Having fun is essential for making both big and small changes in our lives, and it can significantly enhance our mental and physical well-being.

Sara emphasises the importance of distinguishing between "real fun," which leaves us feeling fulfilled and energized, and "fake fun," which often leads to feelings of emptiness or guilt.

Throughout the episode, she shares insights on how engaging in genuine fun activities can reduce stress, improve cognitive function, and foster social connections.

Sara encourages listeners to reflect on past joys and explore new activities, highlighting that it's never too late to rediscover what makes us truly happy.

The conversation serves as a reminder that prioritizing fun is not just a luxury but a vital component of living a fulfilling life.

Takeaways:

• Having fun is essential for making positive changes in our lives and reducing stress.
• Real fun is fulfilling and energizing, often leading to a positive afterglow.
• Fake fun can leave you feeling drained, guilty, or ashamed, unlike real fun.
• Engaging in activities you love can significantly improve your mental and physical health.
• We must give ourselves permission to have fun, regardless of societal norms or pressures.
• Reflecting on past joys and trying new activities can help rediscover what brings you fun.

I'd love to know what your key takeaway was from this episode...will you be trying some new ways to have fun?! Find me on social media 👇👇👇 and say hello!

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Website: https://www.saraburton.co.uk/  

Let's talk about having fun.

We love to do it, it's so good for us.

But here's the thing.

If we want to make big changes, if we want to make little changes, we're in a much better place to do and make those things happen when we're not in a state of threat or overly serious or in overwhelm.

So having fun is so important and I'm going to show you why.

Welcome to the Start over and Rise podcast.

I'm your host, Sara Burton, Start over coach and mentor.

And this podcast is for you.

If you are an ambitious, joy seeking individual who knows you want more out of your life and you are not prepared to settle for anything less.

So if you're looking to be you, really you, and live your life with unshakable confidence, then you, my friend, are in the right place.

Let's get started.

Hey gorgeous.

How are you doing?

I hope you've had a fabulous week.

I've had an amazing week, thank you for asking.

Start over and Rise has now been launched and I'm so excited.

I've got some amazing women on this course and we have got going.

So I may be on a little bit of a high, but isn't that what it's all about?

Isn't it about doing what you want to do, loving what you do?

And I have the privilege to be able to make a living out of doing what I love.

And I really, really encourage you that if you are not living your purpose, if you are not doing something that really brings you joy, then start to think about making a change because it makes a massive difference.

And that brings me on to this week's subject, which is fun.

I have to say, I look for fun in everything.

I've been told by some people it's very irritating and other people love it.

But the reason that I am so obsessed with this and I have trained myself and it is, I guess it is inherently natural for me.

But over the years, certainly from a child, there have been lots of conditioning around having fun.

When is it socially acceptable?

Should you be doing it?

Is it the right time?

Is it appropriate?

There are so many things around fun that I think as we get older, it's not uncommon to completely almost forget how to have fun.

And I mean that real fun, fun that you feel through your core.

And that's what we're going to talk about today.

Because when you experience fun, it does amazing things for you.

It releases hormones and relieves stress.

It can help you focus better, which, you know, that's no coincidence as to why I've discovered that I do need to have fun in my life.

So I'm going to start off by actually going through a bit of a definition of.

I put it into two categories because when you start to think about fun, there is real fun and then there's what I'm calling fake fun.

And I just want to run through what the differences are.

In its most basic form, it's very, very easy to tell the difference.

It often comes down to the fact that it's how you feel during and after the fun activity and how meaningful or fulfilling the experience is.

So let's have a look at what I mean by that.

So for example, real fun feels fulfilling and it feels energising.

And what tends to happen is you're often really engaged, you're sort of fully in the moment and it's effortless, it just happens.

And it's often when you are deeply absorbed in something.

So it could be that you've even forgotten about everything else that's going on.

And afterwards you feel fully recharged, you feel satisfied, you feel fulfilled, you feel all those good things.

And real fun tends to have a positive afterglow that it just improves your mood and your energy levels are better.

I mean, remember, cast your mind back to when you last had some proper fun.

It tires you out, it makes you sleep better, your mood is lifted, everything feels really good.

So it could be something as small as you've got a little hobby and maybe you're smiling while you're doing it, you're enjoying it.

