Let’s Play!
As it turns out, play is not only beneficial for your preschooler and grade school children, it’s also quite powerful for adults. Playing, both alone and with others, has the potential to unlock some pretty mighty strengths.
Would you believe that games, including video games, have the potential to biologically strengthen your relationships?
No one could be more skeptical of this fact than, well, me!
My kids have strict screen time limits, and I had been hiding our Wii in the garage after our last move, hoping my six year old would soon forget all about it. But after reading Jane McGonigal’s book, SuperBetter, all games are now encouraged in my home, including the Wii.
Playing games builds up emotional resilience, which is a trait children and adults benefit greatly from practicing. And if used correctly, games also have the potential to unlock our problem solving, creativity and self-efficacy. By failing in games, we learn how to playfully bounce back. And by seeing your character triumph, you take those victories with you into daily life.
I first learned about the author during a TED talk. Jane McGonigal is a video game designer who later experienced a brain concussion. The effects of the concussion were so severe that she could not work, exercise, read email, watch new television, get online, drink coffee…As she quipped to her doctor, “So no reason to live…”
When she passed the first “recovery window,” she realized that she could be in this state for months, years, or even for the rest of her life. As she began to have suicidal thoughts, she said either she was going to die or create a “game” to help save her life.
What a badass?!
Slowly, she created SuperBetter, which is not a video game, but an app, to promote her recovery. She called on her game designer background to get the recipe just right: Power Ups, Bad Guys, Quests, a Secret Identity, Epic Wins and Allies.
And within a few days, the mental fog of her concussion–lifted. She explains in her book that she continues to push through the painful recovery over the next year, but she stopped suffering as a result of her new game, SuperBetter.
Along the way, she chronicled this game on her website, and others joined in the fun. Within a year, her game helped her to heal her brain.
Since then, her game has been played by nearly a half million people, and has been the subject of two clinical trials.
The findings of these trials have been amazing, and her game outperforms traditional treatments for anxiety, depression and other problems.
By seeing your life as a game, where you are the hero, you are able to unlock some pretty amazing super powers.
So let’s play!
Here is one quest from her book:
“Quest 9: The Power of a Good Sync
If you want to strengthen your mind-and-body connection to friends and family, all it takes is a good sync.
What to do: Take one or two minutes out of your day to coordinate your actions as closely as possible with another person.
These simple methods work to stimulate mirror neurons and synchronize heart and breathing rates:
-Take a walk around the block together, and match your stride as closely as possible, in both rhythm and length.
-Rock in rocking chairs, or swing in swings next to each other at the same pace, for at least ninety seconds.
Walking, tapping, clapping, dancing, rocking and swinging together all work in the same way—they create a biological linkage trhough near-perfect physical mirroring and synchronization.”
I love trying to sync up with my kids without revealing what I am doing. So that makes it even more gameful for me.
There are dozens of quests throughout the book designed to improve your relationships, goal achievement, health and much more. SuperBetter is one of my top book picks for 2015, and I can’t recommend it enough.
P.S. The SuperBetter team is creating a new, improved app. To check out their Indiegogo offer, go here.
Leave a Reply