Are You Having Fun Yet?
Are you having enough fun in your life? Chance are, you probably aren't reaching your required fun quota, and may be fun-deficient. And perhaps a fun-infusion is in order.I say this somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but having fun in your life is actually serious business. Many people are overwhelmed right now with tough economic times, are finding themselves working harder than before to keep their jobs, may be suffering from stress in their relationships as a result, and don't make fun a priority. This is understandable, but it's important to prioritize having fun, too. Here's why:
Eustress: Fun activities provide a source of eustress, the 'good' kind of stress that keeps you feeling vital and alive. It's the sense of excitement you get from completing a project, riding a roller coaster, or meeting an exciting challenge in your life. We need regular eustress in our lives, and fun activities can provide that.
Read More About Eutress
Positive Attitude: Having regular fun in your life can help you feel less overwhelmed by the stressors you face. This can help you change your attitude toward your lifestyle stressors so that you're less reactive to stress when you experience it.
Read More About Positive Attitude and Stress
The 'Best Medicine': Laughter carries many health benefits with it, so the more laughter you have in your life, the better it is for your health.
Read More About The Benefits of Laughter
User-Friendliness: It might be hard to hit the gym multiple times a week or forgo unhealthy 'comfort foods' when you're stressed, but fitting more fun and laughter into your life is something you can do for yourself that's also easy!
Read More About Healthy Lifestyle Choices
Strong Relationships: Couples who engage in new activities together and have regular fun together may enjoy a closer bond than they otherwise would if they fell into a rut. And a healthy relationship can be a great source of stress relief in your life.
Read More About Healthy Relationship Resources
Social Support: Likewise with friends, sharing fun activities with friends is a great way to maintain a supportive circle of buddies, keeping your bonds strong and helping everyone in the group keep stress levels low. Having strong friendships in your life, and a sense of community, has been linked with longevity, lower stress levels, and more positive states of health.
Read More About Social Support
Burnout Buffering: Having regular fun activities to spice up your life can also help you stave off burnout. Feelings of burnout can result from having a stressful job with unpredictable, hard-to-meet expectations and little recognition. One of the methods I've always endorsed for finding relief from this type of job stress is to give yourself small rewards, or start a group of supportive friends to high-five each other when they accomplish goals that would otherwise go unrecognized. Giving yourself a regular dose of fun is a way to do that, and share it with friends.
Read More About Burnout and Stress
So, after looking at some of the "why"s of having fun, let's look at the "how"s. How can we all get more fun into our lifestyles? It's simpler than you may think, if you make fun a priority. Here are some ideas:
Take A 'PlayCation' For Stress Relief
Related Resources
Fun Stress Relievers
How can you relieve stress by having fun? Here are some ideas to try!
Top Hobbies for Stress Relief
Certain activities are worth the time you put into them, just for the fun and stress relief you can get out of them. Here are some of my top picks for stress-relieving hobbies.
How To Maintain a Sense of Humor
Laughing at the stressors you face is one of the best ways to rob them of their difficulty. Here are some strategies for maintaining a sense of humor in life, and having more fun as you go.
Share Your Thoughts:
Do you feel that you have enough fun in your life? What do you do for fun? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
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I love your tips on having fun with yourself. This is a good advice that people might need this in order to stay happy and have lots of fun. Thanks for sharing this article!
Fun is good and definitely good for combating stress. But stress does not cause job burnout.Burnout is a kind of job depression caused by feelings of powerlessness – uncontrollability.
The suggested actions in this article are good, not because they reduce stress, but because they increase controllability. Building a strong social support system, giving oneself rewards and arranging to get acknowledgement from others.
Burnout is stressful and the stress must be brought down. Stress the a symptom of burnout and not the cause. To prevent or overcome burnout one must concentrate on the cause uncontrollability and increase one’s sense of personal power in the situation.
Bogartkick: Thank you for your comment. I hope you have a fun week!
Dr. Beverly Potter: Thank you for your comment, and you bring up important points that deserve clarification. It’s true that it isn’t stress alone that causes burnout, it’s a specific type of stressor. The uncontrollability is a big part of that, and it shows up in a job situation in the form of things like unclear requirements, lack of recognition, unrealistic standards, highly negative consequences for mistakes, etc.
For those who are interested in reading further about burnout, its symptoms and causes, there’s a link in the blog, or you can see more here: http://stress.about.com/od/burnout/a/stressn_burnout.htm
Thanks for the tips. Fun just doesn’t seem to be a priority sometimes. It’s all work, work, work and stress, stress, stress
I, too, am a huge fan of staycations and local vacations. My personal favorite is going camping at my local campground which is all of 20 minutes away. It’s a state park with resident rates so it’s pretty inexpensive too.
Whether it’s at home or close to home, the key to really having fun and reducing stress is to unplug. Especially in the current economy, watching television and particularly tv news is deadly.
I recommend unplugging completely…the television, the radio, the newspapers, the computer and the phones. It’s all still there waiting for you when you get back, but giving yourself that respite goes a long way toward renewed energy and stress reduction.