What would your life look like if you designed it around PLAY? Do you even remember how to play anymore? When was the last time you really cut loose and switched your professional pants for silly shorts? Or have you become too serious and grown up to play?
George Bernard Shaw reminds us “we don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing”.
If your life is lacking fun and enjoyment it could be because you outgrew play. The good news is that you can design FUN and ENJOYMENT right into your home to experience play every day!
In this blog, we discuss the importance of play and why fun should be prioritized, supported by six surprising health benefits of fun. Then we show pictures of homes designed for fun and enjoyment.
Prioritize Play
Life is meant to be enjoyed and fun should be made a priority!
How easily we forget that we all used to be children, when play was our ONLY priority! As children, play was the leading modality through which we learned about life. We learned about ourselves, what we liked, and what we didn’t like. We learned how to relate to others through cooperation, cohesiveness, and creating rules and boundaries to keep the games going. We learned how to create something from nothing using only our imagination. We learned how to laugh, open our hearts, and be free. Seems like a long-forgotten dream, doesn’t it? Perhaps there’s a reason why children seem so happy, and adults can seem so…unhappy. Life is challenging and any good Buddhist can tell you that a human existence is rife with suffering. Since life is as hard as it is, shouldn’t we intentionally seek ways to lessen the burden, lighten the mood, find fun, and infuse our days with play? The freedom and happiness of a child IS obtainable as an adult too, though you have to be willing to move against the common narrative of adulting to find your fun. We’ve been taught all wrong! Being a responsible adult is NOT to be strictly serious. Healthy adulting is actually prioritizing play, creating spaces for fun, and following through on enjoying life. In fact, you can look at the cultivation of fun as one of your many responsibilities as a successful adult. We encourage all our clients to get in touch with their inner child to hone in on what truly brings them fun and enjoyment. Together we create spaces for play, laughter, happiness, and joy! Like a ripple in a pond, these feelings amplify out to all other experiences and relationships in our lives. This is the secret! It’s how we reprogram our minds to live more joyously. 
6 Surprising Health Benefits of Fun
1. Improve Your Love Life
Play is one of the most effective tools for keeping relationships fresh and exciting. Flirting is a form of play that many couples instinctually do at the beginning of a relationship. Choosing to continue to flirt and cultivate play with one another fosters bonding and creates joy, vitality, and resilience in long-term relationships. Play and sharing fun moments together can heal resentments, disagreements, and hurts by creating space for forgiveness. Through regular play, stress and pressure on the relationship are released and you learn to trust one another to feel safe again. 2. Help Heal Emotional Wounds Having fun helps create new positive memories and recalibrates your perspective of life. When allowing yourself to have fun you communicate to your subconscious that you are worthy of happiness and that life doesn’t need to be so hard. Things you’ve been worried or stressed about may not seem so important once you adopt a more fun lifestyle. 3. Improve Relationships with Others A lighthearted and playful nature can help you and others loosen up in uncomfortable situations. Play breaks the ice so bonds can be made. Sharing laughter and fun can foster empathy, compassion, optimism, trust, and connectivity. Stepping outside of your comfort zone while having fun with others helps to build confidence, develop cooperative team building skills, and reduce social anxiety. 4. Reduce Stress Play, fun, and laughter triggers the release of the “feel good hormones” endorphins which promote an overall sense of happiness and wellbeing. When endorphins are high, the “stress hormone” cortisol is lowered. Stress shuts down our immune systems, restricts the blood vessels in our gut, slows our growth, and decreases the blood flow to our brains. We actually become less intelligent when we’re stressed! Long-term reduction of stress and stress hormones like cortisol help ward off many health issues like heart disease, obesity, anxiety, and depression. 5. Improve Brain Function You learn new tasks much better when you’re having fun and are in a playful mood. Choosing to play chess, puzzles and other challenging games that stimulate your mind help improve brain function and prevent memory loss. Having fun also allows you to be more present which cultivates more happiness, concentration, and trains the mind to focus on the task at hand. 6. Boost Creativity and Adaptability Play stimulates creativity, allowing you to think in ways you otherwise wouldn’t. When creativity is practiced often, life appears to be much more flexible, doors of possibilities open that you otherwise may not have seen, and you move through life in a way that allows you to adapt to the challenges of life more fluidly. 
What Does Fun Look Like to You?
How do you want to play? What do you find enjoyment in? Do you want to design entertainment and outdoor living spaces that make your friends and family want to visit often? Or would you prefer alone time in a man-cave or she-shed? How about both?
See below the ways our clients have designed fun and enjoyment right into their homes: 
Laughter is the Best Medicine
Fun and enjoyment are strong predictors of health and well-being. If we become too “adult” and stop flooding our brains and bodies with the feel-good chemicals affiliated with play, we stop the natural medicine that keeps our body, mind, and spirit well.
So, pay attention to how you feel and what YOU consider to be fun! Focus on what brings YOU joy! Incorporate these elements right into your home. Play, sing, laugh, and dance your way to a healthier, happier, YOU-Inspired life! We intend you grow younger as the years pass with more fun and enjoyment designed into your life! Inspired by YOU, 
Jenny Pippin, CPBD, FAIBD, CGP
Pippin Home Designs 
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AuthorI am Jenny Pippin, founder of Pippin Home Designs and creator of my own inspired living. I grew up as an ordinary southern girl, working in the fields of my family’s tobacco farm. It didn’t take me long to realize I had greater gifts and so I chose to step into my power and create my own path in life, inspired by my heart’s true passion. (More on my personal story HERE!) Archives
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Copyright 2020. Pippin Home Designs. All rights reserved.
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN COPYRIGHT NOTICE
1987-2021 Copyright. Jennifer B. Pippin. Pertaining to all home designs, drawings, and photographic imagery of completed designs
presented herein. No part of the contents of the design work presented on this website may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, for the purpose of replication or adaptation. This material is intended to provide accurate and
authoritative information about the design abilities and expertise of Jennifer B. Pippin and Pippin Home Designs.
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN COPYRIGHT NOTICE
1987-2021 Copyright. Jennifer B. Pippin. Pertaining to all home designs, drawings, and photographic imagery of completed designs
presented herein. No part of the contents of the design work presented on this website may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, for the purpose of replication or adaptation. This material is intended to provide accurate and
authoritative information about the design abilities and expertise of Jennifer B. Pippin and Pippin Home Designs.