The results, says Gina Cook, research assistant professor in the Family Consumer and Human Development Department at USU, document the particular importance of two things: how crucial certain kinds of play are to a child’s future and playtime with both mom and dad. Most research has focused on interactions with moms. They found dads are very important, too, she says.”

As play scholar Brian Sutton-Smith wrote, ‘The opposite of play is not work, it’s depression.’ And the statistics on depression are astonishing! Over 18 million people in the U.S. alone are suffering from it. The rate of increase of depression in children is over 23%, and in 2007, suicide was the third leading cause of death in young people. In the meantime, schools are slashing funds for arts programs and eliminating recesses while adults are working longer hours with shorter vacations than ever before.

Overwork and depression are really just the tip of the ice berg. The cost of chronic play-deprivation also includes an obesity epidemic, increased violence, disparities between rich and poor, lack of innovation and creativity, even our ecological crisis. We stop playing at our peril.

But when we do play, all the research indicates that our health, happiness, intelligence, creativity, adaptability, resilience, our relationships, work, test scores, our sex lives…let’s just say EVERYTHING improves. Why? Because spontaneous, free play goes with the grain of the whole universe.