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Play vs. Recreation

At this point, it’s time to make an important distinction: the difference between play and recreation.

Both are hugely important and offer lots of benefits in terms of well-being and productivity. However, they serve very different functions, and though both can inspire creativity in a business setting, they do it in different ways.

The distinction, as we’re defining it here, is that play is an immersive, conscious process that opens us up to new ways of thinking and new solutions, whereas recreation is a distraction—a break, if you will, from playing.

The confusion arises partly out of semantics. As we said at the outset, the word “play” is taken to connote a lack of seriousness that, especially for adults, is synonymous with recreation. Hopefully, though, by this point you’ve begun to see play in a different light: as an inherent human characteristic that needs to be fostered and directed in order to enhance creativity at all levels of work and life. Play, as we’re talking about it, is highly focused, conscious, and intention-driven.

If you watch a child who is immersed in play, you see the intention with which he or she attacks the situation, whether it’s acting out a story, practicing a sport, or being involved in any creative activity. The task at hand is all-consuming. You may have had the experience of calling a child to dinner repeatedly only to have them not respond. It is not, necessarily, that they are being intractable or resistant. It may, in fact, be because they literally don’t hear you. This is part of the makeup of the brain that allows one to focus so closely on the task at hand that the other senses are diminished. If you have been calling for half an hour, the child may truly have only heard you the last time you called. This is actually a good thing; it means your child has the capacity to focus and shut out other distractions—which, unfortunately, may sometimes be that increasingly frustrated parent or caregiver.

You might be tempted to call this “attention” instead of “play.” As we discuss it, attention is a component of play, but it is separate. Attention is the focus necessary to engage in the active process of play in which one is constantly weighing different actions and different potential outcomes. The goal, at least if one is trying to facilitate change, is to bring a level of consciousness to the process for any task at hand. It is about conceiving different actions and different outcomes, and giving oneself the freedom to take them. In this case, play becomes so much larger than attention.

Recreation, on the other hand, is about distraction, or at least changing focus. It’s designed to give the brain a break from all the intense activity that’s going on. Just by the nature of being mammals, our minds can only hold so much at any given time, and it takes time to process what we have experienced on both conscious and unconscious levels. Taking a break and changing focus allows the unconscious to work and have other ideas. If you’ve ever had the experience of being stuck on a problem only to have a possible solution pop into your mind as you’re running, walking to your car, or cleaning the garage, you’ve experienced the creative power of recreation. You have literally freed up your mind to do its processing job in the background and spit out a possible solution into your consciousness, so to speak. In his insightful book The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload, Daniel J. Levitin explains the neuroscience behind all of this and our inherently messy brains that are clogged with all manner of information, with more coming in at each moment.

Much has been written about companies that install foosball tables or basketball courts, hire massage therapists, build rock-climbing walls, and so forth. It’s very cool to think of having a place where you can go and “chill” on a break, or that you have an adult version of Chuck E. Cheese’s at work. Companies that provide this type of recreation environment are often considered forward-thinking and are ranked highly as places to work, but aside from the great PR and the romantic notion that you can accomplish something important as you try to land a bank shot on the pool table, there is nothing to say that one form of recreation is more effective than another at helping with your brain function.

As with play, there are as many styles of recreation as there are people. The point is that human beings need the change of energy and the physical benefits that come from moving. And once again, we need look no further than children’s experiences to understand how beneficial and important this is.

Recess and the shrinking time devoted to it has been a hot topic among parents and educators certainly since the early 2000s. As educators are feeling more and more stress to be productive during school hours and the growth of standardized testing looms large, recess time has been chipped away in favor of class time. But human beings, especially kids in elementary school, are not designed to sit still and be crammed with information for hours at a time. Biologically, that is unnatural for us as creatures. We can learn it, but it doesn’t come naturally. So, allowing kids to run around and blow off steam is essential. The chemicals released into the body actually help kids concentrate.

Nor does recreation have to be as intently active as hanging from the monkey bars. Art therapist Addie Dix-McCabe describes how physical work with manipulative materials like clay release the same chemicals into the bloodstream and allow kids to concentrate.

