10 Reasons Play Isn't Optional: Why Recreation & Hobbies Are Essential for Your Health

Play isn't optional. It's not a reward you earn after finishing your to-do list. It's foundational for your mental, emotional, and physical health.

In this episode, we break down why recreation, hobbies, and play are essential—and share practical ways to bring them back into your life, even if you think you "don't have time."

10 Reasons Play Is Essential:

1. Reduces stress quickly – Lowers cortisol and shifts your nervous system out of fight-or-flight
2. Improves brain function – Boosts creativity, problem-solving, and cognitive flexibility
3. Supports emotional health – Creates space for joy, curiosity, and expression
4. Strengthens relationships – Builds trust and bonds without pressure (play games on dates to learn who someone really is!)
5. Increases resilience – Reminds you life isn't only about productivity and optimization
6. Boosts confidence & self-worth – Learning something new proves you're competent
7. Enhances physical health – Active recreation improves cardiovascular health, energy, and sleep (without feeling like a chore)
8. Prevents burnout – Play hits the reset button in your brain so you can focus on what matters
9. Reconnects you with yourself – Reflects your identity outside of all your roles (mom, boss, spouse, etc.)
10. Increases life satisfaction – Rounds out balance and makes life multi-dimensional (not just "adulting" all the time)

Types of Play That Work Best:

Physical play – Walking, hiking, pickleball, tennis, dance, yoga, swimming (discharges built-up tension, boosts endorphins, improves sleep)

Creative play – Painting, drawing, writing, journaling, baking, DIY projects (emotional expression without perfection)

Social play – Book clubs, game nights, group classes, clubs, casual sports (strengthens relationships, releases oxytocin)

Cognitive play – Puzzles, crosswords, Sudoku, strategy games, chess, learning a language, reading for enjoyment (improves memory, focus, long-term brain health)

Nature-based play – Hiking, fishing, gardening, sitting outside, cloud-watching, paddleboarding, camping (reduces anxiety, restores attention, grounds you in the present)

What makes play effective? It should check at least one box: ✅ Helps you feel better during or after
✅ Pulls you out of autopilot mode
✅ Gives you a sense of presence, joy, or progress

Key takeaway: The best hobbies aren't the most productive. They're the ones that restore you. Play doesn't have to be earned. It's part of what fuels you to do life well.

Transcript

Welcome And Balance Framework

Debra 0:04

Welcome to the D Times 2 podcast, hosted by Sisters Denise and Deborah. We are all about finding balance in the various parts of life. Using the Wheel of Life as our guide, we explore how to keep each spoke rolling smoothly. We discuss health and wellness, education and spirituality, as well as mental and emotional growth. Join us for real conversations, practical tips, and a few laughs as we share stories, insights, and strategies to help you create a life that feels balanced, purposeful, and designed by you. Hi Denise. Hi Deborah. How are you today? I'm doing pretty good. The sun is shining and it's actually warm. So that's good for my soul. You say it's warm. It's not warm yet. It will be warm this afternoon. Oh yeah. Our 40-degree temperature swing we're having today. Yes. Oh my gosh. 40-degree temperature swing. Do you know that it froze last week? Uh my tulips told me. Yeah. Because

DIY Tub Repair With AI Help

Debra 1:04

they were all droopy sad sad. I have a story to share. Please. You came over today and you're like, what's that hole in your water? And you said, I'll tell you later. You had well, I thought there's a hole cut in the wall, but then it looked like a piece of sheetrock and maybe also a piece of like tile or something cut both in squares, but the tile square was smaller than the other square. Uh-huh. So we have a jetted tub in our master bathroom. Oh, you lucky dog. Oh, I love it. That's one of my favorite things in the morning. And sometimes at night. Our house is over 20 years old, so the tub and the motor are that old. A couple months ago, it started growling at us. The motor was growling off and on. And I told my handyman husband, handyman, we need to replace this. So he he took the tile. There's a big old 18-inch tile that we have to take off to get under the bathtub. He took it off and looked at it, and they didn't position that motor in a way that you could read what kind of motor it it is. Oh. So we we used have skinny little arms, so I was sticking my skinny little arm in there with my phone and the flashlight on, trying to take a picture of it. And I was like, this is just not working. Like you can't even read it. So I finally just did a video. Oh, that's smart. Yeah, that was a lot better. And but we still couldn't read some of the numbers. So my handy dandy handyman is also a computer genius. And he put the pictures on one of the AIs and said, What does this say? That's funny. Thank goodness we have AI. It's a blessing and a curse. I really don't know how we would have figured it out otherwise. Because there are lots of different motors. Without knocking down a wall or something. Or Yeah, I guess we could have taken it out, but then we would have to take it back in so we could use it until we replaced it, right? So, anyways, our handy-dandy AI friend told us what it was. But they don't make that motor anymore. So it's like this is the equivalent to my husband's like, Are you sure? Like that's a different voltage, that's a different number. I said, You just order it anyways. Like, just order it and bring it and we we'll look at it. Because it looked the same. We bought it and it sat in the garage for like a month and a half. Meanwhile, the tile is off on my tub. Which I don't like because it makes the motor louder. But last weekend. Oh wait. So you kept using the growling motor. Oh yes.

unknown 3:50

Okay.

