The Case For Play in a Productivity-Driven World

Play is a Biological Drive. It is not just crucial for our development in childhood, but for our mental health and wellbeing throughout life.

To find out more about what play is, why we need play, and how to play, I read ‘Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul’  by Stuart Brown and Christopher Vaughan (Brown & Vaughan,2009). Before we get into it, it is useful to introduce ourselves to the key theoretical framework that closely aligns with their approach, Jaak Panksepp’s theory of primal emotions, which places play as a fundamental, biologically driven system, central to behaviour and wellbeing.

Primal Emotions

Jaak Panksepp’s (neuroscientist and psychobiologist, 1943-2017) approach to play defines it as one of seven Primal Emotions. These emotions are associated with affective states (feelings) and can be identified through foundational brain circuits, deep-rooted in the midbrain. 

Figure 1: Panksepp’s Primal Emotions (left column), their associated affective states (middle column), and their theorised neural correlates in the limbic system and midbrain (left column) (Davis & Montag, 2019). Play is felt as joy and can be seen in the brain as a network between the prefrontal cortex (perhaps reflecting flexibility and social engagement (not pictured)), the striatum (motivation and reward (not pictured)), and amygdala (4) (potentially reflecting the emotion of joy).

‘Play circuits’ have been identified in the midbrain as evolutionary drivers of motivation when engaging in playful elements in our environments (Glovelli et al., 2023; Vanderschuren et al., 2016).

But Play is Just For Children?

You may be reading this thinking ‘I’m not a playful person, I don’t find it easy to be goofy and joke around, or make up imaginary stories about my stuffed toy animals’. Be reassured by Dr Stuart Brown - founder of National Institute For Play (NIFPlay) and co-author of ‘Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul’ (Brown & Vaughan, 2009) - whose research into the importance of play reinforces the individual differences in play natures. To understand this in humans, Dr Brown worked closely with Dr Jane Goodall (primatologist and anthropologist, 1934-2025) to deeply understand animal play and apply this ‘Panksepp-like’ evolutionary approach to humans. He describes our play natures as being as unique to ourselves as our fingerprints. When Stuart Brown has to describe play with words, he starts with: 

“Play is voluntary, naturally motivated, and pleasurable”. 

It is engaging; holds our attention and sometimes makes us lose track of time. We are self-motivated to enter our play states just for the sake of it, without the promise of reward, and sometimes without awareness that we love to keep doing it. It involves a stress-free frame of mind.

Think of something you engage in that meets these criteria. In adults, play is often blended with other motives that are associated with our responsibilities, which makes it hard to recognise as play, yet we have no trouble identifying it in someone else. Furthermore, there is a misconception that play has to be childish, or frivolous.

Play can range from reading a book, to extreme sports, to photography, needlecraft, or creating a presentation. For me, writing this article, I am engaging in play by enjoying the process and losing track of time! 

Why is Play Important For Us?

Now we know what play is, why is it so important to us as adults? Surely play is just important for children during their development?

In adults, play supports mental health and resilience. This is reflected by evidence that play engages systems that could contribute to stress reduction (Trezza et al., 2010). It can mitigate the effects of anxiety and depression by redirecting attention to the play ‘activity’. 

“The opposite of play is not work – it’s depression” Dr Stuart Brown.

Play also correlates with slower rates of memory loss and reduced risk of dementia (Dartigues et al., 2013), although this may be due to other aspects of play, such as the social aspect. Play is often highly social, strengthening bonds and fostering trust in relationships. Therefore, the correlation of play with reduced risk of dementia should also take into account the increased support networks, reflected by play.

It gets better. Playing can help other people. When we play and experience affective joy, this rubs off on the people around us. Through automatic behavioural mimicry, joy can spread like a web. Positive emotional contagion in the workplace can increase productivity and result in a more collectivist work culture (Barsade, 2002). Playing with other people is reflected in our brain states too. When using dyadic electroencephalography (EEG), recording from two people at the same time, neural oscillations synchronise during joint play (Khalil et al., 2022; Neel et al., 2025). This synchrony may reflect emotional connection, as well as shared attention, but interpretations of this should be approached cautiously due to the complex nature of the measurements (Burgess, 2013). Nevertheless, it is strikingly clear that play improves our own mental health and wellbeing, as well as of those around us!

Reclaiming Play in Adult Life

So, the question becomes not what or why, but how?

How do we prioritise engaging in play when our responsibilities pile on top of us the further into adulthood we get? We are deeply conditioned to choose productivity over leisure, with hard work and output ingrained in social, cultural and religious systems. This results in feelings of guilt, and fear of judgement when we take time to engage in play, leading us to undervalue these activities due to their lack of measurable outcomes. However, you most likely already play without realising it. Play natures are reflected in our interests and hobbies – what we gravitate towards in our free time and what we have ended up developing individual skills in. 