My own work with theater games with junior high school kids who were deemed “difficult” showed that when given a chance to be physical and creative as a break from studies, these kids were significantly better at concentrating, enjoyed their studies more, and became more participatory in all classes than students who did not get a break or whose “acting out” was treated with drugs.

The bottom line is that we are physical creatures, and managers need to take that into account. Moreover, this type of recreation is not all that time-consuming. You don’t need to open a Dave & Buster’s outpost or install a bowling alley (though I’d kind of like to bowl more). A walk around the block, going out and climbing a few floors of stairs, or keeping Play-Doh at your desk can do it. You know those popular stress balls people have? They work, and as Dix-McCabe points out, the physical release is the same as if you were working with paints or clay. (You just don’t have something to hang on the refrigerator when you’re done.)

Two essential aspects of recreation that we have observed are that for it to be effective it has to be physical and it has to be done regularly. You need to get up from your desk and move. That’s the only way you can release the chemicals that you need to enhance concentration and memory. You can’t take a pill, use a patch, or pop a supplement. Movement also stimulates the part of the brain that stimulates concentration and memory. John J. Ratey has done extensive scientific work in this area, and although his research covers more intense exercise programs, our interviews indicate that people who do something different during work breaks, whether it’s taking a spin class (high exertion) or window shopping (low exertion), report that they are better able to focus on tasks when they return.

This is a huge argument for not having lunch at one’s desk. In fact, people who do not do something physical during the day and who spend their lunch hour looking online, whether looking at news blogs, shopping, or looking at porn (yes, they do), do not report anywhere near the level of stress reduction or ability to concentrate after that type of break.

Taking care of your own recreation, as well as fostering an environment where that’s possible for others, can be highly effective at increasing productivity. And it’s probably important to point out that this is separate from the company softball team or some other kind of organized activity, which may not be relevant to or involve everyone. Most importantly, these activities should be individual to each person and shouldn’t be competitive. Most offices are competitive enough without adding another level of competition to non-essential work.

So, here are some tips you can use to foster that important recreational (in all senses of the word) time without turning your break room into a boardwalk arcade:

•    If you’re lucky enough to have a company gym, encourage employees to use it. If not, look into getting a group rate at a local club.

•    Try not to schedule too many meetings that require people to work through breaks. If you have to, ensure that it’s the exception rather than the rule. Think back to how rotten it was in school when gym or recess got cancelled.

•    If you’re a manager, model this practice. You’ll benefit from it as well, and you create an environment where people feel it’s okay to do what the boss is doing.

•    Depending on your workplace, you may be able to have some recreational items in the office. In my office, we have NERF guns, balls, and all kinds of paraphernalia that let people blow off steam and laugh. I would hate to see that in my lawyer’s office, however.

•    Understand that employees of different ages have different approaches to work based on where they fit culturally as a function of their ages (always acknowledging that these characteristics won’t apply across the board to every individual). This may be helpful for understanding where you fit into the cultural context and, if you’re a manager, understanding that as general as they may seem, admittedly, these distinctions are real, and appreciating them can help you be more effective at communicating and inspiring changes in behavior.

•    Baby Boomers (born 1946–1964) are more likely to value structure, and frankly, at the age they are now may resist something they think of as silly or time-wasting. You will not find most of them doing yoga at their desks or taking a break to play games. They are, however, more structured and more likely to take an exercise class or go to the gym on a regular basis than some younger people.

•    Generation Xers (born 1965–1981) tend to have more of the characteristics of Baby Boomers if they were born early in this period or of Millennials if they were born later. Gen Xers are not as structured as Baby Boomers, nor as socially connected as the Millennials. They may need the most encouragement and modeling to change behaviors.

•    Millennials aka “Gen Y” (born 1982–2004), are very socially connected and less structured, and often have a harder time fitting into what they see as the constraints of an office or business environment. Obviously, we’re not talking about the younger end of this group; they’re still in middle school. This is the group for which the foosball table in the cafeteria was designed. With this group, you may be more likely to have to rein them in than encourage them to take breaks.

So, before we move on, how about you take a walk around the block, stretch, climb that rock wall I put up over by the Red Bull machine, or whatever works for you? That’s recreation, and in addition to adding a little fun and variety to your day, it will also help you concentrate on the important business at hand: how play can make you more effective in business.