Debra 3:53

It was growling, but it was still working. As long as that was just talking back to me. As long as it turns on. And the funny thing is, like two weeks ago it started to be quiet again. I was like, do we need to replace it for real? Yes, we already bought the new ones. Just replace it. So last weekend he decided to get it done. So he measured and measured and measured the same spot like three times to make sure he was cutting in the right place because we're cutting the city. Because you measure? Measured twice, couple once. At least twice. So he measured several times and I looked at it and was like, are you sure that's where it is? Are you sure you've measured right? He said, Well, here's my measuring tape. You go measure. And I was like, okay, you're right. And I think it's about this high off the ground because you can't tell because it's in the tub, which is raised up off the floor. So, anyways, I said, just cut it. He said, Well, I don't know if there's electrical there or not. I said, Well, turn it off. Turn off the electrical. I said, use your side finder that has the electrical in it. He said, It's out in the garage. I'm just gonna cut it. So goodness. So he did and didn't run into any electrical, so that was good. But he cut it off, cut out the drywall in the hall, and you still couldn't see the switch. That's why there's another one that's smaller. We had to cut the drywall that was on the other side of the framing that backed the tub. That's why there's two squares cut out of different sizes. Now we had to cut that out so that we could reach the button that turns the jets on. That's crazy. Yeah. That's poor, poor planning. They said this isn't our problem. This is the problem for someone in 20 years. They built this house to sell it. And you can tell in some of the things that they did, but that's okay. He did that anyways. It took us about an hour to replace, and we worked together and didn't even get mad at each other. Wow. Which is pretty good. That's amazing. Because I don't know if you worked with your husband on any projects, but sometimes they just are not the smoothest thing. You have to use lots of patients. Yeah, I I I remind my husband quite often I am not his employee. That's right. So we got this thing fixed, and it's a lot quieter. When he puts the drywall back on and the tile back on, it will be even quieter. And it blows bubbles and works properly. Yes. Good. Good. Great. What an adventure. I'm really grateful that I have a husband that can fix things. And he's happy to fix things. Yeah, he likes he likes the challenge. Yeah. I'm I'm grateful. I'm also grateful for YouTube because sometimes if you don't know how to fix something, you can Google it. So my Tub is doing better. I don't even Google it. I go straight to YouTube and say, how do I blah blah blah? He didn't have to do that with this because it was pretty straightforward. That's good. I'm grateful for my handyman computer genius. He's a handy one, that's for sure. Okay. So what are we talking about?

Why Play Is Foundational

Debra 6:56

Today we are gonna circle back around to our spoke on the wheel of life for play, recreation, hobbies. Oh, good, because the sun's coming up, it's getting warmer, and we can be outside. Not that you have to be outside to do those things. That's part of why I wanted to talk about it. Because, like we for right now, when we're recording this, we're at the end of I'm gonna say, some weather that I didn't want to be out in for months. And for me, a lot of my play and hobbies and recreation, I prefer to be outside. Outside in the sunshine. Yes, with no wind. Yeah. That is the that is the sweet spot. Yeah. So anyway, but either way, we work our way around the wheel and around the wheel and just keep checking in on each of the areas. And it's time. We're due for a check-in on play, recreation, and hobbies, which by the way, aren't things that are just nice to have. Oh, nope. They're foundational for our mental, emotional, and our physical health. Right? Agreed. Totally agree. So we're gonna go through some of the things that they actually do for us, and then we'll go through some suggestions. Cool. Practical implementation. Cool. Yeah. So number one, and we care about this a lot, is the things that fit in this category play, recreation, hobby, however you like to think of it. We're gonna just refer to it as play.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Okay.

Debra 8:35

Reduces your stress and it does that quickly. Well, it will lower your cortisol, which is your stress hormone. So just by lower lowering cortisol, it drops the stress. But it also helps to shift your nervous system out of fight or flight so that you're ultimately in a more relaxed state. And it doesn't have to be a big long, I'll say pickleball session. It doesn't have to take an hour, hour and a half. It can be short bursts. Okay. So number one is it reduces your stress quickly. I like that one. I don't know about you, but I have stress in my life. We all have stress in our life.

unknown 9:19

Yep.

