TRANSCRIPT Playing for Mental Health 5/12/2025 >>Hillary: So according to the LEGO Foundation 2024, play is joyful, actively engaging, iterative, and if anyone has raised children, you know that toddlers do things over and over and over and over and over, so iterative, meaningful, socially interactive. And for the visual, there's bright-colored circle with each one of those five words on the screen, to be playful. According to pediatrician Jacks SHONKOFF, he is an author and researcher and this is from the podcast the brain architects podcast. Play is interactive. There's an emphasis on active here and usually with others or with objects. There's physical engagement. Self-directed. You make a choice to engage in the activity. It is driven by curiosity. There's intrinsic motivation to explore when you're playing. It's driven by a desire to master the environment. We want to win. We want to understand objects. We want to understand how we can master them, what they do. And even in imaginative play, we want to win. We are the princess or the superhero. Play is universal. Everyone plays, beginning in infancy and actually in utero, according to Dr. Shonkoff. It's a safe way to be in the world and experiment without life-altering consequences. So that's what play is. All right. We're going to see -- now, in Zoom we're limited exactly how we can play, especially when you have a limited time-frame. So we're going to play a quick, quick trivia game. You can answer in the chat or in your head, and I'll give you the answers as we go. Real quick. What are the different animals groups called? Zoom. What is a group of lions called? And there is a picture of a group of lions on the Serengeti plain. A pride of lions. I bet you guys knew that. Now, what is a group of dolphins called? And there is an image of the ocean and, excuse me, four dolphins leaping out of the air playing together in the water. And a group of dolphins is called? A pod. Those are easy, right? What about a group of flamingos? And on the screen are brightly-colored orangey, pink. The traditional flamingos, the really tall ones with the long necks in a tropical background, easy for me to say. Flamingos, a group of flamingos is called a stand or flamboyant. This is a group of starlings and they do this thing and when the video loads, you'll see it's really interesting. When they do this, it's called a specific thing. So if you can't see that, there are thousands of little birds and they're all flying together and it makes this really, really cool pattern. And that is called a murmuration of starlings. Now, was that play? Was it joyful? Maybe. Was it iterative? Well, yes, we did it several times. Was it motivating? Were you self-motivated to do it? Maybe, maybe not. This may not have been play for you. I think it's fun. Some of you might have had fun with it. So this can be play. All right. We are built for play. Play is how we learn, which I think as early childhood, I tried to not get too early childhood. We're going to talk about children and adults. Because we are built for play, regardless of how old we are. Play does begin in the womb and it helps make the body make sense of what is happening. We are born with experience in motor and touch. The fetus flips around and moves through the womb and it's surrounded, the largest organ in the body, the skin is surrounded and touched the entire time you're in utero. So we begin by finding out how our body works by movement. And then social play begins within the first few weeks of life. Usually this begins with eye contact. But it goes beyond eye contact. And the big piece of this is attunement. It comes with co-presence and co-presence does not require eye contact. It just requires proximity and being fully present. Studies have shown that brain waves, neural activity synchronizes in individuals who are interacting with each other. And really none more so, we don't think, we haven't studied everybody in the world, but none more so than mothers and their babies. When they're interacting with each other, their brain waves sync up. It happens with others too. As you have an intimate understanding of one another, they can tell your mood sometimes without you having to say a word. Some of you might have experienced that. Well, that's co-presence and that attunement that we have. So, again, doesn't require eye contact.-motor. The brain craves movement. Movement has many functions that enables growth and expression across the cognition, emotional, and social. It supports relationships and it can be a source of joy. And once children begin to move in the environment, then it's up to us as adults to help them find the right balance between initiating and exploring independently, or helping them find boundaries. And that creates an emotional safety. But they're doing all this through play. Okay. And then touch is important too because that may be the primary source of information about the world for children, for children who have sensory differences. And don't forget the mouth. The brain devotes considerable space to the sensitive surfaces that are specialized for discriminative touch, and that's the fingertips and mouth. That's one reason little ones put everything in their mouth, so it's up to us to find things that are appropriate for them. And it's important to find things that are engaging and fun. So remember about attunement. That's going to come back. So what does play do? I apologize. On screen is a picture of an adorable Deafblind boy. He's in a shopping cart and he's holding on to I think a Styrofoam thing for eggs. Blue. And his intervener is wearing a silly turkey hat, I think it's around Thanksgiving, and they are laughing with each other. What does play do? Well, it enhances the brain structure. So it impacts neural development. Social and emotional development, early attunement. It helps with co-regulation. We co-regulate. Babies do not necessarily regulate their own emotions. I have read anywhere from 2 to 4 years old. Depending on what research you're reading. This helps develop self-regulation skills over time. It helps with executive