If you find yourself struggling to think of how you play, here are the National Institute For Play’s top tips to reconnecting with your play nature:

1. Identify what play is for you.

If you struggle to reflect on activities that feel playful to you, consult National Institute for Play’s 6 play styles (https://nifplay.org/science/play-style) for guidance on different play archetypes that make up our play natures.

2. Embrace a playful mindset.

Reframing our attitude to everyday moments is crucial to rediscovering playful experiences. For example, ‘gamifying’ a chore by timing it with music is a good way to add entertainment to day-to-day life if you enjoy competition. Or reframing the frustration of being stuck in traffic with enjoying the time to have some quiet reflection, or to listen to something you enjoy.

3. Schedule play.

Prioritise those activities that you are naturally drawn to by incorporating them into your routine.

‘Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul’ (Brown & Vaughan, 2009) has helped me to recognise the importance of play in my own life, and to be able to spot it in other people around me. The book is very accessible, with fun anecdotes, and shows clear links between play and creativity, learning and mental health. 

Where the book does provide accessibility, it lacks some depth into the technicalities. There is strong support for Panksepp’s theory of Primal Emotions, but the neuroscientific, psychological and biological evidence supporting the theories are not strongly evaluated. Panksepp’s work is largely animal-based, resulting in translational issues to humans (e.g., Trezza et al., 2010). Furthermore, evidence from play studies is correlational, not causal - it could be that people who play more report better wellbeing, not due to play itself, rather a third factor. It could be that better wellbeing encourages more play, resulting in a reverse causation. Due to the nature of play studies being largely observational, it is challenging to manipulate play while controlling for other variables, making it difficult to isolate play from other intrinsically motivated activities.

I have certainly been persuaded by the charisma of this book, and there are plenty of practical suggestions to test Brown and Vaughan’s theory yourself. However, I also value precision and, while Brown’s conceptualisation of play is inclusive, it is deliberately broad, making it hard to empirically measure. Despite this, it is a great introduction to aspects of emotional neuroscience and psychology, and is an important reminder that in an increasingly productivity-driven society, play is not a luxury, but a psychological necessity. 

References:

• Barsade, S. G. (2002). The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion and its Influence on Group Behavior. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47(4), 644–675. https://doi.org/10.2307/3094912

• Brown, S., & Vaughan, C. (Collaborator). (2009)

• Burgess, A. P. (2013). On the interpretation of synchronization in EEG hyperscanning studies: A cautionary note. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00881

• Dartigues, J. F., Foubert-Samier, A., Le Goff, M., Viltard, M., Amieva, H., Orgogozo, J. M., Barberger-Gateau, P., & Helmer, C. (2013). Playing board games, cognitive decline and dementia: A French population-based cohort study. BMJ Open, 3(8), e002998. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2013-002998

• Davis, K. L., & Montag, C. (2019). Selected Principles of Pankseppian Affective Neuroscience. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 12, 1025. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2018.01025

• Gloveli, N., Simonnet, J., Tang, W., Concha-Miranda, M., Maier, E., Dvorzhak, A., Schmitz, D., & Brecht, M. (2023). Play and tickling responses map to the lateral columns of the rat periaqueductal gray. Neuron, 111(19), 3041-3052.e7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2023.06.018

• Khalil, A., Musacchia, G., & Iversen, J. R. (2022). It Takes Two: Interpersonal Neural Synchrony Is Increased after Musical Interaction. Brain Sciences, 12(3), 409. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12030409

• National Institute for Play | Built to Play. Built by Play. (n.d.). Retrieved 29 June 2026, from https://nifplay.org

• Neel, M. L., Jeanvoine, A., Kjeldsen, C. P., & Maitre, N. L. (2025). Mother–Infant Dyadic Neural Synchrony Measured Using EEG Hyperscanning and Validated Using Behavioral Measures. Children, 12(2), 115. https://doi.org/10.3390/children12020115

• Trezza, V., Baarendse, P. J. J., & Vanderschuren, L. J. M. J. (2010). The pleasures of play: Pharmacological insights into social reward mechanisms. Trends in Pharmacological Sciences, 31(10), 463–469. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tips.2010.06.008

• Vanderschuren, L. J. M. J., Achterberg, E. J. M., & Trezza, V. (2016). The neurobiology of social play and its rewarding value in rats. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 70, 86–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.07.025

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This article was written by Izzy Turner and edited by Rebecca Pope, with graphics produced by Ginevra Sperandio. If you enjoyed this article, be the first to be notified about new posts by signing up to become a WiNUK member (top right of this page)! Interested in writing for WiNUK yourself? Contact us through the blog page and the editors will be in touch.