Debra 9:19

So that's a really good one to be number one. Okay, number two is it improves your brain function. Yes. Who doesn't want better brain function? I know some people are more aware of needing better brain

Stress Relief And Brain Benefits

Debra 9:33

function, but we all could use it. For sure. So it helps to increase your creativity, being in your play. It helps with problem solving. It helps with cognitive flexibility, which is how flexible your brain system thinking is. I like to say it helps you think more outside the box. Yeah, that's a better way. Not not rigid walls that are super narrow. It opens up your horizons. So one reason it does that is because it helps you step out of structure, like you said, out of the box. And when you step out of structure, your brain gets to just kind of wander and figure things out. So I I like to think of that as like in sports. Yeah. So sports is play and recreation and hobby for me, right? When you you have to be creative in sports because not everything is linear. It's there's a lot of unknowns happening. Like we talk about pickleball a lot because that's what we like to play. It's it's an unknown where that ball is coming from. On the other side of the net. So you have to be adaptive. You have to be able to be flexible in your thinking to hit the ball back. Or if you're creating a an art project with a child, you have to be creative. Sometimes you have to let that child be creative, which means you you have to be creative in letting that child do what they what they want, what they see in their head to make it appear. Yeah. It's gonna look different to or manifest differently from them than it would from you. You said in sports not a lot of things are linear, and my brain immediately went to a line drive in baseball or softball. That's pretty linear, and it's also one of the easiest things to catch. It is, but you don't know where that ball is going once it's pitched until it's been hit by the bat. Right. You have no idea. So you have to adapt. But once that ball is screaming out you on the ground, yeah, you know you can dump it down and hope it doesn't come up and hit you in the face. Oh, I had that done. I had that. Black eye to prove it. So it so problem solving critical thinking. Let's talk about the immune system. One of the best defenders we know comes from optimal health systems, and it's called Defense. So it supplies your body with researched back ingredients to shown to support your immune system and fight off illness. It also boosts the immune system, providing a potent dose of antibodies for a quick recovery and reduces the risk of viral infection. One of the things I love is that it increases the white blood cell count in your body almost immediately while filling your gut with healthy bacteria. This is one of those things I recommend to my clients to always have on hand. You can take it continuously through, quote, cold and flu season or when you're under a lot of stress, or just pop it in here and there if you feel like you're starting to come down with something. Take it for a day or two, maybe three, and then put it on pause. But it ultimately restores

Sponsor Defense Immune Support

Debra 12:54

health to areas of your body that are affected by potentially unhealthy eating habits, like during the holidays, and also from overstressing. And it does it by using whole real food ingredients. You can go to optimalhealthsystems.com and use the code D times2, that's DX2, to get a great discount off your order. Play hobbies recreation also support our emotional health. They create a space for joy and curiosity and expression, some things that can often easily get crowded out by our day-to-day life responsibilities. So while she's saying that, she's dancing in her chair. I am moving in my chair. She loves to dance. If you guys only had video of us. Yeah, and like you said, it could be five minutes, right? Yeah, short, short bursts. It doesn't have to be big

Joy Connection And Relationship Play

Debra 14:15

or elaborate or time consuming. And another thing that play helps with is strengthening relationships. How so? Well, have you ever played a game with somebody and found out things you didn't know? Yes, and people have also found out things about me. We found out playing a board game that it's supposed to take like 45 minutes, but in our house it takes an hour and a half, maybe two. That one of one of my daughters is very sly, very quiet, very sweet, but she's kicking your butt under the table, right? And she wins. We found out that about her. Playing together can build trust. It helps with communication. And you do build bonds with people without pressure. It's in an easy way. It's a good thing. Like if you're dating somebody, play some games with them. Either board games, you'll find out how competitive they are, if they cheat, if they're forgiving, if they have no imagination whatsoever. Just things that are good to know. You play it with their family, you'll find out some family dynamics you may not know. Absolutely. So yeah, it can strengthen relationships in a fun, easy way. Play also increases your resilience. I talk about this one a lot is resilience, your ability to adapt and respond and recover. But doing something just for fun reminds you that life isn't only about productivity and optimization. It's not about the grind. It's about living. It's about living. And that mindset can help build emotional resilience that ultimately will help you to handle challenges better. To me, another way to say that is it helps you keep perspective. It is really easy to get caught up in the day-to-day. And how can I do this better? I I'm gonna say okay, personally, I have a big focus on efficiency and optimization. And it can't be the efficiency of how can I more quickly color this adult coloring book that I have that's for joy and play? Like sometimes you just need to be in it and doing it and relaxed and enjoying the process. The joy is in the journey, kind of a thing. So our mom likes to quilt. Yes, she does. Mom is very efficient in her quilts. Yes. And she likes to follow a pattern. So every once in a while I will throw a wrench into her follow-a-pattern thing and come up with something in my head and take it to her and say, we need to make this quilt look like this. And it brings her out of her rigidity and helps her play a little bit in her brain. And that's a hobby for her. And it's kind of recreation for me. Because you're messing with her. Sorry, Mom. Yeah. Oh, anyways. Okay, another one that play hobbies, recreation can help us with is boosting our kiss confidence and self-worth. Yes. Learning something new or how to do something better, it improves how you feel about yourself. You accomplish something, it can give you a sense of progress in your life and competence. Like sometimes you may not think you're a very smart person, but just try improving a hobby or try something new and prove yourself wrong that you are a competent person. Not in necessarily everything, but in a thing. Yeah. You can be. Well, I'm not competent in everything for dang sure, but I am pretty competent in others. So I'm that's just made me think about something I set a challenge for myself a couple of years ago was to master baking bread. I never like I had maybe made it once or twice in my life. It wasn't something that I really did, but I could appreciate when someone else would make some good homemade bread. Like mom used to make it when we were growing up. But I just never did. And one year I was like, this is the year. The year before was cakes. I wanted to master making and decorating like fancy cakes. But that year it was bread. And at this point, I'm like, I will make you the best loaf of sourdough bread you had. I'll make it with ease. It'll come out great every time. But that's the one I preferred to make, even though I experimented with other types of bread as well. Awesome. Yeah. You got to play and increase your competence. Yeah. And it tastes good. Tastes delicious. Yes. I had to teach Tom that I am not the new chef. Oh. I'm not on demand for bread. I will make it when I feel like it. Do you know why? Because then it's made with love and it tastes better. Yeah. But when I feel like it, I'll usually make a couple loaves and put some in the freezer so that you know he has a supply he can work through. But you can increase your competence by just trying something new. And you may not get it right the first time, but you tried something new. Right. So do it again and learn a little bit more and do it again. Or you'll find out that's not my jam. I'm gonna switch to something else. So, like my oldest granddaughter, for a little while she was in dance. She did not love it, she was not that great at it. But now she's in guitar lessons, electric guitar lessons, and she loves it. And she's getting pretty darn good at it. And part of it is because she loves it. Yeah, she loves the process, and that makes her want to do it more and be better.