function, which and the foundation for cognitive development, including communication. So play does really everything when they're little. As you grow, as you become an adult, there's more information later for adults and all of these things continue to improve and be affected by play. On the screen is a very bright and colorful picture, depiction of a neural network within the brain. All the different neural pathways. What does play teach our children? Social interaction strategies such as cooperation, negotiation, compromise. Awareness of others' needs. Creating and following rules. It fosters -- it's instrumental in fostering social skills and emotional resilience through pretend play, such as doctor-patient scenarios. How many of our children need to process through this? Children develop empathy and they begin to understand and imagine others' perspectives. These experiences contribute to better emotional regulation and the ability to manage your interpersonal relationships. Turn taking. Even in infancy. One of the ways that this affects or mental health is that it allows us to express our feelings, to regulate our feelings, and to understand the perspective of others from an emotional standpoint. That's very, very important. It allows us also to have meaningful relationships with others. Cultural and adaptive relevance. Play is shaped by our cultural values and norms. And it helps us -- not just children -- it helps us to understand the relative social context and understand those negotiation skills, which are important for being able to interact with others. There are physical and social benefits that also helps with self-regulation. A lot of people really need children, particularly, but I know a lot of adults who need movement in order to regulate their emotions. To stay grounded. And studies have found that outdoor play correlates with better academic performance and problem solving. So problem solving, creative, imaginative, and critical thinking come with play. Problem solving is a key coping skill for dealing with stress. And play enhances those cognitive abilities. And helps us to develop the executive function and helps us figure out how to succeed at activities that interest us. Which, when you find a strategy to succeed at something that interests you, if it doesn't interest you you can apply some of those things and therefore mitigate stress. All right. Time for brain break. Fun with fingers. So this is from Brain gym. And while they are fine motor, they are also -- your brain, your motor cortex helps you figure out what you're supposed to be doing. So it is playful. And we won't do this long, just really quick. All right. We're going to go to the first one will be about one minute. >>One finger of your right hand. >>Hillary: Okay. I'm going to pause it so you can see what the hand is doing. You've got -- take your one hand and put two and take your other hand and put one finger and put it on top. Cross it over the top. I think she's going to give good directions. >>Two fingers on your left hand and then alternate. [ Music Playing ] Let's do it faster. >>Hillary: There's one. Maybe that was fun. Maybe that was frustrating. Maybe you're thinking, why are we doing this? Remember, a lot of times motor skills are involved in play. Make sure we have time. Yeah. All right. Next one at 1:30. Whoops. >>The fist with the left hand and the "okay" sign on the right. And then alternate. [ Music Playing ] To boost up your memory, try to do it as fast as you can. [ Beeping ] >>Hillary: I don't know about you guys, I cannot do that fast. I would love to know if you guys are being successful at this. If nothing else, hopefully you're laughing. Laughing at me trying or laughing at yourself. Or your friends, if they're in the room with you. All right. And one more quick one. These are also good OT things, by the way, if you need OT. Here we go. Last one. >>Lay one finger on your left hand and two fingers on your right, and then alternate. [ Music Playing ] Can you concentrate and do it faster? [ Music Playing ] >>Hillary: Okay. I really did practice those. I cannot do them. So, obviously, I need to do some more brain exercises. And I hope you had a little bit of fun with that and found it iterative and joyful and just a quick little something to wake your brain up. Every time we stop to play for just a minute, we're not going to stop long. So last Monday our speaker talked a lot about trauma and how to work with individuals who have different kinds of needs, who are experiencing trauma and other issues. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that because I strongly, strongly recommend you go back and watch last week's. Kaycee, if you want to chime in and remind them what the name and the speaker's name. Or put it in the chat. Maybe a link to the archive in the chat. That would be fabulous. But it was a really, really great session and I think that this one following up behind it, hopefully complements it. So trauma and resilience. Here is where we're going to learn a little bit about trauma and then how play mitigates it. So from the center on developing child at Harvard University, they have a lot of great topics that they cover, and it is about children, but it truly can relate to adults. And ACEs, adverse childhood experiences, definitely have an impact on adults. Here's a little bit more about toxic stress. [ Video ] >>Learning to deal with stress is an important part of healthy development. When experiencing stress, the stress response system is activated. The body and brain go on alert. There's an adrenaline rush, increased heart rate, and an increase in stress hormone levels. When the stress is relieved after a short time or a young child receives support from caring adults, the stress -- >>Hillary: Sorry about that. [ Video ] [ Music Playing ] >>Learning to deal with stress is an important part of healthy development. When experiencing stress, the stress response system is activated. The body and brain go on alert. There's an adrenaline rush, increased heart rate, and an increase in stress hormone levels. When the stress is relieved