Using Play to Rewire & Improve Your Brain

They ran a study on 34 healthy individuals and had them either read material on a smartphone or on regular printed paper or a book. And what they found is that comprehension on devices—in particular, smartphones—is much poorer, much worse, than it is when one reads on actual paper.

Any sorts of drugs or behaviors or scenarios that increase levels of adrenaline too much will tend to inhibit play. And drugs and scenarios... that increase the endogenous opioid output will tend to increase playfulness.

Play is not just about having fun; play is about testing; it's about experimenting, and it's about expanding your brain's capacity—and that's true early in development, and it's true throughout the lifespan.

Play is powerful at making your prefrontal cortex more plastic, more able to change in response to experience—but not just during the play but in all scenarios.

The state of playfulness is actually what allows you to perform best, because the state of playfulness offers you the opportunity to engage in novel types of behaviors and interactions that you would not otherwise be able to access if you are so focused on the outcome.

Anyone and everyone can benefit from engaging in a bit more of this playful mindset. The playful mindset is not necessarily about smiling and jumping around or being silly ... It's really about allowing yourself to expand the number of outcomes that you're willing to entertain and to think about how you relate to those different outcomes.

When children play, when adolescents play, and when young adults play... there is a strengthening of certain neural connections and a pruning away of up to 40%, perhaps even more, of connections that are not necessary for certain types of behaviors, emotions, and thoughts.

It does appear that things like dance or sports where you end up generating a lot of dynamic movements... those seem to open the portals for plasticity, and that's because they mimic a lot of the brain circuitry that associated with play.

Play is homeostatically regulated. Meaning, if animals, including children, are restricted from playing for a certain amount of time, they will play more when given the opportunity.

As any of us bring our visual window in more narrowly, as we contract our visual window, which is exactly what happens when we're looking at a little smartphone in front of us, it seems to suppress the breathing apparatus.

One of the most important, interesting, and surprising features of play that I'd like everyone to know about is that it is homeostatically regulated.

The developing brain is able to learn through passive experience because the neurons, the nerve cells in the developing brain, are much more over-connected than they will be later in life.

Children that have been subjected to trauma or immense amounts of stress of any kind have a harder time both engaging in play but also a harder time accessing neuroplasticity later in life.