unknown 20:14

Cool.

Debra 20:14

Total hobby, right? That's cool. 10-year-old jamming out on an electric guitar. Yeah. I want to talk to you about my ice cream I have almost every night for dessert. I started making it about six months ago with some of my very favorite protein powder. It's from Equip Foods Prime Protein, and it's one of the safest, cleanest, doctor-formulated protein powders that helps to build muscle and shred fat that won't leave you gassy or bloated. That's one of the problems I have with other kinds of proteins. Anyway, it's 100% grass-fed and finished. I make my protein out of their chocolate and their peanut butter. So it's my amazing peanut butter chocolate protein ice cream. It helps me meet my protein goals and taste amazing. To get a nice discount, go to equipfoods.com slash dx2 to get 30% off of a subscription order or a nice 15% discount off of a one-time order. You'll love it. Another way that play can help you is with enhancing your physical health. So if it's an active recreation like hiking or dancing or sports, it will improve your cardiovascular health, it'll increase your energy levels and make your sleep better. And it won't feel like a chore. Sleeping? Sleeping or the activity the activity, whether it's you know that the physical activity, it will make you sleep better. But you will it will do all those things. But it will feel like fun, because it is fun. It's not a chore or something you have to do. It also prevents Burn out. You ever been burnt out? A couple of times in my life I've been burnt out. Yeah. You gotta shift the focus, shift Yeah. When life feels like a chore all the time, you get burnt out. So it's really important to have a hobby,

Physical Health And Burnout Reset

Debra 22:17

something you enjoy doing just for fun. Just for fun. I like to exercise, and yes, I like to have strong muscles, but it is fun. Fun to you, yeah. It's fun to me too.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

That's good.

Debra 22:32

When you are constantly doing quote unquote chores, it being productive. The business of life. The business of life, it leads to diminishing returns. So the more you do it, the less effective you can become. Unless you get some play. And the less satisfied you become. Oh yeah. Yeah. So play can hit can help you hit a a reset button in your brain. It can help you focus better on things that are important to you. Like your brain needs a break from just the everyday grind. Grind. So yeah. Prevent burnout. Do something fun. So I think of it like have you ever been like, I'm gonna say, in the drudgery of it, and then gone and done something, whether you go to a movie, you go to a book club, you go paddleboarding, you do something. And then you're like, okay, I feel like I can go to it again. I can get back at it. That's the reset. So our mom used to do that. We lived in Colorado growing up, and she would go to BYU Improvo. It's an eight-hour drive. She would go by herself to education week. So our mom was gone for a whole week. And when she came back, she was a different person. Literally a different person. She didn't, she wasn't taking care of. Let's see. I think there were probably six of us at home at that time when she started doing that, right? I think there might have been seven. Six or seven. There was somewhere in there. Somewhere in there. There were a lot of us. Anyway, so she got to go away for a week and go to classes and enrich herself. And there were classes on all sorts of different things, but she could choose. And it was all day long. Yeah. And all week long. We always liked when she would go because she would come back and just be a better mom. She'd be a better mom. It would help her prevent her burnout. Yeah. So we do a version of that. We're getting ready to in a week. Yeah. Uh or so. So it's women's conference that we go to. So, and it's only a couple of days, and it's only women, but it's a holy ton of women and it's classes that will help us reset and reframe and refresh. You've got this big smile on your face. We have so much fun when we go. We have so much fun. We go float in a crater that's full of water. Warm water. So warm. And we just sit in there for an hour and just kind of float around. And it's so relaxing. And then we go to classes for two days and have fun together. And when we're all done, what do we do? We eat Indian food. We do. That's a really good reset for the two of us. And it's something we look forward to, but the process of it itself is also a really good reset. Yeah. Yeah. So it's fun, but it's classes. So it could be considered learning, but it's fun.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Yeah.

