Practice of Play
Play is important across all areas of life. Discover how we can prioritize play and show up to the world through the lens of playfulness.
Play in the workplace is often misunderstood. It’s seen as distraction from overall performance rather than a driver of it. In a professional context, play is not a lack of professionalism. It is not always about entertainment or stepping away from work. It should look like the creation of conditions where people can think more flexibly, connect more authentically, and perform more sustainably.
The science of play in the workplace tells us a vastly different story than the stereotype of play in the workplace. Across neuroscience, psychology, and organizational research, play is increasingly recognized as a practical, evidence-based lever for improving how people think, collaborate, and, at the end of the day, perform at work.
Modern workplaces are under strain — that’s what the research is telling us. Leaders are navigating rising rates of burnout and stress, declining engagement and connection, and increasing complexity and pace of change. Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports that one in six people report experiencing loneliness. Gallup estimates workplace disengagement is estimated to cost the U.S. economy alone $1.9 trillion annually.
And still, at the same time, organizations are asking teams to be more creative, more adaptive, more collaborative, than ever before.
These are not separate challenges. They are deeply connected. Play is what sits at the definite center of them.
From a biological and cognitive standpoint, play supports those very same capacities modern work demands. Playful states increase cognitive flexibility, which allows individuals to generate new ideas and see the connections that others miss. Play enables trial-and-error learning in low-risk conditions, accelerating skill development and insight. It helps downshift the brain from chronic stress states, improving clarity, decision-making, and emotional balance. And, it activates social bonding systems, strengthening relationships & psychological safety within teams.
Research highlighted in Harvard Business Review shows that creativity and breakthrough thinking are more likely to emerge in play states — where the mind is relaxed and playful — and not when put under sustained pressure or rigid control.
When play is consistently absent, teams can become more rigid, transactional, and depleted, which in turn makes innovation and sustained performance much more challenging to achieve.
As previously stated, play in the workplace is not about distraction or entertainment. Rather, it is about creating conditions where people can function at their best. This includes designing environments that invite spontaneity and interaction, building moments of informal connection into employees’ workdays, encouraging experimentation without fear of failure or punishment, and allowing space for humor, curiosity, and exploration.
These are not “soft” interventions. They can directly influence how teams think, communicate, and adapt.
Organizations that understand this aren’t lowering their standards; they’re raising capacity. They are cultivating more adaptive teams, stronger collaboration, greater creativity under pressure, and healthier, more sustainable performance.
Play is not a break from work. It is a biological mechanism that strengthens the human systems work depends on.
Within families, play is so much more than simple recreation. It is a primary vehicle for development, connection, and relationship-building across generations.
Dr. Stuart Brown often emphasizes that play is one of the most fundamental ways that humans connect, learn, and build relationships throughout their lifespan. Within families, play becomes like a shared language — one that allows for expression, repair, and reconnection without pressure or performance.
When we say, “play is essential to development,” it’s understandable to feel that seems simplified. Why is play essential? In reality, play is essential to development because it supports cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being across the lifespan. It also offers one of the most powerful opportunities for parents and caregivers to fully and meaningfully engage with their children.
A widely cited clinical report — American Academy of Pediatrics: The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development — highlights that, despite its benefits, free play has declined due to the hurried lifestyles, increased academic pressures, and reduced unstructured time in our modern world. The report urges pediatricians and communities alike to actively protect play as a critical component of healthy development and family life.
And, it’s important to note that play is not just beneficial for children, as it strengthens the entire family system. It builds secure attachment and trust between parent and child, creates shared experiences that broaden connection and enhance communication, supports emotional regulation for both children and adults, and reduces stress while introducing moments of joy, moments of lightness, into daily life.
Neuroscience and relational perspectives also attest to why play among families matters, as studies show that play creates a state of mutual engagement and attunement, reinforcing the bonds that help families navigate both everyday life and periods of stress.
Play in families does not need to be something structured, or anything elaborate. It can be as simple as shared laughter or storytelling. It could manifest as playing games or creating something together. It could include outdoor exploration, physical play, or even following a child’s lead in imaginative and spontaneous activities.
The activity matters less than you might think; in fact, what matters has almost nothing to do with the type of activity and everything to do with the quality of presence and connection the activity creates among family members. When families play together, they’re not stepping away from what matters. They are investing directly in the relationships that will shape their development, resilience, and well-being.
In a world that increasingly pulls attention away from our families and others around us, play is what brings it back.
Play in families does not need to be something structured, or anything elaborate. It can be as simple as shared laughter, storytelling. It could manifest as playing games, or creating something together. It could include outdoor exploration, physical play, or even following a child’s lead in imaginative and spontaneous activities.
The activity matters less than you might think; in fact, what matters has almost nothing to do with the type of activity and everything to do with the quality of presence and connection the activity creates among family members. When families play together, they’re not stepping away from what matters. They are investing directly in the relationships that will shape their development, resilience, and well-being.
In a world that increasingly pulls attention away from our families and others around us, play is what brings it back.
When you’re a kid, it often seems like there are two facets to your days: play time, and school. They appear to you as two entirely separate aspects of life.
However, in reality, play is not separate from learning at all. In fact, play is one of the primary ways that learning occurs. In the classroom, play encompasses any approach that intrinsically motivated, actively engaging, iterative, and emotionally positive. That could take the form of hands-on experimentation, imaginative exploration, collaborative problem-solving, student-directed inquiry, and more.
Across developmental psychology, neuroscience, and educational research, play is consistently shown to be a powerful mechanism for building knowledge, skills, and capacity in children, adolescents, and even adults.
