The Importance of Play

Over the last 50 years, children have lost a great deal of their free time for self-directed play and free time. Psychology researcher Peter Gray from Boston College has studied this cultural shift in the U.S., and is an advocate for the benefits of play. Gray has written, "Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life".

I can remember spending many summers swimming, playing with my neighborhood friends, and riding my bike until dark. Those are some of my fondest memories. In the 1960's, most American neighborhoods were full of children outside, engaged happily playing. Over the last 50 years, fewer children are outside, and more parents have children involved in structured after school activities, sports, and lessons.

The school day and school year is longer. Homework is more intense, even in the very early grades. There is pressure on children and teens to build their resumes, rather than "waste" time with friends.

Many parents are fearful about having children play in the neighborhood. Safety concerns have trumped the need for free play. Most American children have lost the chance to play at something creative that doesn't involve adults or uniforms.

Play, according to Gray's research, is a biological and evolutionary need. Most animals play as babies. They learn about the world this way, as well as develop muscle strength and agility, social skills, and risk taking ability.

Virtually all cultures have their young learn and develop through play.

Gray has identified higher levels of anxiety and depression in children who don't get enough free play. I have a number of children I've seen for child counseling who long for more unstructured free time. Children and teens can get stressed. They need to relax with play frequently for optimum mental health.

Parents need to not over plan and over schedule. While some structure is good for children, such as bedtime and meal times, too much structure is overkill. Remember that for most children, the amount of time they have during the school day to free play--- recesses and lunch--- have been cut way back from what we experienced growing up.

Adults also need to play. Having a hobby that you can lose yourself in is good for us. There is a natural, hypnotic state that our mind goes to when we are playing with gardening, art, hiking, baking, or any other activity we love.

I like to see couples cultivate joint play activities into their relationship also. It's important for couples and families to play together. With couples, playing together elevated the relationship from all business and task-sharing, and helps you associate your partner with play and joy.

When I am counseling families who are healing from loss or trauma, I often want them to begin to play again. This signals to the children that life is not over, and that there will be happier times ahead, despite the death of a family member or the loss of divorce.

Play needs to be taken more seriously. Summer is a perfect time to start building some free time for play in your life, and seeing that the young people in your life get time to create self-directed play as well. Play helps us be happier, more relaxed, self-directed, and less moody. Let's play!

What is Your Health Legacy?

I spent a weekend in June learning from Daniel Amen, MD, Daniel Siegel, MD, Mark Hyman, MD,  Tana Amen, RN and a variety of other mental health, physical health, wellness and fitness experts at "Brain and Body Turnaround". The conference got me thinking about how much we each need to take responsibility for our health, and the patterns we are modeling for our children and grandchildren.

Dr. Amen is a neurologist and psychiatrist who founded the Amen Clinics, where he is well-known for using brain scans to help identify certain kinds of physical and mental illness, and his studies show the impact of improved health habits on brain functioning. Dr. Siegel is a UCLA child psychiatrist and leading expert and researcher in mindfulness.

We each inherit certain genetic predispositions, but we can take control for doing our best to manage our moods and not trigger health problems. We all have choices about our thinking, the food we eat, having good sleep habits, and whether or not we exercise. I enjoyed the conference because it focused on getting past excuses and making some small changes. Even a few changes, like adding in a daily walk, can have a huge impact on your physical and mental wellness.

Each of us has to decide what health legacy we want to leave behind us. Our life is our message. It is more powerful than whatever you could say to your children.

Do you want younger family members to see you actively engaged in learning new things, practicing mindfulness, forgiving others and yourself, making repairs to tense relationships when you can? I always admire people who continuously seek personal growth and deeper relationships, as opposed to sliding by in quiet desperation or complaints. Taking action to make relationships stronger and more satisfying is a sign of mental wellness. I have had clients into their 80's and beyond who are working hard on making a relationship better, or making a life adjustment successful. I love to see that kind of open-minded aging.

Many mental health concerns, such as anxiety and depression are helped greatly by daily moderate exercise. I routinely ask about how much my clients are exercising, which can help ease both anxiety and depression symptoms.

Working with your own automatic negative thoughts daily and learning to counter them is critically important. Each of us is vulnerable to sometimes using black and white thinking, emotional reasoning, mind-reading, personalization and other thought errors which can make us feel worse if we don't trash them daily. You may want to write them out, counter them and rip them up!

Taking responsibility for what we eat and the exercise we get daily is also an aspect of optimal wellness. Reducing or eliminating sugars, for example can help us avoid weight gain and stabilize mood.

We want to avoid a "victim" mentality about our health and genetic risk factors. We want to think of our doctors as consultants, not our fathers or mothers. It is healthy to ask questions and get second opinions. I noticed years ago when I helped lead an arthritis support group for a local hospital, how much better patients did when they were active in the treatment, educated about options, and physically active and cooperative with dietary changes.

As we age, we need to make a decision if we want to  take responsibility for staying as active, healthy and vital as we can as long as we can. What helps?

1. Exercise daily. Start slowly if you haven't been active, and get your doctor's approval.

2. Limit or eliminate sugars, energy drinks, and soda. Limit alcohol use, too.

3. Eat more fruits and vegetables.

4. Keep your weight in the right range, with a BMI under 25. Overweight is considered a BMI of 25-29.9, while obesity begins at a BMI of 30. Obesity increases risk for Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, some cancers, sleep apnea, stroke, osteoarthritis and other diseases.

5. Drink more water.

6. Consider going organic with your produce to avoid pesticides.

6. Develop good sleep habits. Limit caffeine after noon, set a routine wind down time, sleep time and waking hour. Turn off technology (television, computer, ipad, cell, etc.) an hour before bed as the light is activating for your brain.

