Summary

Fun activities are enjoyable, amusing, or playful. Fun is not the same thing as happiness. Having fun does not mean a person is happy all of the time. Being happy all of the time is a socially constructed concept and is likely not attainable. Trying to be happy all of the time can make a person feel unhappy. Including fun activities is your life can improve your mental wellbeing. Schedule time for having fun.

Embrace Fun for Mental Wellbeing

Fun activities make us feel better. Fun affects our cognitive functioning. Fun increases our energy level.

Let’s explore why embracing fun is good for our mental wellbeing.

What is Fun?

Contrast fun and happiness to better understand what fun is.

Fun is not a state of being nor is it a trait. What does this statement mean? Fun is not a way of being in the moment and it is not a tendency a person has of being in the world. I am not ‘fun’ at any given moment in my life.

Fun is the characteristic of an activity which gives me the feeling playing like a child or amusing myself as a child might.

Have I lost you?

Did you lose fun along the way, on your journey from child to adult?

Happiness, in contrast to fun, is a vague state of being which is very subjective. Despite the fact we have ‘data’ from surveys about overall happiness in the world (recall the World Happiness Report discussed in a previous post), happiness is a state of mind ill defined and potentially misleading about our actual mood. I can be happy in my mind and yet not feel happy at all, unless I embrace the concept of being able to enjoy life while simultaneously accepting the fact that I may not be happy every moment of my life.

Pause for a moment. How do you define happiness?

Why Embrace Fun Instead of Happiness

Happiness is a concept which I posit has been hijacked by society to reflect the measure of my life compared to a life I envisioned my life should be or compared to the life of others. Happiness has been co-opted by messages in social media. Read: If you have this, you will be happy. If you do this, happiness will be yours.

Happiness does not look like this or that. Without the luxury car, in the absence of taking a vacation away from home, lacking a physique socially sanctioned by the photographs on billboards or TV or Instagram or wherever, I can still be very happy, unless I compare myself to the media broadcasts of messages, crafted by influencers or media oligarchs, about happiness.

Consider Taylor Guthrie’s short video about chasing happiness via an urge for something and the implicated neurotransmitters. Craving for Coffee: The Dopamine Effect

And, this is where fun emerges as the winner who takes it all. Because, I can have fun anywhere and anytime, granting me the freedom to determine what experiences will contribute positivity to my life, thus, contributing to my mental wellbeing.

Psychological Research Supports Fun for Mental Wellbeing

On a personal level, I sense something is wrong when I see publicities luring me to purchase such and such item so that I can be happy. My gut instructs me to beware when I hear advertisements linking happiness to reaching an outcome like a certain body shape or the disappearance of wrinkles leading to compliments by the speaker’s friends or access to an infinitesimal number of clothes to make for the ‘perfect’ outfit for any occasion. I gulp and gasp when I read stories of people achieving complete happiness through the installation of a luxury bathroom, as if a sudden rapture had transported them to paradise.

The implication of these stories is that paradise had been lost and regained. Well, I have news for you, if paradise was lost once, it can certainly be lost again. Happiness down the proverbial drain!

The neuroscience behind my reaction is the neuroscience of fear and anxiety. My amygdala, my insular cortex, and my anterior cingulate cortex tell me to be fearful of those plastic messages. I encourage you to listen to an episode of The Cellular Republic on the neuroscience of anxiety to understand why I mention those brain regions (The Social Brain Ep. 32, The Neuroscience of Anxiety, Andrew Cooper-Sansone and Taylor Guthrie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMVnZjMVJpk).

Aside from my personal impressions of the fallacy of happiness via consumerism, there is actually research substantiating fun benefitting our mental wellbeing.

The Fun Habit, by Michael Rucker, PhD, details how he decided to explore the research of fun and what the research shows. Rucker delineates five reasons, based on research, why we should have more fun. Fun improves our relationships. Reading for fun leads to better language and math skills and being exposed to new ideas is linked to the pursuit of self-learning. Stress can be decreased when we have fun. Exercising for fun is associated with an improved hormone balance since the levels of some hormones reflect the impact of stressors on us. By having fun and reducing the impact of stressors on us, we experience having more energy.

Rucker proposes that having fun, decided on our own terms and not dictated (ie, not at an employer mandated group activity!), improves productivity. Self-determination theory rises again for workers of the world!

Why We Don’t Have Fun

People do not engage in fun activities for a number of reasons. Rucker proposes three main reasons: lack of time; consideration that others cannot have fun (it would be inappropriate to have fun); and awareness that others are not having fun (guilt).

Recall the self-determination theory mentioned in the post about motivation and mental wellbeing. We can find time when we accept our choices in life, our decision to reclaim our time from the aspects of our lives which suck the life out of us, literally. Rucker cites the concept from social science of time affluence and its association with autonomy and overall happiness. Time affluence: having the wealth of time. A sense of autonomy over our time, assuming control over decision-making related to time in our lives, contributes to our enjoyment of activities. The research supports engaging in fun activities in moderation in order to maintain the balance between meaningful life activities and fun.

Take a listen to a recent interview with Rucker:

TOPIC INTERVIEW: The Fun Habit with Mike Rucker, PhD. By npnHUB, Uniting Neuroplasticians. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITczdFtpti8

Call to Action

Embrace Fun for Mental Wellbeing

Identify fun activities.

Schedule time for fun. Incorporate it into your day.

Engage in fun activities in moderation.

Create boundaries on those aspects of life which can drain your time. For example, take breaks at work and honour your body by observing your lunch hour.

Make time for fun a habit.

Stop chasing happiness. Appreciate the here and now. And, embrace fun for mental wellbeing.

Your cognitive functioning, your productivity in life, and your mental wellbeing will profit from having fun.

Disclaimer: The content of this post does not substitute for consultation with your health care providers. Do not stop your medications without speaking with the prescriber of your medications.

Resources:

Why You Need More Fun in Your Life, According to Science. Michael Rucker, PhD. December 11, 2016. https://michaelrucker.com/having-fun/why-you-need-more-fun-in-your-life/