after a short time or a young child receives support from caring adults, the stress response winds down and the body quickly returns to normal. In severe situations such as ongoing abuse and neglect where there is no caring adult to act as a buffer against the stress, the stress response stays activated, even when there is no apparent physical harm, the extended absence of response from adults can activate the stress response system. [ Heartbeat ] Constant activation of the stress response overloads developing systems with serious life-long consequences for the child. This is known as toxic stress. Over time, this results in a stress response system set permanently on high alert. In the areas of the brain-dead indicated to learning and reasoning, the neuroconnections are weaker and fewer in number. Science shows that the prolonged activation of stress hormones in early childhood can actually reduce neural connections in these important areas of the brain at just the time when they should be growing new ones. Toxic stress can be avoided if we ensure that the environments in which children grow and develop are nurturing, stable, and engaging. [ End of video ] >>Hillary: Okay. In the early 2000s, the national scientific council on developing child coined that term "toxic stress." It describes the effects, as you just heard, of excessive activation of the stress response system on the child's developing brain. Well, this also has implications for adults because it puts, as you can see, it may slow down development. It may make memory more difficult. And we understand now that it affects the immune system, the metabolic and regulatory system and cardiovascular systems. There's a link to this video and a link to more information about adverse childhood experiences. You can look that up on your own, if you would like. If you want to know what your ACEs score is. I put information from the CDC in the handouts. And all of these interact to trigger the stress response. They talked about when a child is having a stress response and an adult intervenes, that is the -- that provides buffering and protection from those stress experiences. And not all stress is created equal. Some stress is positive stress. We need a little bit of stress. We need some -- in order to wake up in the morning, cortisol comes into your system. If you don't have cortisol, you're not going to wake up. That's not a good thing. So you do need a little bit of stress. But not constantly. And that long-lasting stress response can cause wear and tear on the body, like revving a car engine for days and days and weeks at a time. And adults who have a high ACEs score are at increased risk for experiencing chronic illness and physical and mental chronic illness. However, this can be mitigated with positive relationships and coping skills. And that is where play comes in. Whenever we talked about attunement, we talked about social-emotional interaction, strategies and skills that we learned through play, and that is how we are able to have these relationships. So here's something about adults. PTSD and play. Overwhelming memories that are emotionally charged as part of PTSD, I mean, not everything that is emotional causes PTSD, but those people who do have PTSD, play not only lessens but those emotions can be diminished in their ability to alter and change the life of the suffererrer. Play itself has a softening effect on memories that are otherwise troubling. It doesn't take it away but it can soften it so that it is more manageable. Because we all experience some stress and trauma and loss and things in our lives. Life happens. And keeping a play presence tends to lessen the dominance of those memories. And forming a community and focusing on similar interests rather than differences is also very helpful. And a lot of times we do that around play. This is from a webinar that happened on March 25th of this year with Dr. Stuart Brown, who is -- he's an MD. He's a psychiatrist. He has spent much -- maybe all of his career studying play. Including when he was a young assistant professor of psychiatry. Those of you who live in Texas probably -- and maybe everybody -- knows the story of Charles Whitman, who on August 1, 1966, opened fire from the UT tower in Austin. It was the first mass shooting. Dr. Brown was brought in by Governor Connelly to be part of the tower task force and figure out what was going on. And what he found was that it was an absence of play. Play deprivation, he believes that that has a strong influence on these individuals. And he since went on to study individuals who are on death row for homicide and found the same thing. They had play deprivation. Play is really, really, really important for making sure that we are able to form healthy relationships and bonds with other people and develop those coping skills. And this webinar was called Play as a healing modality. There was a lot more to it. It was really interesting and you have a link to that in your handout, if you are interested in looking at that a little bit more. So free play and psychological health. Going back talking about children a little bit. And on the screen is a picture of a little man in a Spider-Man costume. He looks like he's climbing the wall of his doorway, getting ready to be the superhero. So free play is the primary way children satisfy the need for basic psychological needs essential for human happiness and mental health: Autonomy, competence, and relatedness. That's from the National Institute for Play, 2025. Dr. Brown is one of the founding members of that. And the autonomy, competence, and relatedness is from the self-determination theory. So if you want to do some more reading on that, look up "self-determination theory" and that is what research is telling us we all need to feel. Because we all want to have control, autonomy, control of our own world. We want to feel competent in what we do. We don't necessarily want to feel like we don't know what we're doing. It's a very uncomfortable feeling. And we want to relate to others, generally speaking. Even if you're an introvert, you still need contact