Transcriber: Julia Kulikova Reviewer: David DeRuwe
My ten-year-old came home from school a few weeks ago
and started telling me about this new unit they were doing on sex ed.
At one point, he stops and he sighs and he looks at me.
He says, “Mommy, I don’t understand why they spend so much time
teaching us how to be older,
but there’s no class on how to stay young.”
And it’s so true.
Our culture is obsessed with what comes next,
but we rarely allow ourselves to retain the most valuable parts of our childhood.
And there’s one element of our youth that is critical to stay connected with:
our creative play.
I’m talking about singing, dancing, visual arts, games, storytelling -
the way we used to play and grow as kids.
Think about it.
You can walk in any preschool or retirement center in this country,
and you wouldn’t be surprised
to find a painting class or a song circle happening.
But somehow, between the ages of about four and 94,
this kind of creative activity completely disappears.
Yet the science clearly shows that creative play reduces stress,
reduces anxiety, increases joyfulness, and helps us feel more connected.
A 2016 study published in the “Journal of the American Art Therapy Society”
showed a substantial decrease in cortisol levels -
cortisol is our stress hormone -
among adults who were put in a room with a bunch of art supplies
and told to have fun.
When we sing, our bodies release endorphins.
Endorphins are associated with feelings of happiness and pleasure,
and oxytocin, which alleviates stress and anxiety.
According to a meta-analysis of 23 international studies,
dance increases mood and well-being and decreases stress and anxiety.
Dr. Stuart Brown of the National Institute for Play
talks about play in general as a good antidepressant,
and Dr. Annie Brewster writes in “Harvard Health Publishing”:
“Stories connect us as humans and build bonds between us.”
There it is.
More calm, more cool, more connected.
But let’s face it, right now, we are more stressed, more anxious,
more disconnected than we have ever been.
Adults surveyed in the latest American Psychological Association study
from March 2022 reported unprecedented levels of stress and strain.
So what can we do?
Creative play.
If everyone listening to this talk tried out 10 minutes a day of creative play,
the way we used to play as kids, we could begin to move from stress to joy.
But we've got this challenge.
We have our noses stuck in these little devices,
pushing for efficiency and productivity,
when we could be dancing in our offices,
sketching while we wait for our Starbucks orders,
telling stories over a glass of wine with friends.
So what’s stopping us from engaging in creative play?
Fear, embarrassment,
a belief we can’t because we aren’t talented.
Here’s the thing.
The benefits we get from creative play have nothing to do with talent.
It’s not about being good at something. It’s about the doing, the making.
And yet we all stop ourselves, right?
You’ve heard a million times:
“Oh, I can’t sing. I don’t dance. I can’t. I’m not good at drawing.”
Why do we perpetuate this negative self-talk?
I’ll tell you.
It starts in about third grade. There’s this one kid in your class.
You know who this kid is! Who could draw a dog that looks like a dog.
So that kid becomes the one who is good at art,
and therefore, the rest of us are not good at art,
and we let that story stick in our brain.
News flash:
I can’t draw a dog that looks like a dog.
In fact, I was a dyslexic kid.
I couldn’t really draw anything that looked like just about anything.
Yet, in my 20-year career,
I have created interactive art that has reached over a million people worldwide.
Fascinating.
It’s almost as if this story about our status as artists is just that -
a story.
So let’s forget about perfection and embrace messy in our creative process.
When we embrace creativity, we open our eyes to a world of possibilities.
Creativity doesn’t have a right or wrong answer; the process is the answer.
And the more we exercise the creative part of our mind,
the more we can get away from binary thinking -
us versus them, this versus that - and see the spectrum of options.
And that is how we will collectively create a new and brighter era,
one in which we prioritize reducing our own stress
in order to let creativity thrive.
The good news is that activating creative play in your life
isn’t hard or complicated.
The first step is finding your natural mode of creative play.
You can break down creative activities into five categories:
story, movement, music, visual art, and games.
Now connect back to your own childhood, and ask yourself these three questions:
One, how did I play as a child?
Two, which creative category does my play as a child connect best with?
Three, what would I enjoy doing now that fits into that category?
So for example, I was really into imagination play as a child.
So these days, I make up silly stories when I’m hiking with my kids.
It could be dancing while you cook spaghetti or doodling or cake decorating
or singing songs in your car, or even hosting a board game night with neighbors.
(Sighs)
I know this can work.
In the 20 years I spent as a theater artist and arts educator
helping others see the world through the lens of imagination and creativity,
I’ve watched the same thing over and over again.
An adult walks into a theater or workshop, clutching their phone, frowning.
The performance or workshop begins,
and slowly that phone clutcher shifts from tense to laughing.
By the end, even the most stressed-out soul is up and clapping
and moving with this huge smile on their face.
So give yourself permission to play.
It’s OK to be a beginner. It’s OK to be uncomfortable.
Just take those baby steps to introduce 10 minutes a day
of the kind of creative play that speaks to you.
We might not have classes in school on how to stay young,
but reconnecting with the joy we felt with creative play when we were kids
can help us vanquish stress and change all of our lives-
one song, one paintbrush, one boogie at a time.