Debra 25:40

So it play and hobbies also allow you to reconnect with yourself. That's part of what we were just talking about. They can often reflect your interests or your values or your identity. Like you learning how to bake better bread and better cakes. My name is Deborah Baker, and I am a baker. Before I was a baker of cookies, now I am a baker of cookies and cakes and bread. Nice. Yeah. But they can also help you to stay connected to who you are outside of all of your roles and responsibilities. It's like this is who I am when I'm just me, not mom, not wife, not grandma, not boss, not whatever. Me as an individual, this is who I am. So I learned that lesson when my kids were little. I had a friend invite me to a book club. And I enjoyed reading

Reclaiming Identity Through Hobbies

Debra 26:38

as a teenager. But You weren't like me. I loved reading. Deb drowned in books. Yes. I would dip my toe in books sometimes. But I had a friend invite me. And I was like, oh, I'll just go because it'll give me something to do. I'll get to meet new people, which is hard for me to do. So I went. And I loved it. I looked forward to it. We just got to chat and had little snacks and talk about a book, like a grown-up adult intelligent conversation about something that we were reading. And it reignited my love for reading. And I started delving into different types of books that I normally hadn't done for a while. And so that was something that helped me connect to myself. Something else that I did when we moved to Idaho is I took tennis lessons from a gal in our neighborhood. Uh-huh. And that helped me just be me and play. And it reignited my love for playing sports. That's awesome. I I I did think it was great when you did your tennis lessons. It was not something I ever knew you were even interested in. I wasn't really well, I guess in high school I watched people, but I was like, why would you do that? What would you play tennis? And now you're like, oh, I get it. Now I love it. And and it helped me to learn to actually love pickleball. And now you and I play pickleball. And we love it. Yeah. So I am a dancer. I love to dance. I don't have a dancer's physique, per se, but I love to dance. And I've danced since I was a little girl, off and on. And I hadn't done it for quite some time. But when we, when Tom and I lived in California, we had moved to a smaller town. And every Saturday morning there was a Zumba class. And I went because one of my friends from church invited me to go with her. And I was like, okay, fine, I'll go, whatever. And I loved it so much. It was so much fun. I'm there rocking it on the back row. And like the third week I was there, the instructor asked me if I would come up to the front so that I could be one of the people that everyone could follow because I'm a dance. Like I can pick it up, I can do the moves and everything. And I was like, I don't want to. Like I just want to dance and be in my groove and do my thing. If I go up front, I'm gonna feel like I'm putting on a performance. I'm not there any longer for me. Right. There were a couple of times she needed help and I went up there, but I would then go back to the back row where I could just do my thing.

unknown 29:11

Yeah.

Debra 29:11

So your thing was jamming out in the back row. That was good for you. For me. Her thing was teaching. Yes. And she did a great job. And that was good for her. Yeah. Never beat a dead horse. That saying has been around for a long time for a reason. People that are drinking energy drinks all day long just to stay functional, that's what they're doing. They are beating themselves up like they were a dead horse. We got to stop doing that. The only energy drink that I recommend to my clients is update. It's clean energy without caffeine. So you don't have jitters and chaos and like the problems that caffeine causes in the body. And it also helps to give you focus and a clear mind. It's really the one I use and the one I recommend. To get a discount off of your order, go to drinkupdate.com and use the code DX2. That's D times two. That's us. So drinkupdate.com and then the code for your discount is DX2. Number 10 of our Deborah's top 10. This is

Sponsor Update Clean Energy

Debra 30:21

just our quick run through and then we're gonna get into the practical application. Okay, so play playing, however we play, can help increase our overall life satisfaction. Do you find that in your life? I do because it rounds out the balance in life. Yeah. So we talk about the wheel, like it literally helps round it out and make it more multi-dimensional than just adulting, adulting, adulting all the time, adulting. So it increases your sense of fulfillment in your life. Mm-hmm.

unknown 30:59

Yeah.

