Why Play Is a Psychological Necessity

When did productivity replace curiosity?

When did achievement replace imagination?

We rarely remember the day we stopped playing. But most of us did.

Somewhere along the path to adulthood, many of us quietly packed play away. We associate it with childhood, with toys, games, and carefree afternoons, and assume that growing up ony means becoming serious. Responsible. Productive.

But what if play was never meant to be left behind? What if it is not childish at all, but essential?

As George Bernard Shaw wrote, “We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”

Play is not the opposite of seriousness. In fact, it is profoundly serious.

How play as Children affects us as Adults

The psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott spoke of the “severity of play,” recognising its depth and psychological importance. Similarly, Fred Rogers reminded us,“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning.”

In safe and secure childhoods, children learn through play. They experiment with relationships. They rehearse conflict and resolution. They explore loss, power, forgiveness, punishment, and reparation. They practise sharing not only toys, but airtime, authorship, and control over the narrative.

Play is how children make sense of their world.

During nearly a decade working with children who had experienced complex trauma and attachment difficulties, including adoption, fostering, and bereavement, I have seen how powerful play truly is. These children often replayed similar themes week after week: separation, instability, fear, punishment, rescue, repair.

This was not random. It was processing.

Play gave them a language when words were not enough. Through repetition, they attempted to metabolise overwhelming experiences and allowing the brain to reorganise and process. As therapists, being an attuned and empathetic witness to that play, gently introducing new relational possibilities, is often where healing begins.

Play is fundamental to neurological, emotional, social, and relational development.

Play only flourishes in safety. When children feel safe with curious, present, emotionally attuned adults, their nervous systems settle. Their brains have space to integrate experience. They can explore difficult themes because they trust that someone steady is alongside them. Without safety, play collapses into hypervigilance or withdrawal.

So how is Play so important to our mental health?

Children who were allowed to play grow into adults who can think creatively, tolerate uncertainty, and approach life with curiosity.

Curiosity is not a luxury in mental health. It is a necessity.

When we are curious, we remain open.

When we are open, we have options.

When we have options, we are psychologically flexible.

Yet adulthood often squeezes play out of us. Work intensifies. Financial pressures build. Family demands grow. Life becomes outcome-driven. Measurable. Productive. Efficient. Seriousness begins to dominate.

When life becomes relentlessly serious, it can also become heavy. Joyless. Narrow.

When we lose play, we lose being in the moment and we lose lightness. When we lose lightness, we lose creativity. When we lose creativity, we lose possibility.

In therapy, I often invite clients to “play” with ideas and possibilities. To try perspectives on. To experiment without committing to ways of thinking or ways of being, to play with habits and trying new things. To explore without judgment. Play creates psychological breathing room. It softens rigid thinking. It allows us to imagine different endings. And the best thing about a playful mindset is that we are more able to bend and flex with lifes ineviatable curve balls.

So what is play?

It is not limited to tag or hide-and-seek. Play is really a mindset. It is voluntary and intrinsically motivated. It is done for the experience itself rather than the outcome. It is creative, immersive, and often timeless, that state where hours pass unnoticed. Play is the capacity to think creativity, to be present and there be less of an emphasis on outcome, achievement and productivity. It creates feelings of enjoyment and time becomes insignificant.

It is escapist

it is expansive

where there are limitless possibilities.

We live in a culture driven by achievement and performance. In that context, play can feel indulgent or unproductive. Yet it may be one of the most powerful antidotes to modern stress.

Play can come in many forms from sports to dancing in your kitchen, singing loudly in the car, painting, gardening, cooking for pleasure, learning a language, or even solving algebra simply for the satisfaction of understanding it, if that's your vibe.

Play is not defined by the activity. It is defined by the spirit in which it is done.

It brings us into the present moment. It raises endorphins. It regulates the nervous system. It restores balance.

As Albert Einstein said,“Play is the highest form of research.”

And returning to Winnicott’s insight:“It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.”

Play does not simply entertain us. It integrates us. It reconnects us to imagination, flexibility, and identity. It allows parts of ourselves, often buried beneath responsibility, to re-emerge and best of all it re-calibrates our nervous system back to the present. Back to ourselves.

Growing up was never meant to mean shutting down.

So perhaps the real question is not whether we have time to play. Perhaps the question is this:

If play is how we stay creative, connected, and psychologically alive —can we afford to stop?

Play is not a luxury.

It is a psychological necessity.

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