with other people, some. Developing resilience. So resilience comes from supportive relationships. I don't think that I necessarily need to go into that too much more but it's in the context of relationships and interactions that we learn to cope. And our coping skills, according to -- this is from the Harvard center of the developing child. The coping skills we primary need to deal with stress, be able to manage the stress, solve problems, regulate behavior, and plan ahead. Hmm. Could what children learn from play have something to do with that? We talked about interaction and managing stress. Problem solving is a huge part of cognitive development and figuring out what to do in play. Regulating behavior is definitely something we learn through playing and playing with others and interacting. And planning ahead. If you're playing a game and you want to make up the rules, you have to figure out what the rules are going to be and what the consequences are going to be when you break the rules and what all that is. If you're rough and tumble playing with someone, where's that line? Where's that boundary where it's too far or not far enough? You figure those things out and you learn to plan ahead. Children being able to play uninterrupted, free play, and set up their own challenges, provide them the ability to figure out what's important and how to interact with peers and adults. Adults can shape and support play but that should be balanced with independence as well. In Active Learning we talk about just creating the environment to allow the child to interact with the environment. But to have that interaction and build that relationship with that child. So Active Learning Space is another awesome place to look at how to help our students who have multiple and complex needs. And the image on the picture is a -- looks like probably West Texas. Very, very, very dry, clay, dirt. And a daisy that is driving in that harsh environment. So let's just talk about exactly what is resilience. Again, from the Harvard -- center on the developing child at Harvard. Resilience is a positive, adaptive response in the face of significant adversity. This time I'm going to try to turn on the captions, so if that helps. [ Video ] >>Hillary: Okay. So I know that's not described -- sorry about that. But I want to point something out that, along with the talking heads and some of the diagrams of brains, every scene where they showed a child, they didn't say anything about play in this, specifically that I recall. But every scene showed a child playing outside, physically. And often just by themselves but sometimes with an adult there to support or make them feel safer. So resilience is built through play. And even if they don't say it, that is the message from that. There's a link to that video in your handout and there's also a link to the resources they have on resilience in the resources in your handout. Just a little more about resilience. It provides the opportunity to create ways to be in charge and in control during such times of uncertainty, anxiety, and stress. As a result, play enables children to acquire some critical developmental skills that can serve them for the rest of their lives. That's from the Houseman Institute. That link is also in your resources. And that kind of reiterates what we just heard from Harvard as well. On the screen is a picture of one of our colleagues, her son when he was young at Christmas, and he has all these action figures and he has built barricades with plastic cups. There is a sheet in the middle of these barricades. There's four of them, four different sides. And the sheet is kind of like -- I guess a little mountain for them to overcome. And he is having a war with mini marshmallows with all of his little men. So he's engaged in individual play but it may be that, you know, why are they battling with one another? Are any of them forming alliances? You know, what has happened in this imaginative play, all the things he can work out in his brain. And there's not going to be any consequences because he is just playing with his action figures. And hopefully he's going to clean up. That's an activity. So there's some things in there too. So you get control without life-altering consequences. And it allows them to try things out and figure them out. All right. One more play break. This may or may not be play for some of you. Just like everything else, it might not be play. Some tongue twisters. Easy for me to say. Tricky tongue twisters to tie the tongue in twists. If practice makes perfect and perfect needs practice, I'm perfectly practiced and practically perfect. Can you say that? Can you say that fast? Obviously, this is play for me. It may or may not be for everybody else. If you give me a math puzzle, I am going to not play it at all. Let's try another one. How much caramel can a canny cannonball cram in a camel if a canny cannonball can cram caramel in a camel? Little harder. I'll give you a minute. Last one. The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick. You have a link to it in your handout. The last one is supposed to be the most difficult tongue twister. I think if I tried to say it fast, I couldn't do it. The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick. I don't know if that's the hardest one in the world or not but someone thinks it is. Well, hopefully that was play for you. Okay. Play for adults. We talked about how play helps children build resilience. Does anyone have any questions or comments before we talk about adults? And hopefully you're making the connections from childhood to adulthood too.Move on. It continues to build resilience. I know you're shocked, but it does. Through play, enjoying things we enjoy, sharpens mental acuity, promotes creativity, slows memory loss and reduces the risk of dementia. All this is from the National Institut for the national institute of play. And one of the newsletters was on play for adult and play for children. On the screen is an image of a gentleman playing a saxophone and it looks like he's really getting into it. I'm thinking he's playing jazz and the