Play in the classroom involves a lot less chaos than one might imagine, as having play in the classroom doesn’t negate having structure in the classroom as well. Rather, it means designing environments where students of all ages can explore concepts through hands-on and experiential learning, engage in imaginative and creative processes, collaborate with and learn from one another, test their ideas, make mistakes, create, and feel safe to participate fully without fear of judgement.
These conditions are not ancillary — they are central to effective education. When play is integrated into education, students are more motivated, better engaged, learn more durably, are better able to transfer their skills, and classrooms themselves become more adaptive and human-centric.
By creating space for play in the classroom, we are not lowering academic rigor. We instead align education with the ways in which humans naturally develop, learn, and most importantly, thrive.
For healthcare providers, play is not about making serious work less serious. It is about restoring the human capacities that make healing possible. In healthcare contexts, play encompasses experiences that are playful, relational, and low-stakes — humor, spontaneity, lightheartedness, and creative connections — that help providers and patients reach a state of safety and openness.
For providers looking for a play-specific perspective in healthcare, see the work of Caroline P. Cárdenas, whose work connects play, compassion, and helping professionals.
The job of healthcare workers is no easy feat — we can all understand and appreciate that fact by looking at how much they do for our world today. They work under conditions of sustained stress, heavy emotional load, and extremely high stakes. For many in the field of healthcare, it is as serious as life or death. Broader literature suggests that playful, relational experiences can support stress regulation, empathy, communication, and flexibility — capacities that caregiving roles depend upon. Burnout is also highly correlated to patient safety and quality of care, making provider well-being not only a personal issue but a clinical issue as well.
Work by Dr. Stephen Porges, Dr. David Hanscom, and Dr. David Clawson helps explain how and why play matters in healing. Porges’s Polyvagal Theory demonstrates that safesy, social engagement, and connection are in fact foundational to recovery. Hanscom and Clawson similarly identify play as a key pathway out of threat and into safety, pain relief, and healing.
Research on medical clowning in health care settings highlights how playful, human-centered interactions can reduce tension and support connections in clinical environments. NIFPlay Board Member Emeritus Bowen F. White, MD, has long translated this idea into practice through medicine, humor, and clowning. In his work, he exhibits how play and playfulness intersect with healing and well-being, bringing this approach with him into hospitals, hospices, refugee camps, rehabilitation centers, and other high-need settings around the world. His work also sits within a broader tradition of physician-clowning and compassionate care associated with Patch Adams and the Gesundheit! Institute, where clowning has been used in hospitals and underserved communities internationally.
NIFPlay is working toward incorporating play in the patient journey at all levels, including prevention, intake, care design, and healing modalities. Part of these efforts includes helping patients understand their play styles and how to activate them. In practice, this might look like playful, humanizing interactions during clinical encounters, humor and lightheartedness as tools for reducing patient anxiety, clowning and creative arts in hospital and hospice settings, and provider well-being programs that incorporate play as a restorative practice rather than an afterthought.
There is a simple, yet powerful, movement growing in the realms of pediatrics and mental health: physicians are beginning to prescribe play. Not as recreation, but as primary intervention for children’s well being. Clinical and research guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics affirms that play is essential to healthy brain development, emotional regulation, and social competence. Complementary to this is research published in the Journal of Pediatrics which links the decline of free, independent activity to rising rates of anxiety and depression in children.
In practice, this means encouraging free play, the term scientists use to describe self-chosen and self-directed activities that allow children to explore, take risks, and learn through experience. Increasingly, clinicians are also recommending Independence Activities — otherwise known as IA’s, they are age-appropriate opportunities for children to do things on their own — as a way for them to build confidence and resilience.
Play supports the same systems in relationships as it does elsewhere in our lives: social bonding and trust, emotional regulation, flexibility, and perspective-taking. In a relationship, play allows partners to move fluidly between seriousness and lightness, which essential in long-term, lasting relationships.
Play also works to build intimacy by creating a safe emotional space where partners are able to express themselves much more freely. Light teasing, shared humor, and spontaneous moments of fun all enhance trust and vulnerability. As Leslie Baxter found, playful interactions allow couples to explore closeness while maintaining individuality. Adjacent to Baxter’s research is the work of Assael and Galit Romanelli, which highlights how playfulness helps partners move out of rigid interaction patterns and into more authentic, flexible connection — where new emotional responses and relational possibilities can emerge.
Playfulness also helps navigate conflict within relationships. When partners inject humor or creativity into tension, it can reduce defensiveness and instead generate a sense of “we’re in this together.” Research exhibits that playful interaction is actually linked to lower stress and improved communication during conflicts. The Romanelli’s work reinforces this; play interrupts repetitive cycles in relationships, allowing couples to re-pattern interactions and respond differently in moments that might otherwise escalate.
A final reason that play is impactful within relationships is that it sustains attraction and energy over time. Couples who play together tend to experience more joy, novelty, and satisfaction in their relationships. Play introduces variation and openness, aiding in continued growth of relationship dynamics rather than routines. Research also highlights the ways in which everyday playful exchanges contribute to ongoing relationship quality and continued connection over time.
Play within a relationship doesn’t require you to be naturally outgoing or “funny” in order to experience its benefits. Playfulness is a way of engaging, not some fixed trait that some people possess and others do not. It can be as simple as an inside joke, sending a lighthearted message to your partner, turning something routine into something unexpected, or being willing to lower your guard.
Play is not an extra in relationships. It is a part of what sustains them. It manufactures connection, eases tension, and nurtures the life of a relationship, their flexibility, their human-ness. Even small moments of levity can deepen closeness and strengthen the bonds between people.