Debra 30:59

Joy, fulfillment, happiness in your life. So when we're younger, we like in high school, we are asked, what are you gonna do with your life? What are you gonna do next? What are you gonna go to college for? And then we go to get some kind of an education

When Work Becomes Your Identity

Debra 31:15

afterwards. I mean college or technical school or just go into the workforce, right? And then people ask you, what do you do? What do you do? What do you do? Well I go to this job for eight or nine hours a day, and then I come home and they don't normally care about that part. They just mean what do you do for work? And that's like who you become, your identity. And I I have a I have a little issue with that. Like it's not your identity, it's just something you do. I have a huge issue with that. It's just what you do. It's something you do, and maybe you enjoy it, which is great, but not everybody uh enjoys their work. They don't feel like it was their life calling. So you you you go to work, but what else do you do? Right? Some of some of us come home to kids, some of us come home to a spouse, some of us come home to a dog. What do you do to bring more fulfillment to your life? And that's where the play, recreation, hobbies come in because it's more than just what you're doing to earn a paycheck. It's things that you enjoy doing. You're not gonna get paid to do them generally. Like I don't get paid to play pickleball. I don't get paid to play in my garden. I just do them because I enjoy them and it gives me a sense of fulfillment in my life. Yeah, I'm gonna say you get paid in other ways than monet monetarily. Yeah. You get paid in enjoyment and in energy and in which is a form of pay. It's just not what most people think of. But I think of like when was the last time you were at a social situation, a party or something, and you were talking to people? You ask someone, what do you do? and they say, Oh, I'm an accountant. You ask the next person, what do you do? And they say, you know, once a quarter I take a trip and I go do something I've never done before. What kind of different reaction? Everyone becomes interested. Who wants to talk about what the accountant's doing at work? Right? That's just the business of life. Right. Whereas this is the business of living life. Yeah, there's a difference. Yeah. Okay, so we got through what it does for you. Let's quickly go through, because like just not all play hits the same. There are effective types of play or recreation or hobbies that, like I said before, it will help regulate your nervous system and your brain while also giving you joy and progress in your life. Um, so there's a couple of things that are more impactful. More bang for your buck. Yes. So number one is physical play. So physical play is best for reducing stress, increasing energy, and you're generally moving your body in some way that discharges built-up tension. So, like my dance, or your weightlifting, or pickleball, which we do and that fit in that. Or going for a walk. It can be walking, it can be hiking, it can be tennis, basketball, it could be yoga

Picking The Right Kind Of Play

Debra 34:17

or tai chi, mobility type flows, or it can be something like swimming or bike riding. Anything physical. Anything that gets your body moving. It does. So doing that will help to regulate your cortisol. It boosts endorphins. Ultimately, also it improves your sleep. So that's two times we've all we've talked about sleep in this episode. Just this aspect, yes. Hey, if you're we gotta we spend a third of our life sleeping, hopefully. It's gotta be the best quality it can be. Yes. Okay, so another way to get more bang for your buck is to have creative play, and that is best for your emotional expression. So we're creating life without pressure or perfection. Ooh. Some so if I paint, it doesn't have to be perfect. It really doesn't. It can just be artistic. You're not Van Gogh. No, like it we're not aiming for perfection when we play. We're not we're trying to reduce stress. Right. So we're just playing. So you can paint, like you said, or draw or craft. Now, personally, I really stink at drawing. Like literally. I have drawn the same tulip since my kids were two with sidewalk talk on the sidewalk or on a piece of paper. It looks the same. I don't know how to draw it differently. You can tell it's a tulip, but it's not great, right? Okay. I am terrible at drawing. But it's fun for the grandkids to color the picture that come through. You can oh, this one's good. Writing like with a pen. Like a story or a poem or or journaling or write poetry. It's journaling's a good way to get people to talk about things in a creative way that nobody else has to see. Yeah. And it just gets it off your brain and off your heart. And it doesn't have to be perfect. If you're er if you're looking for perfection in your journaling, in my two sense, you're doing it wrong. You've missed the mark. Just get it, it's for expression, not perfection. This one I'm really good at for play. And not perfection. Baking.

unknown 36:43

Okay.

Debra 36:45

Okay, because you you you don't care if yours looks good. No. You care that it tastes good. It looks the best that I can make it look. So if we do the cake decorating contest like she was talking about, I would lose for for looks. But I might win for taste. Might win for taste. But I do cook for fun, and that usually turns out really well. Yeah. But baking, I bake because it tastes good, not because it looks good. It's a creative outlet and delicious. Yeah. Or how about do-it-yourself projects or home design? I feel like that's one of my weak spots. I don't feel like I'm very creative with that. But I can see an example and then build on it. I'm not great at coming up with my own design. Oh, same. So like I can look at a Pinterest board and be like, oh, I like that. But I want to do it this way. You personalize it. Yes. You take the idea and personalize it. I mean, I do that with every recipe too. You sure do. That's Deb's motto. That looks good. I'm gonna make it like I want to make it. Do what you're doing DIY projects. You know, that's really good for trying to do without perfection. Because if you wanted it perfect, you'd hire a professional. Correct. Correct. Yeah. That's why I don't make birthday cakes anymore. I just make a cake. Because decorating cakes is not my thing. But one a couple of reasons why this works to have creative play and for your emotional expression is it helps you process emotions. Yeah. And it can help increase dopamine through your creation. So increase those good, feel-good hormones through creating things. Because we are creators. We are, yeah. And in our own realms. We're never gonna excel in all of those options we just gave. No, right. Just their options. And that's not even the complete list. There's other ones. Yeah. But but just to get you started. Because we're playing. We're playing. This this whole podcast is play for us. And hopefully it's beneficial. We're trying to help. Yes. One of the most toxic things that people do is color their hair. And my hand is up. I am guilty of this. I love to play with my hair color. I have for years. And now I love to cover my grays. The best non-toxic hair color that I have found is polar hair care. It is easy, it applies like a shampoo. You only have to leave it on for 10 minutes. It lasts for about six weeks and it doesn't have any of the harsh chemicals and all the nasty stuff in it. Plus, it's infused with rashi, macadamia, jojoba oil. So it leaves my hair feeling better and not dried out and abused. Use the code Deborah 6334. That's my name, D-E-B-R-A 6334. So if you go to polarhaircare.com slash Deborah 6334, you'll get an awesome discount off your order.

