Essentials: Using Play to Rewire & Improve Your Brain
Andrew Huberman, a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford, explains how play shapes the brain across the lifespan. He details how play engages specific brain circuits and neurochemicals, enhancing cognitive flexibility and creative thinking in adults.
Deep Dive Analysis
13 Topic Outline
The Utility and Power of Play
Brain Circuits and Neurochemistry of Play
Childhood Play and Low-Stakes Exploration
Adopting a Playful Mindset as an Adult
Universal Play Postures and Expressions
Group Play, Rule Testing, and Social Development
Role Play for Brain Expansion
Defining Effective Play for Brain Health
Play as a Portal to Neuroplasticity
Richard Feynman: A Lifelong Playful Tinkerer
Forms of Play for Enhanced Neuroplasticity
Understanding Personal Play Identity
Lifespan Development and the Persistence of Play Circuits
6 Key Concepts
Periaqueductal Gray (PAG)
A brainstem area rich in neurons that release endogenous opioids like enkephalin. During play, the PAG releases small amounts of these opioids, creating a chemical state that allows the prefrontal cortex to explore different roles and contingencies.
Endogenous Opioids
Biologically made opioids released by neurons in the periaqueductal gray during play. Their release into the brain helps relax the system and enables the prefrontal cortex to expand its operational capacity, fostering exploration in low-stakes environments.
Low-Stakes Environment
A crucial condition for effective play, where individuals feel comfortable exploring different outcomes and assuming various roles without high levels of stress or concern about the consequences. This environment facilitates the release of endogenous opioids and supports prefrontal cortex flexibility.
Play Postures
Universal non-verbal cues, seen in both animals and humans, that signal an intent to play. Examples include a dog's head-lowering 'play bow' or a human's subtle head tilt with open, 'soft eyes' and slightly pursed lips, indicating a non-aggressive, playful disposition.
Neuroplasticity
The brain's ability to change and rewire its circuits in response to experience. Play is described as a powerful portal to neuroplasticity, especially when it involves exploring contingencies in a high opioid, low epinephrine state, which triggers the deployment of growth factors like brain-derived neurotrophic factor.
Personal Play Identity
A concept describing how individual aspects like personality, sociocultural environment, and past experiences (especially in early adolescence) shape how one engages with play and, by extension, how they interact in adult work and relationships. It influences competitiveness, cooperation, and role-taking preferences.
7 Questions Answered
Play serves as a crucial mechanism for exploring contingencies and expanding one's catalog of potential outcomes in low-stakes environments, allowing the brain to learn and adapt without significant risk.
Play engages the periaqueductal gray (PAG) to release endogenous opioids, which, in concert with low adrenaline, allows the prefrontal cortex to become more plastic and explore different roles and possibilities, enhancing executive function.
Adults can benefit by expanding their prefrontal cortex's capacity, increasing cognitive flexibility, fostering creativity, and enhancing neuroplasticity, which helps keep the brain 'young' and adaptable across the lifespan.
In humans, common play postures include a subtle head tilt with open, 'soft eyes' and sometimes briefly raised eyebrows or a slight smile, signaling a non-threatening and playful intention.
Effective play involves engaging with some focus and seriousness in low-stakes environments, characterized by high endogenous opioid release and low levels of adrenaline, allowing for novel behaviors and interactions without stress over the outcome.
Activities involving novel, dynamic movements (like dance or multi-dimensional sports) and those that require adopting different roles within the activity (like chess, where different pieces have different rules) are particularly conducive to neuroplasticity.
Early adolescence (ages 10-14) is a peak time for social and motor development through play, shaping one's 'personal play identity' and influencing how individuals approach cooperation, competition, leadership, and role-switching in adult work and relationships.
17 Actionable Insights
1. Rethink Play as Contingency Exploration
Stop viewing play solely as a child’s or sport activity; instead, understand it as an exploration of ‘if I do A, what happens?’ to expand your catalog of potential outcomes. This perspective is key to enriching emotional, intellectual, and social lives.
