Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown Stuart, Christopher Vaughan

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Synopsis

From a leading expert, a groundbreaking book on the science of play, and its essential role in fueling our intelligence and happiness throughout our lives.

We've all seen the happiness in the face of a child while playing in the school yard. Or the blissful abandon of a golden retriever racing with glee across a lawn. This is the joy of play. By definition, play is purposeless and all-consuming. And, most important, it's fun.

As we become adults, taking time to play feels like a guilty pleasure—a distraction from "real" work and life. But as Dr. Stuart Brown illustrates, play is anything but trivial. It is a biological drive as integral to our health as sleep or nutrition. In fact, our ability to play throughout life is the single most important factor in determining our success and happiness.

Dr. Brown has spent his career studying animal behavior and conducting more than six thousand "play histories" of humans from all walks of life—from serial murderers to Nobel Prize winners. Backed by the latest research, Play explains why play is essential to our social skills, adaptability, intelligence, creativity, ability to problem solve, and more. Play is hardwired into our brains—it is the mechanism by which we become resilient, smart, and adaptable people.

Beyond play's role in our personal fulfillment, its benefits have profound implications for child development and the way we parent, education and social policy, business innovation, productivity, and even the future of our society. From new research suggesting the direct role of three-dimensional-object play in shaping our brains to animal studies showing the startlingeffects of the lack of play, Brown provides a sweeping look at the latest breakthroughs in our understanding of the importance of this behavior. A fascinating blend of cutting-edge neuroscience, biology, psychology, social science, and inspiring human stories of the transformative power of play, this book proves why play just might be the most important work we can ever do.

Publishers Weekly

Starred Review.

Doctor, psychiatrist and public speaker Brown (founder of the National Institute for Play) disagrees with conventional wisdom stating that success depends on keeping your nose to the grindstone. Now 75 years old, Brown condenses decades of first-hand experience and research, cautioning that "play-deficient" lives can burn out adults as well as children; in fact, Brown says, it's serious like a heart attack: "when we lack that feeling of lightness in what we do it should be... as alarming as chest pain." He makes several convincing cases for play's importance: that social play-joking, teasing, flirting-is "the lubrication that allows human society to work and individuals to be close to each other"; that today's college-bound adolescents often lead lives over-structured by parents and teachers, leading to instability and worse (working with "young murderers," he found they were often deprived of "rough-and-tumble play" in childhood); that play "lies at the core of creativity and innovation" for all animal species, especially humans. This close psycho- and sociological examination will yield insights for parents and educators, adults who have a hard time opening up, and anyone else curious about the everyday games people play.
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Biography

Stuart Brown, M.D. , is a medical doctor, psychiatrist, clinical researcher, and the founder of the National Institute for Play. He speaks regularly to Fortune 500 companies and groups across the country on the importance of play in our lives. Most recently, he appeared at the New York Public Library. The producer of a three-part PBS series, The Promise of Play, he has also appeared on NPR and was featured in a cover story in The New York Times Magazine.

Christopher Vaughan has been a journalist for more than twenty years. He cowrote the national bestseller The Promise of Sleep.