost every behavior as play and arrive to various conclusions.

Another problem is that the book feels at times, especially while reading part two, as a regular "live better" or "personal enlightenment" type of reading which describes simplified insights like that it is better if your daily work resembles a play (with the typical examples such as a doctor who started to bake breads as an hobby to eventually quitting his job at the hospital to develop his bread business). I guess we all know it, but I expected the book to present a more scientific insights to that common knowledge, but couldn't find any.

One thing that was indeed interesting but not well developed is the part of "play personality". That was a very interesting theory, even though the author itself say that it is just his theory and other researchers can preach to different classification. This part actually left me wanting more information and some further implications (e.g., what does it say about your personality in general? What kind of players each personality should be paired with?). I think that future research in that direction should be a very interesting one, and I will sure want to read a book that goes into depth in that direction.

To sum up, I would say that the author, probably as a consequence of trying to make the book very accessible, ended up with a kind of a story-telling, self-enlightening book instead of a "popular science" one. Most of the information is probably already known to most readers, while there are not allot of discussions about the science of play as one would expect from the title.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent! - Ideas everyone should follow May 29, 2009

By Sarpanitum

Format:Hardcover

Brown & Vaughn have written an excellent book. While it is fairly light reading it provides plenty of references for the value of play for those who require the reinforcement of rigorous studies. It provided many good suggestions for those who want to integrate more play into their lives. It also showed how upset "serious" people can get about this foreign notion that play is good for you. So read it for yourself and don't tell the "serious" people what you're doing!