Sponsor Polar Non Toxic Hair Color

Debra 40:03

So another type of play is the social play, which is then best for connection. So that could be things like your book club. You talked about game nights where you're doing card playing cards or board games. Um, it could be group classes like my dance class, or it could be clubs playing with kids or pets. That's group play, or casual sports, like you're on a softball team or a volleyball team, or do you have a knitting club that you go to, or a quilting class that you go to every Wednesday morning, like our mom does, like just different things like that. Those are usually more low pressure and interactive, less structured, but they always involve others. It works because it strengthens your relationships, which then releases oxytocin. We love oxytocin. The bonding chemical. Yeah, the love

Cognitive And Nature Based Play

Debra 41:01

chemical makes you feel good. We all need social connection. Yes. And that's a fun way to get it. Yeah. Let's talk about cognitive play. So stuff that's good for our brain health. Yep. Now, there have been a lot of studies about brain health. And the more the longer and more often you use your brain, which excludes scrolling on social media, the the better your long-term brain health is. So when you're 80 years old or 85 years old, you can still think clearly because you've been exercising your brain through cognitive play. So a couple of ways to do that. These are things that I like to do. Uh puzzles. I love puzzles. I we used to buy a puzzle every Christmas and just have it on our coffee table, and the kids would come and we'd put it together in the evening, and it was a good time to be together and also use our brains. So I like puzzles. I love puzzles. Crosswords. Uh-huh. Crosswords are fun. And Sudoku. Sudoku is brain stretching for me. I buy the easy ones. Because it is very stretching for me. Do you know how long it took me to even try Sudoku? Because it's revolves around numbers. And I prefer letters. I will do all of the word games. I will play Scrabble, I will do the word search, I will do crossword. I didn't want anything to do with Sudoku Sudoku. I thought it was math. It's a little bit of math. A little bit. It's just matching numbers. Yeah, it's not, it's not what I thought it was originally. It's fun. Yeah. Or let's see, you can play strategy games. That's what we like to play in my family. That takes us an hour and a half instead of 30 minutes. Or chess. Chess is a really good one. That one makes you think three steps ahead. That's one of Tom's favorites, and he is very strategic. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds fun. Oh man. Learning a language. So last year I decided I was going to learn Spanish because the majority of adults in my family speak Spanish. And sometimes they speak Spanish in front of us. Right. So I decided I was going to do that. And let me tell you, it was pretty tough as an adult because it's been a long time since I learned to speak Spanish. You went to college Spanish class. I did. Yes. I did like Duolingo.

unknown 43:34

Yeah.