I always remember when I was a photographer that I used to love when I was editing weddings and baby shoots and things like that.

I was so conscious that I was smiling while I was doing it.

I enjoyed it, I really, really loved it.

And so that's a level of fun.

And then you've got sort of the, the thrill seeking fun, the adrenaline pumping fun like going to something like Alton Towers or a fun park where it's really are chasing, chasing the thrill.

But whether it's a creative activity or whether it's a pumping adrenaline activity, it leaves you with a connection with yourself.

It leaves you with a sense of accomplishment, right, that you've, you've, you've done something that has had a really positive effect on you.

Now fake fun.

I'm going to bring this up because I think, I think it's important that we really define the difference.

Fake fun can often leave you feeling drained or empty or maybe with a sense of guilt or shame.

It's not the same thing.

It's very, very different.

So fake fun might feel like it's sort of like a temporary thrill or it's something to escape, you know, the real stuff that's going on or escape connecting with somebody.

So it's often something that we do out of habit.

It might be something that you've sort of done in the name of fun that's maybe come from social pressure, or it can be something that's born out of boredom rather than genuine enjoyment.

So this could be things like, you know, I don't know, diving into a big cake or drinking a whole bunch of tequila, which.

Or cocktails, which seems like fun at the time, but it has a payoff.

It doesn't make you feel good afterwards.

So scrolling social media, that's another one.

You can waste several hours and you kind of think you're having fun, but actually afterwards you feel bad.

You're like, do you know what?

I've just wasted my time.

It's a temporary kind of thing.

And the worst kind of fake fun, in my opinion, is if it's at the expense of someone else.

So when we think about bullies or people who like to, you know, put other people down or humiliate them, and they might say, oh, it's just a bit of fun, you know, you're gaslight you left, right and center.

But it isn't because there's a payoff for it.

Somebody feels bad.

And generally it can also be the person who's doing it as well.

You know, if you keep doing this in the name of fun and you think you are having fun, but actually it's turning into an addiction, it's harming other people, then it's really.

It's fake fun.

That's not fun, is it?

Okay, so those are the differences.

You know when you're having real fun and you know when you're having fake fun, it's often real fun is a lot more positive.

It has positive ramifications, whereas fake fun has negative things.

You might feel fine for a while.

It might be, you know, raise a laugh and you might appear to be having fun, but it doesn't leave a lasting positive impact or effect.

It has something that makes you feel bad afterwards.

Okay, so now we've got that all cleared up.

Having fun is.

It's scientifically proven, okay, that it's good for you both mentally and physically.

And here's how.

So let's just break this down.

Let's look at the mental benefits.

It reduces stress.

If you've been really feeling highly strung, stressed out, and something strikes you as funny, maybe you've suddenly, you know, just seeing something and it's really appealed to your sense of humor in a good way.

Not in a, you know, someone else is suffering for it.

But having fun like that releases endorphins and that is their body's natural feel good chemical.

Like your serotonins and your oxytocins and so on, they release, they lower your stress levels and it can make you feel more relaxed and less anxious.

And let's face it, we've all done that.

There can be something that happens and all of a sudden the mood, the heaviness of a situation suddenly changes.

So when it improves your mood, the activities that you enjoy can give you a real boost because it's releasing all of these feel good chemicals.

So if we do this on a more regular basis, if we're more conscious about the fact that, you know what, I haven't had any fun lately.

I need to go and have some fun.

You are actually highly likely to be reducing your levels of anxiety, which obviously can lead to depression as well.

So it's a good thing for you to do.

It also makes the brain sharper, it enhances your cognitive function.

So engaging in these activities that release all of these feel good chemicals, it can also improve your memory, it can improve your concentration and your overall brain activity, which is good for, what do we call it, your brain health?

Play and novelty and doing new things, they all stimulate your brain and it encourages you to.

It's almost like going to the mental gym, right?

It gives you that extra mental flexibility.

It can also really strengthen sort of social connections.

So fun activities, especially those that you do with others, fosters a sense of connection, community, belonging.

If you've all had a good laugh together, you can make friends really quickly.

It sort of does something to us that, you know, bonds us a little bit more.

So social engagement is, it is actually crucial for our, for our mental health.

