Play It Away: A Workaholic's Cure for Anxiety (7 page)

End of Week 1 - Assessment

• Did you write down all the things you worry about on a daily and weekly basis?
  
• Did you pinpoint your 1-2 heaviest anchors?
  
• Did you put your simple solution(s) into action?
  
• Were your heaviest anchors reduced or removed?
  

On a scale of 0 - 100%, how much did your anxiety drop this week?

***

After my heaviest anchors were removed, my mind was no longer consumed with worry. I regained a ton of energy, which I re-directed to activities that made me feel happy and healthy.

That’s what the next three weeks of the plan are going to cover:
the anxiety-healing techniques that really worked for me.

Week 2

Heal Your Mind

Enjoy Guilt-Free Play With Friends

Consistent Bedtime & 20-Minute Naps

Observe Your Thoughts

Enjoy Guilt-Free Play With Friends

Let’s go fly a kite.

–
M
ARY
P
OPPINS

Playing on a regular basis is an investment in your health and happiness. Not only does it allow you to have fun with your friends while exercising, it also turns your thoughts off for a while so your brain can recharge. Reducing your anxiety through play only takes 2% of your total time each week (that’s 30 minutes every day), but it’s up to you to decide that your happiness is worth the effort.

If you’re ready to play more but aren’t sure where to start, the first thing you should do is create your
Play History
.
¹⁴
Here’s how:

Recall as many of the fun activities that you repeatedly and voluntarily turned to during your childhood, and write them all down.

I spent about 20 minutes writing down everything I could recall from my own
Play History
. Then I called up a few childhood friends to ask what games they remembered us playing together when we were growing up.

My top five
Play History
activities were:

• Creating my own art (film, writing)
  
• Making people laugh (improv comedy, pranks
  ¹⁵
  )
  
• Learning and developing new skills (guitar)
  
• Team sports (catch, home run derby)
  
• Building and fixing things with my hands
  

After my list was complete, I set aside dedicated time for my favorite play activities in my daily schedule. That’s right - I actually scheduled a recurring event in my calendar called
Play!
I know this technically goes against the spontaneous nature of playing, but I’m a recovering workaholic. Cut me some slack.

Each weekend, my friends and I played home run derby (which I hadn’t played in almost nine years). For me, that was the most rewarding form of play. Taking batting practice was always so much fun, and it gave me an excuse to move around outdoors for a couple hours.

I also started taking frequent trips to the park with an Aerobie Flying Ring (a flat rubber Frisbee that flies really fast). The Aerobie was perfect for playing catch because I had to call up a friend to join me, and we’d both end up running around while chasing it.

We’re phasing out the games. People drink less when they’re having fun.

—
M
OE,
T
HE
S
IMPSONS

Incorporating play into my weekly routine helped my anxiety and workaholism more than anything else. It was such a massive relief to hang out with my friends and have guilt-free fun again. Playing helped me decompress and unplug from work, which actually made me more productive.

After each round of catch or home run derby, I would return to my laptop feeling light and happy. And to my surprise, I was able to produce better work at a faster pace. My brain was operating at a higher level because it was happy, playful, and recharged.

I wasn’t the only one. Two of my close friends attested to a boost in productivity and creativity because of play. My friend Ann (a book editor) texted me one afternoon to say that she was trying to work, but was so bored that she’d spent the last hour staring at a turtle swimming in a pond. I told her to come pick me up so we could play catch. We drove over to a park and played with the Aerobie for two hours in the sun. The next day, she sent me this message:

My friend Erin (a graphic designer) experienced similar results from playing. Ann and I called her one night to see if she wanted to hang out. Erin said there was no way she could, as she’d missed the deadline for a client’s website. Ann and I heard the frustration in her voice and decided to drive over to her apartment.

When we arrived, Erin was freaking out and completely exhausted. She was barely halfway finished, and had at least six more hours of work left. Erin weakly declared she was going to stay up all night to get the site done.

Ann and I forced Erin to quit work for the night so she could come play mini golf. She was a bit stressed out by the kidnapping, but she loosened up by the time we arrived at the course. The three of us goofed around for a couple hours, giving each other a hard time at each hole, and laughing like maniacs with every inappropriate joke we told. By the end of the night, we were all happy and relaxed.

The next day, Erin told us how much better she felt after taking some time off to play. She went straight to bed when she got back home, had a good night’s rest, and was able to finish the site in
less than two hours
the next morning.
Play, it seemed, had the power to make our work easier, faster, and more enjoyable.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. So if you aren’t dedicating enough time to
play
with your friends, schedule it in your calendar. Seriously. Start by playing at least twice a week, for a minimum of 30 minutes per session.