7. Keep learning new things.

8. Practice quieting your mind with gardening, needlework, reading, meditation, prayer, silence, listening to music, or guided imagery daily. This will help you manage your moods better.

9. Don't believe every stupid negative thought you have. Sweep them out daily.

10. Stay open to building and developing your friendships and your love relationship to be genuine, mutually supportive and honest. Spend time with people you care about.

11. Help others. Find a way to contribute to the planet at whatever stage of life you are in. Someone needs you, and love makes us real. Find a need and fill it, whether it's in your home, your neighborhood or the larger world.

12. Heal childhood wounds and work through losses. If you are still hurting about things from childhood or an unresolved loss, find a good therapist who can help you work through your feelings
and experiences and let it go. Don't keep carrying your pain around.

Don't carry forward unhealthy lifestyle habits or mental/emotional habits to share with younger people in your family. You can break any pattern or tradition you want, from negative fear-based thinking,  emotional overeating, poor parenting, addiction issues, rigidity, unhealthy relationships or depression/anxiety. It's what you do with what you have that helps you leave a positive legacy of mental and physical health.

Something to Look Forward To

We all need something to look forward to. Do you remember being a child, and the amazing feeling of anticipation and excitement you may have felt as summer got closer?

What are you currently looking forward to in your life? If you don't have something you are excited about coming up, maybe it's time to set a goal and make some plans.

Mental health and wellness depend upon having some hope, making plans, and working towards making your dreams happen. Whatever your budget, having a day trip, or a weekend away planned, or beginning to save for and research a trip a year or more in the future, helps you not to get stale or bored. There is something about the planning and anticipation that is good for our outlook. This forward action shows that you are taking responsibility for keeping yourself interesting and curious about life.

Everyday life can get repetitive and a bit boring unless we soul search and introspect on what some healthy goals might be for checking experiences off our bucket list, make plans to reconnect with people who matter, and find ways to challenge ourselves.

Perhaps you have always been curious about traveling to a foreign destination, or want to go back to school, change your career, try dating again, or set some other personal goals to develop yourself and keep your self growing and fully alive.

Many life changes, like overcoming a loss like divorce or a death of a parent, can become opportunities to reinvent yourself and grow some more. Some people dread the children leaving home, or impending retirement, when these can be chances to explore new aspects of yourself that you have not had a chance to develop. Even as we age, we need to keep setting goals and growing.

There is something exceedingly healthy about setting some plans and working to make them happen.
Setting your intention can be very powerful, and help you manifest some of your fondest wishes into happening. What are you excited about in your life? What are you looking forward to in the next few weeks and months? If you can't think of anything, that's the perfect time to begin planning an adventure or a goal you can get excited about. You'll be glad you did.

How Friends Are Good Medicine

A week or so back,I read a cute and thought-provoking essay in the Wall Street Journal about friends,and how having them helps your marriage.It was one reporter's observations about how having girlfriends to turn to helped her be a better partner,and have more realistic expectations about her relationship with her husband.

The reporter's musings got me thinking about the role that friends play in our lives. They validate and normalize our life experiences. They comfort us when we go through loss or difficulty.They share our personal history.They know our cast of characters.If they are a good friend,they are not afraid to call us on things.They encourage us to be brave and do the right things.They commiserate with us about things that annoy us.They may see our patterns.They know our strengths,and our weaknesses.The right friends are people we admire and respect who lift us up and let us lift them up,too.They hurt with us when we go through difficulty,and share our joy when life is good.

Close and meaningful friendships mean even more over the lifespan.In adult development,friends mean the most in our teen years and again from midlife on.Some of us get caught up thinking your partner can be everything you need in our twenties and thirties,or as we are in the busy new couple and then parenting years. As children are preparing to launch,reestablishing friendships is a crucial help in making the successful transition to being an emptynester.

Choosing friends who you respect is important.You are likely to be influenced by your close friends.Do they have integrity? Are they honest? Do they take pride in their life's work? Do they strive to be a good parent,partner,and person? Do they deal with life's challenges and losses,or do they hide behind addictions?Are they stuck whining and complaining,or are they living their life fully?

Because of personality style differences,such as extroversion and introversion,different people need different amounts of friends.Introverts prefer people one-on-one,or in a small group setting.True extoverts like the more the merrier.This is actually a continuum from one extreme to the other,with people falling all along the line about what is normal for them.Your partner may need more or less time with friends,and that is perfectly okay.Healthy couples can individuate enough to allow for these differences and not feel threatened by it.

When are friendships NOT healthy and good for you? This is true if your friend aids and assists your weaknesses(think tendency to overspend,drink too much,cheat,lie,etc.).Any friendships which are a secret to your partner are wrong and deceptive,and dishonor both you and your loved one.Friendships which are not balanced are not good,as when one friend does all the initiating of contact,or pays every time,or one person constantly dumps on the other.

The healthiest friendships are fun,have common goals and interests,and feel reciprocal and count-on-able.Some friends can go long time periods without contact and remain close despite big gaps in continuity.Some friendships go the distance in your life,while others seem to have a frehness date and a natural ending once your life situation changes.

There are lots of documented physical and mental health benefits to cultivating strong and meaningful friendships.You are blessed if you have one or more of thge really good ones.As we mature emotionally that no one person can meet your EVERY need,like one stop shopping.Having close and supportive friends promotes your ability to be a better partner and person,and keeps your expectaions realistic that your fantasy partner who intuits your every need and wish,without you communicating,is silly.Real love and authentic connection with your partner and your friends is so much more satisfying.Friends really can be good medicine.