Debra 43:35

I did that to enhance my learning, but it it just helped me. Anyways, I took a semester of Spanish when I was in ninth grade. And then I decided to switch it to French. But I remember more Spanish than French. But either way, language. Yeah. So learn a language. It just makes your brain work in a different way. So I like to learn little bits of different languages. Like I can count to ten in Probably 12 languages. Oh. It doesn't do me a whole lot of good, but it was good brain exercise. Yeah. And I like to be able to say, where is the restroom? In multiple languages. Because when I travel, that's very important. That's like the first thing I learned how to say in Spanish. Yes. Because I need to know. I need the answer to that. And then also when you travel, a lot of times there are, I'm going to say, people asking for money. So I like to say, I don't have any money. Those phrases I will always learn in as many languages as I can. That's a great, that's great. Yeah. So that's really good. It really is good for your brain health. It it creates new pathways and helps you think differently. You can also read for enjoyment. I do that. I'm really, really good at that one. She really is good at that one. When when you're in high school, you don't really read for enjoyment. You read because it's an assignment. I read for enjoyment in high school as well, ma'am. For assignments? Not for assignments on the side. Yeah, well, that's because you are Miss Book Girl. But most kids in I guess from middle school to high school. They're reading because of assignments. Yeah. And you forget that you love reading. A couple of that happened to a couple of my kids. Like they got burnt out reading for assignments and it just wasn't enjoyable anymore. A couple of years went by and then they picked up a book and realized, remembered, how much they really did enjoy reading. Because in elementary school, they they all read like, I don't know, from first grade to sixth grade, maybe a thousand books. Like they read a ton. They got their scholastic book club. Yeah. Their pizza and their treats at school and their pictures on the wall because they read so much and but they enjoyed it. Yeah. And then you forget you enjoy it. So can I tell you just something kind of personal experiment experience I had, shared experience. And please do not take any offense. Okay. We were in Mexico on the beach. One of your daughters was there, and she was next to me on the lounge chairs under the umbrella, and she had her earpiece in. And I said, What are you doing with your earpiece in? And she said, I'm listening to a book. And I was like, Awesome. What book are you listening to? And she's like, Oh, I don't really want to say. And I was like, Why? And she said, I don't want to be judged. And I said, I won't judge you. I just have read so many books, I wonder if I've read it. And she told me what it was. And I was like, Oh, yeah, I read that two years ago. And then we talked for an hour about the series of books that we had both absolutely loved, and she was in the middle of. Cognitive play, doing things for your brain helps. It helps you improve your memory. Helps you improve your focus and your mental flexibility. So those are all good things. I'm gonna say there's a lot of like other kind of categories of play, but I want to end with one of my personal favorites, which is nature-based play. I happen to know you like this one also. I do. But these ones are best for your nervous system reset. They kind of clear out overstimulation and help you get back to a grounded state. And that is, I'm gonna say, has been important for me in my life, but it's just one of the best forms of play to me. So it could be hiking or fishing or gardening. I've all loved to hike. Hike up, rundown is my motto. I used to do that more than I do now. But it can even be sitting outside. So I practiced this recently, sitting outside, looking at the clouds like I used to when I was a child and finding the shapes in the clouds. It could be organizing picnics, it could be exploring new trails or outdoor spaces, parks, or whatever the case may be. Or it can be things like paddleboarding or camping where you're in nature doing a thing. And that really works because it helps to reduce anxiety, it improves your mood, and it kind of restores your attention to the present because you're looking at the beauty. Or you're looking at the dirt that you're planting in. Like you're you're mindfully present in where you are. You're nodding and thinking of all the all the things. This is one of your favorite ways to to play, also. Yes, I I do like to go play outside in the dirt. I'm glad that it's gardening time and I can go plant things and baby them and watch them grow. Yeah. You like to hike, you like to walk, you like to paddleboard. Yep. I took up took up fishing again last year with Tom when he wanted it to become and I was like, great, I'll even come just sit next to you and be outside. See, I wouldn't do that fishing because mosquitoes. I'm I'm mosquito averse. I didn't never find a mosquito. You're lucky. I know. I am lucky, Deborah Baker. You know what's cool, like hiking is the all the wildflowers that you can find when you hike. There's just different kinds of vegetation. So that's my job. When I hike with Tom, I look at all of the flora and fauna, and he looks at all of the wildlife. And he'll always spot the wildlife before I do and point it out to me. And I will find the different flowers or plants or trees or whatever and point out to him. That's fun. Yeah. We but we are both naturally inclined in that way. Those are categories that do different things, but ultimately you want to decide what qualities you're looking for to actually make your play, your recreation or hobbies effective for you. It should check off at least one of these boxes. It should either help you feel better during or after. It should pull you out of autopilot, automatic, life mode, or it should give you a sense of presence or joy or progress. It can take one of those boxes, or it could take multiple. And then remember that the best hobbies aren't the most productive. They're the ones that actually restore you. Hobbies are not about being productive. No. It's about a restoration of you as a person. Play doesn't have to be a reward for finishing your work. You don't have to earn it. You really don't. It should just be a part of life that fuels

Make Play Restorative Not Productive

Debra 50:51

you doing your life well. Love it. Use play to fuel your life. Period. The end. We should make a shirt that says that, Deborah. Ooh, merchandise coming soon. That says what exactly? It says use play, play fuels your life. We should do that. Play is my fuel. Yeah. Variations on that theme. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ooh, give us suggestions. See how creative we can all get. Yeah. That'll be awesome. Yeah. So if you found anything helpful or useful in this episode, please share it with somebody who maybe needs a little bit more play or recreation or hobby in their life. Or fun, just fun. Also, remember that we have resources available for you on our website, dtimes2podcast.com. That's dx2podcast.com. There's discount codes, there's freebies. We've got different kinds of things for you there. Also in the show notes. And find us on social media. Like if you hear something in our episode or on one of our posts that could help somebody or give us feedback, please comment because we would love to hear from you. Yeah, we love it when we get to interact with you. Yeah. In real life. And social media is real life.

unknown 52:14

Yes.

Debra 52:15

And until next time. Keep your wheel rolling smoothly. Bye. Thanks for listening to the D-Times 2 podcast

Share Subscribe And Stay Connected

Debra 52:23

with Denise and Deborah. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Be sure to subscribe and share it with someone who's ready to roll toward a more balanced life. Your support means the world to us. And just a quick note we're sharing our own experiences and ideas, not professional advice. Always do your own research and talk to a qualified expert before making big decisions. Until next time, keep your wheel rolling strong.