Playing can help adults reduce stress

It had been a rough day, probably a rough week. You could tell it in the way he slowly pushed his grocery cart out the door, the way his shoulders slumped, the way his eyes barely left the ground in front of him.

For that matter, anybody doing their grocery shopping at 8:30 p.m. on a Friday night still dressed in a business suit had obviously had a day and week to forget.

He must have had to park about as far away from the store as was possible; his painful progress across the lot seemed to take forever. But then he came to a gradual slope in the pavement leading down toward his car. He paused so loudly you could almost hear him thinking.

Finally, he made up his mind. Placing one foot on the cart, he pushed off with the other and coasted down the hill, suit coat billowing in the breeze.

I couldn't see the expression on his face. I can't imagine he wasn't grinning from ear to ear.

As the slope gave out his descent slowed; but this time when he resumed walking there was energy in his step, power in his posture. He may not have been a new man, but he certainly was a renewed man.

Now, I probably wouldn't let my kids turn a grocery cart into their own personal downhill racer. On the other hand, if anybody needed a lift it was this guy. Certainly his brief moment of play made a big difference in how he felt and acted.

I imagine that's something all of us adults need to remember. The evidence is clear that play is an important contributor to emotional, mental and spiritual health.

We don't have to revert to childhood or childish behavior, but we do need to find ways that we can make play a regular part of our daily and weekly routine.

A word of caution - there are a lot of things we can do in our spare time that are not really play in the sense that I mean. When I talk about play, I'm referring to activities that are enjoyable, that reduce stress (rather than add to it as, for example, competitive sports might), and that leave us with a sense of peace, well-being and renewed energy.

Even with those restrictions, we have a lot of options for adding play to our existence.

Play likely will take different forms throughout our lives; we will want a variety of ways to play that will last us a lifetime. And what is play for one person may not be play for another. Yet, whatever our age, wherever we find it, we adults need to play.

• Dr. Ken Potts is on the staff of Samaritan Counseling Center in Naperville and Downers Grove. He is the author of "Mix Don't Blend, A Guide to Dating, Engagement and Remarriage With Children."