If you’re having trouble coming up with your own
Play History
, call up a few of your childhood friends and ask for their input. You can also refer to these lists of play activities for inspiration:
¹⁶

Solo Activity

• Archery
  
• Batting cages
  
• Biking
  
• Boogie boarding
  
• Building things with your hands
  
• Coloring books
  
• Cooking
  
• Creating art
  
• Driving range
  
• Fishing
  
• Ice skating
  
• Kite flying
  
• K’Nex
  
• Legos
  
• Lifting weights
  
• Long boarding
  
• Painting
  
• Playing an instrument
  
• Playing with dogs
  
• Reading fiction
  

• Rock climbing
  
• Roller skating
  
• Running
  
• Skateboarding
  
• Skiing
  
• Snowboarding
  
• Swimming
  
• Surfing
  
• Woodworking
  
• Writing for fun
  
• Yoga
  

2-4 People

• Billiards
  
• Bowling
  
• Boxing
  
• Camping
  
• Catch
  
• Dance lessons
  
• Darts
  
• Disc golf
  
• Filming sketches
  
• Frisbee
  
• Golf
  
• Hiking
  
• Home run derby
  
• H.O.R.S.E.
  
• Making music
  
• Mario Kart 64
  
• Martial arts
  
• Ping pong
  
• Poker
  
• Power lifting
  
• Pranks
  

• Racquetball
  
• Road trip
  
• Sailing
  
• Scavenger hunt
  
• Swings
  
• Tennis
  
• Trampoline
  
• Tubing
  
• Wake boarding
  
• Wii Bowling
  

Big Groups

• Amusement Parks
  
• Baseball
  
• Basketball
  
• Beach volleyball
  
• Cricket
  
• Co-ed team sports
  
• Dance parties
  
• Dodgeball
  
• Football
  
• Handball
  
• Hockey
  
• Improv comedy classes
  
• Kickball
  
• Lacrosse
  
• Partying
  
• Rugby
  
• Slip-N-Slide
  
• Soccer
  
• Softball
  
• Squash
  
• TP’ing houses
  
• Ultimate Frisbee
  

• Volleyball
  
• Water balloon fights
  
• Water polo
  
• White water rafting
  
• Wiffle ball
  

In my experience, the best forms of anxiety-reducing play are
outdoor sports.
They are social (more than one person is required), mildly competitive, and cause everyone to break a sweat in the fresh air and sunshine. However, any fun play activity that you can do on a regular basis with your friends should work.
¹⁷

You can take baby steps toward playing more, of course. You could invite a friend on a long walk, or play catch instead of drinking coffee, or take a date to the driving range.
The important thing is to make time for guilt-free fun with good people
.

Isolating yourself from people erodes your health, and sitting in a chair all day long is a recipe for neuroses. Get off the internet, turn off your screens, and go have guilt-free fun playing with your friends! You’ll be less anxious, less lonely, more relaxed, and a whole lot happier.

Three Rules for Proper Play

Rule 1

D
ISCONNECT FROM
S
OCIAL
M
EDIA

I know people will still be tempted to do this even after an explicit warning, but
you need to disconnect from social media in order to play.

This is the time to bond with your friends. It is NOT the time to show how great your life is to people who aren’t even there. Constantly taking pictures for Instagram or updating your Facebook destroys the spontaneous nature of play. Rather than being in the moment and having fun, you’re just distracting yourself with the thought of how many Likes and comments your updates are getting.

If you truly want to get your anxiety and workaholism under control, you need to disconnect. If the lure of the internet is too tempting, just turn your cell phone OFF.

I know it’s fun to share your life, but social media is destructive when it’s compulsively used to gloss over how lonely and insecure you feel. Stop trying to convince everyone that you have a perfect life. Face the fact that you
don’t,
then go play so you can make it better.

Rule 2

H
ARMONY >
W
INNING

If you played competitive sports growing up, you were probably conditioned to take winning very seriously. Each year, the games became more serious, prestigious, and competitive. For me, I graduated from playing catch with my dad, to street games with my friends, to Little League, to Apache League, to high school tryouts, to Varsity. But by the time I was 18 years old, I’d lost interest in every sport because only “the best” were allowed on the field. I got so fed up with the seriousness of the coaches and the drills and the wins that I was ready to quit. The spirit of play was scrubbed out of the games.
¹⁸