Some Millennials And Older Generations Are ‘Kidulting.’ Maybe You Should, Too.

Tapping into nostalgia the way Chickering does ― especially if you share it with others ― can be a powerful mental health booster.

Though nostalgia was once cast in a negative light ― in 1688, Johannes Hoffer, the Swiss doctor who coined the feeling, called it a “neurological disease of essentially demonic cause” ― today’s researchers are looking at the bright side. According to a study published in April 2021 in the journal Emotion, nostalgia is a highly social emotion that can bolster our feelings of connectedness with others.

Even getting nostalgic on your own has feel-good benefits; a study published in the same journal in 2016 found that nostalgic people tend to have a healthier sense of self-continuity ― meaning a sense of connection between one’s past and one’s present. (Which is not to say that getting wistful about that past can’t be a little depressing; nostalgia is bittersweet, of course.)

“Overall, I think nostalgia is just comforting,” said Nicole Booz, the founder of GenTwenty.com and author of “The Kidult Handbook.”

“Adults who reminisce [in] the nostalgia of childhood are looking back to a time in their lives where they felt secure, when there was an entire lifetime of possibilities in front of them.”

Factor nostalgia in with play and you’re bound to feel better about anything.

“When we engage in pure playfulness, the kind of activities that whisks away time and worry, that’s done solely for sheer enjoyment and fun, the frontal cortex of our brains literally burst into fireworks,” said Meredith Sinclair, a “Today” show contributor and author of “Well Played, The Ultimate Guide to Awakening Your Family’s Playful Spirit.”

Serotonin levels go off “giving us a feeling of well being and contentment while creating a fertile soil for creativity, art, invention, and cognitive flexibility,” Sinclair wrote in an email. “We always come away feeling better for taking the time to play.”

Krystine Batcho, a professor of psychology at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York and the author of the “Longing for Nostalgia” blog on Psychology Today, thinks more adults should seek out play when they’re feeling stressed or anxious.

“At first, play might serve as an escape from the burdens of responsibilities, disappointments, or worries but given a chance, play can also revive feelings of awe as ordinary things are seen through curious eyes from a new perspective,” she wrote in an email. “Play can foster creative benefits of imagination, fantasy, and the temporary suspension of the limits of reality.”

Pretending there are no limits or boundaries can be liberating and broaden our sense of what’s possible, Batcho added.

“Putting our mental ‘editor’ on pause for a bit can allow innovative ideas to surface and unexpected options or solutions to problems can come to mind,” she said.

Now that we’ve got you all in on play ― or halfway in if you’re being curmudgeonly and grown-up about it ― play scholars share a few ways to tap into your inner kid below.

Jeff Harry, an international speaker who uses positive psychology and play to help teams and organizations build better workspaces, considers boredom the pivotal starter ingredient for play.

Get good and bored, he said, like as bored as you were during the crazy-making height of lockdown.

“That’s one of the best ways to cultivate your inner child and to hear what your inner child has to say,” he said. “And when your inner child starts telling you all these crazy ideas ― like why don’t why don’t you start a podcast, why don’t you start baking sough-dough bread, why don’t you start a TikTok account ― listen.”

By the way, Harry loves TikTok and looks at it as a digital third space for productivity-free fun: “It’s like a playground for a lot of people who didn’t have the opportunity or space to play before.”

The experts agreed: Play is considerably better with friends. Round up the people in your life who share mutual hobbies and make playtime a collaborative effort, Batcho said.

“Inviting others to play can enhance the pleasant feelings of youth,” she said.

If you have kids, you have an obvious leg up with play, Batcho said. But regardless of what age groups you’re working with, games are an obvious choice for play.

“You can do an adult scavenger hunt, make homemade Dunkaroos, make playdough or pottery together, or do something like play frisbee golf,” Booz said. “These are activities that are reminiscent of childhood and bring out the best in all of us.”

Or it could be something more unconventional and slightly more adult: During the shelter-at-home stage of the pandemic, I had a friend who hosted boozy Zoom read-throughs of bad movie scripts.

Not really sure what your “play” of choice is? Call three or more of your closest friends and ask them to indulge you in this “play experiment” that Harry created. Ask them these two questions:

1. What value do I bring to your life?
2. When have you seen me most joyful, alive and playful?

With the value question, you’re asking them what you bring to their lives and what you may be good at. The second, specifically on play, will help you explore who you are in your peak state and what activities you’re doing when you’re in a joyful state, Harry said.

“See what patterns emerge, as they may help you discover a new way for you to play based on capturing the essence of what you used to do in the past,” he said.

If you’re a play agnostic, try to acknowledge that you’re doing something really good for yourself when you play.

“You have to push aside your ego, self-consciousness, and adult responsibilities, let go and embark on a fun-finding mission,” Sinclair said.

Kidulting is not about being childish or immature or time-wasting, Booz said: “It’s about re-embracing the positive parts of childhood as adults so that we can practice healthy escapism and tap into things we truly, deeply love.”