guy behind him with an electric guitar. They're definitely performing. Our cognitive growth continues. Remember we have brain plasticity throughout our lives. Of course the first three years of life are the most growth where everything is just coming in and being absorbed. And then after age 3 we start pruning away those bits and pieces that we don't really use very much. And from there we continue to have brain plasticity through our lives, it just is a little different. Sometimes as you get older, if you want to learn something new, it takes a little bit longer sometimes. We have to practice, practice, practice. Other advantages are the social connections. Earlier we looked at -- we talked about -- Dr. Brown saw some PTSD in play and how forming community can help you with interaction and strengthening bonds with others that can help you get over difficult situations. It strengthens bonds. It fosters empathy, just like it helps little children begin to understand other people's feelings. Continuing to play helps us continue to understand and have empathy. Builds trust. It allows intimacy. It promotes a sense of belonging and reduces feelings of isolation. And I've known individuals who have -- who are not neurotypical adults, typically sighted and hearing. But really couldn't connect with others. And finally figured out that playing online in a group was a way to practice those social skills. And once he got those social skills online in a safe environment where there really wasn't going to be any implications other than possibly those people don't want to play with him. So find a new group, right? He was able to then build friendships outside of the online community, with real human beings. And that ultimately is something we need because isolation is real and can lead to depression and other mental issues. Playing and enjoying interactions with others is important. And the picture on the screen here is some young men, possibly teenagers or young people in their 20s -- I don't know. I'm getting old so they could be in their 30s. And they're playing some kind of rough and tumble game. There's a young man with another young man slung over his back and they're running and there are guys chasing him. I don't know what they're doing but they have obviously made up the rules to their own game and they trust each other because they're allowing one another to chase and run. And they're all belonging to a group together. Emotional and health benefits. We learn to cope with stress. So there's that managing stress that's part of our coping skills for a healthy mental outlook. We release endorphins. We release cortisol and it fosters relaxation. Play can. And play looks different for everybody. The little games that we played today, again, may or may not have been play for you. I love to do crossword puzzles. I love to knit. Those are things for me. Yoga. On the screen is a picture of a woman in -- it's not really child's pose. It's somewhere between child's pose and, oh, I forgot the name of the pose but it's a potentially active pose. So physical movement, for me, is grounding and fun. For other people -- Dr. Brown, in the webinar he had -- talks about his friend who ultimately won a Nobel Prize for his research in -- medical research. And they went to college, university together and were in the lab to do dissections together. And for Dr. Brown, he talks about how this was, you know, this is a task, a chore that he had to do. He had to go do these dissections. But when he would talk to his friend, who won the Nobel Prize, when he was doing these dissections, he would get all excited and fascinated by it. That, for him, was play. So play looks very, very different for everybody. Cultivating a playful mindset. It's all about your attitude. Attitude, attitude, attitude. Maintain your curiosity. Try to keep a sense of humor and openness. Find ways to play that you enjoy. What fills your cup? And find ways to put it into your practice. I know probably most of you are educators or family members and if you are having fun, those around you are having fun too. Remember when we talked about attunement? We talked about neural synchronization and when you're having fun, those people around you are going to have fun. That's co-presence. And if you're bored, those around you will be bored too. Remember, attunement. And we don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing, said George Bernard Shaw, the playwright. Think about that for a moment. And my parting playful thought comes from Dr. Brown again in that March webinar. He says: Imagine a daily vaccine of play which gives you a sense of well-being, optimism, more creativity, and things which are by-products of play itself. He has a daily practice of waking up in the morning and thinking about how he might incorporate play into his day. How can he be playful? Having to go to the dentist, what can he do to make it a playful situation and thereby reduce his own stress. Perhaps we don't like going to dentist. What can we do to make it a playful activity? It depends on you and what your play personality is. So inoculate yourself daily. Play. Here are the resources. The Centers for Disease Control information on ACEs. Harvard Center on the Developing Child. The other links are embedded throughout the handout. National Institute for Play and the interaction videos. There are some interaction videos we didn't talk about. Interactions and connections: Following your child's lead with your conversations with Heather Withrow and I highly recommend it. It's a really good video. Not terribly long, less than an hour, on interacting and the importance of interactions and how to interact and be co-present. And then every child can thrive by five is about a six or seven-minute video, TED Talk and it talks about how play can save the world. Thank you for joining me. That is my contact information. I love this topic. Several others, Active Learning -- also, I consider that play. So I love to talk about it. I'm Hillary Keys. Keysh@tsbvi.edu. The number. And references, in case you really like go down that research rabbit hole.