And what is the National Institute for Play about?

Yeah.

So the National Institute for Play is a small nonprofit that was founded by my grandfather, Dr. Stuart Brown.

And he got into this work as a psychiatrist, and he actually studied mass murderers.

And what he found was that they all severely lacked childhood play for one reason or another.

And so he kinda stopped himself and was like, "What's going on with this whole play thing?" And really dedicated the rest of his career to better understanding the science of play.

So we are a nonprofit that focuses on championing the science of play and expanding the research and the frontiers of what we can understand about the role that play has in human development and public health, and so really excited about that part.

So tell me about, more about these play subtypes, and why, you know, why beyond my, my personal interest [laughs] it's helpful for people to have a sense of how they play.

I was wondering if you might share a bit about how you s- you've seen those, uh, playing out through your work/play.

Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, character is the foundation of everything good that we do and that we rely on.

Character is who we are in the hardest moments, not in the easiest moments, right? It's easy to make the best decisions when things are going well, and character's really who you are when you fall back on kinda that baseline.

Play is what helps us build that baseline.

It's practice for life.

It gives us the space to fail and to become resilient, to adapt to changing circumstances, to build empathy for one another, some of the core foundations of what we're trying to do.

Um, and so I think that for me, I have had a core value set since the beginning of college, and character's really important to me, and I try to stick with it as much as I can.

Or, I mean, what, what's on your radar? What would you like to see?

When we hear the word play, it really can sound almost

optional.

We really misunderstand play as a society as a whole.

We dismiss it as childish, as frivolous, as a waste of time, as something to be done when the real work is over.

That could not be more wrong.

And I just want to explain why that is on a biological level first, because that's what gives us the permission to prioritize it.

There was a leading study done by a neuroscientist named Jacques Pongsep where he removed the cortex of a group of rats and he compared them to a control group.

What's happening?

So have you got something for us to put our hands around in terms of what play is?

Well, I'm glad you're bringing this up because play is deeply misunderstood and misconceptualized, especially as adults in our society where we think work hard, play hard.

Play is the opposite of work.

Play is a break from life.

It's a break from learning.

It's a break from working hard and making progress.

And that could not be further from the truth.

We can put that in the show notes.

But I would say, I, what I've heard him say also about, uh, about play and love, is that they're both really, really hard to define, and that they're similar, uh, in, in the w- in their feeling, but they're both extremely hard to define.

define.I, yeah, I think kind of what we were talking about, about, you know, the, the benefits from the social connection standpoint- Yeah ...

but you also just think about real- in a romantic relationship or in any relationship, having an, a sense of surprise of something that just, like, instantly sort of triggers that pleasure and joy and glee and awe and keeps it fresh and exciting, right? As you mentioned, sort of we are creatures of habit.

We get stuck in our routines.

We're in the mundane, and play sort of takes us out of that.

It brings us sort of into this alternate state of being where we can connect with the person in a really different way, and that's super- Yes ... positive and healthy, right? So that's, that's, like, a really cool thing.

I think the other thing that comes in to play, no pun intended.

... "than the kid who just plays kickball after school in the empty lot next door."