It's, it's inherent in us that we want to connect with other human beings.

We want to have that sense of belonging and it can really boost your self esteem and you know, if you've been feeling a bit isolated, a bit maybe a bit lonely, to go and have fun with other people really connects and bonds and it can really boost you from a personal perspective.

So lots of mental benefits there.

Physically, what does it do to us physically?

Well, I looked into this, okay.

It has been proven that having fun, releasing those feel good chemicals can actually boost your immunity.

There we go.

It's like, how can that not be good for you, right?

Being happy can actually improve your immunity and your immune system, so it can actually make you more resilient to illness, less colds, all this kind of stuff.

It's fascinating, isn't it?

It also can increase your physical activity.

So fun is often involving movement.

So when you think about it, like if you've been to a wedding and you've danced all night and you've had fun, right, there's a physical element to that.

So not only are you releasing the feel good chemicals, but you're also releasing those chemicals that are going into your body, those endorphins, which actually help alleviate physical pain.

Any discomfort that you've got going on, clearly it's going to improve your cardiovascular health.

You know, when we play sports and we're having fun, I think this is one of the things that when people think about exercise, they often, you know, if you're not used to doing exercise or if you haven't found your thing where you do actually have fun while you're doing it, it can feel like so much of a chore.

I've met several women, I've actually looked, keep thinking that I might do it actually.

But you remember when you were at school and we used to play netball and I haven't played netball in, God, decades, but I always remember it as being really good fun.

I've just not done it.

I love my boot camps.

I like my hiking, I like swimming, I like all sorts of different things.

Yoga, like a whole variety of them.

Because the ones that I find fun I stick with and I like to add in the variety.

But maybe that's something you could do.

You know, if it's a physical activity where you're having fun as well, you tend to push your body a little bit more because you're enjoying it.

So it's so good for you in that respect.

And what happens when we're having fun and we've used our body physically, of course it improves the quality of our sleep.

I mentioned this a couple of episodes ago when I was talking about hiking.

I said the combination of mixing in the awe of the situation, you know, to be able to hike up a hill or a mountain and then get rewarded by the most amazing view.

All of these things are bringing you back to nature.

They're bringing you back to the very basics of who you are.

And so to do all of that and that mixture, it really does just amazing things to me, it really makes me sleep.

And the quality of the sleep is so much better.

So engaging in activities that you love is much more than just, you know, wasting time.

I think sometimes we are conditioned a little bit that I haven't got time to be having fun.

I've got serious things I need to be doing.

When we start to have that kind of attitude, it's a real shame, because when you actually stop and think about what having fun does to you, that it's physically healthy for you, mentally, it keeps you sharp, and it keeps your brain in good health, emotionally, you feel more connected and balanced.

So the fun is actually really, really essential to us having a good life.

So before I go on to how you can tap into what fun is for you, because I.

The risk is this sounding patronizing.

This is something that I come across when I'm coaching.

Sometimes people say, I don't actually know.

When was the last time you had fun?

You know, I might say to them, when was the last time you fun?

And I can honestly say, often people will.

You know, they'll come back and say, do you know what?

I can't remember the last time I really experienced having fun.

Because sometimes life just gets so.

We get so bogged down with everything that we've got to be doing that we've just forgotten that we need to do it.

And then it seems like it feels like it's a waste of time.

It feels like something that you really shouldn't be focusing on.

And I think that there's a lot of social conditioning around this as well.

I think it plays a very big part in why people think that it's not something they.

They should be focusing on, that they think, you know, there's too many times when, oh, it's not appropriate to have fun right now.

You can't be laughing.

And let's just take the work environment.

You know, I work for myself now.

I am more than happy to have plenty of fun.

I can grant myself that permission to do so.

But when I was in the corporate environment, it isn't always necessarily seen as something that you should do.

And this is where the definitions of fun come in.

You know, you might crack a joke and that'd be fine, but it's not sort of.

It's not sort of the norm to be able to do it.

Now, I don't know if I've told this story before, but when I was a publisher of a magazine, I decided that I was going to take the editorial team and the sales team to Alton Towers for a day.

I knew the sales manager and the editor at the time were Both adrenaline junkies and they both loved to do this.