2. Re-engage Play for Neuroplasticity
To engage neuroplasticity at any age, return to play, as it is the most powerful portal to plasticity, triggering brain rewiring and growth factors by mimicking natural developmental learning processes.
3. Engage in Regular Play
Adopt a playful stance and engage in play on a regular basis, focusing on low-stakes contingency exploration with attention but without high adrenaline, to benefit from ongoing neuroplasticity.
4. Play with Focus, Low Stakes
Engage in play with a degree of focus and seriousness, but ensure the stakes remain low enough to avoid high levels of adrenaline. This balance allows for the liberation of endogenous opioids, fostering a state conducive to neuroplasticity.
5. Prioritize Exploration Over Proficiency
When engaging in play, focus on exploring contingencies with truly low stakes rather than worrying about becoming good or proficient. This mindset is crucial for accessing the neurochemical states that open up neuroplasticity.
6. Adopt a Playful Mindset
Cultivate a playful mindset by allowing yourself to expand the number of outcomes you’re willing to entertain and consider how you relate to them, which benefits everyone, especially those less naturally playful. This helps open up prefrontal cortex circuits for exploring different possibilities.
7. Increase Willingness for Low-Stakes Activities
Increase your willingness to participate in low-stakes activities where you may not understand all the rules or be proficient, as this engagement provides information about yourself and others, thereby opening up prefrontal cortex circuits.
8. Play Games You’re Not Good At
Intentionally put yourself into scenarios, like playing games you’re not proficient in, where you might not be the top performer but the stakes are low. This allows for learning about yourself and others, opening up prefrontal cortex circuits.
9. Engage in Novel, Dynamic Movements
To best foster neuroplasticity, engage in play involving novel and dynamic forms of movement, including different speeds and angles, such as dance or sports like soccer, provided it’s not taken too seriously.
10. Do Dance or Multi-Dimensional Sports
Participate in activities like dance or sports (e.g., soccer) that involve dynamic, non-linear movements, jumping, and movement at different angles, as these are highly conducive to play-related neuroplasticity, especially when not taken too seriously.
11. Pick Activities with Multiple Roles
For non-physical play that expands neuroplasticity, choose activities like chess that allow you to adopt different roles and identities within the game, rather than rigidly linear ones, as this dynamically explores different thoughts and roles.
12. Expand Play to New Groups
If you already play regularly, expand your repertoire to include new forms of play, especially those involving new groups of individuals. This approach helps your brain learn, evolve, and improve.
13. Self-Reflect on Play Responses
Reflect on your past play experiences and current reactions to playful interactions, asking if you take things too seriously or overreact aggressively to playful jabbing or sarcasm. This self-assessment helps understand your social dynamics.
14. Engage in Role Play
Participate in role play, taking on different roles distinct from your natural world roles, to expand your brain’s capacity to make predictions from various standpoints and learn how to function in new ways.
15. Use Head Tilt to Signal Play
When you want to signal playfulness to others, adopt a subtle or not-so-subtle head tilt with your eyes open, as this is a universal human play posture.
16. Adopt ‘Soft Eyes’ and Lip Purse
To engage in play, open your eyelids somewhat (soft eyes) and slightly purse your lips, often combined with a head tilt and a smile. This contrasts with narrowed eyes seen in aggression or sadness.
17. Shrink Body Size Playfully
During playful interactions, unless it’s highly competitive, subtly shrink your body size rather than trying to appear larger. This is a human partial posture that signals non-aggression and willingness to play.
4 Key Quotes
Play is powerful at making your prefrontal cortex more plastic, more able to change in response to experience, but not just during the period of play, but in all scenarios, because you get one prefrontal cortex.
Andrew Huberman
Play is the most powerful portal to plasticity.
Andrew Huberman
Biology does not waste resources. It's extremely efficient. And were the circuits for play not to be important in adulthood, they would have been pruned away. But I guarantee you they are there in your brain and nervous system now, they will be there tomorrow, and they will be there going forward.
Andrew Huberman
Play is really about exploring things in a way that feels safe enough to explore.
Andrew Huberman