And I just thought, right, let's go.

So we went for the day because the relationship between them wasn't brilliant at the time.

You know, on a magazine editorial we write the content, you know, and the sales are like, yeah, but we got to sell the ads and without the money coming in, there's nothing.

So it's really important that there's a good relationship that you need.

Both of them working towards the same goals.

They were all brilliant people, all great teams, but I just thought they needed this.

And to be honest, it was one of the best things I ever did because everybody just went and had fun.

So they connected, connected with each other in terms of you're a human being and I'm a human being.

They connected with each other in that respect.

And so once they'd made that bond going back into the office, it just made the relationship so much better.

So I was very fortunate in that at the time I was working for a company that very much believed in human connection and getting the very best out of people.

But there are plenty of other work environments that would have just it thought I was being insane.

Why on earth would I be asking to do something like that?

But the element that needs to be put into that in order to improve the relationship is actually fun because it brings that connection.

So clearly there are times when it's not appropriate and we all know what those are.

But I do think that as, you know, society, we really should be looking at learning how to take some of the pressure off.

Because once you take the pressure off and it improves relationships and it improves all the good stuff, then clearly the productivity rises.

And if people are happier, I don't understand why so many corporate companies do not seem to grasp this.

If people are happier, they are more productive, they are more committed to what they're actually doing.

So if you're listening to this and you are like me, you are self employed, you have your own business, it's important for you as well.

It's important for you.

If you're a mum at home and you're looking after the family, it's important for you to have fun as well.

Not just for making sure that everybody else around you is having fun, you need to have fun as well.

So the next thing I want to talk about is sometimes the guilt that can be put around us over whether or not you should be having fun.

And so I'm going to take a couple of examples here.

I can remember this very, very clearly.

I did not Allow myself.

I didn't, I wasn't conscious about this, but when I first was going through separation and my divorce, I just couldn't find it to have fun.

I had fun with my children, but me personally, I found it really, really difficult to allow myself to have fun because I felt that it wasn't appropriate.

You know, it was the end of a marriage.

It was the end of something that, you know, meant a lot to not just me, but the family and the extended family and even some friends as well.

So it, you know, but when we get into that place, when we get into that place, it's very difficult to then pull yourself out of it.

If you're that type of person that you think I, I've.

I just felt it.

You can, you can see I'm struggling to actually share this experience, but I really do want to.

It's kind of.

I struggled because I just felt wasn't appropriate, you know, I felt it would be disrespectful to my marriage if as soon as we'd split up, I started going out and having fun, you know, and, and really it would have had nothing to do with that.

It wasn't about that.

But when do we get to that stage where we.

Then if you feel like that, where you then feel, oh, okay, it's fine, I can now do it right.

Because if you're surrounded by people who think it's inappropriate, who are telling you their rules and regulations over whether you should be having fun or not, then you've got to make a choice.

You've got to decide do you want to go with what everybody else thinks or are you going to make the decision to, to actually, I need to do this.

This is good for me.

This is good for everyone around me.

If I start to feel better about myself, if I start to have some fun.

And again, we're talking real fun, not fake fun.

So have a think about this.

I think when it comes to loss, really feel.

It's one of those things.

I've seen it, I've seen it quite a few times now where people are moving on.

And it's important that.

To remember that if someone looks like they're moving on quite quickly, that isn't necessarily so.

I think when you've lost someone, you know, I felt this with my mum.

I haven't lost a partner.

I'm very blessed in that respect.

I had a living loss, obviously with my ex husband, but I haven't lost a partner or a spouse.

So I don't pretend to know what that feels exactly like, but I have lost a close parent.

And you do you have this sort of like, how am I ever going to feel good about laughing again?

You know, it's like, I've just lost my mom, how can I laugh?

But I think we have to delve deeper into it and I think us as members of society as well, we have to give a little grace.

Can't keep this conditioning of, well, if they're having fun, they didn't care.

That's not, that's not what this is about.

And I think it's for that person to decide when it's okay for them to be able to smile again, to enjoy the fun things.

It's their decision.

It's not for the rest of us to be judging.

So let's move on to the final section now, which is a little bit more fun, for want of a better word.

How do you find out what you truly enjoy doing for fun?

This is where you should start to get excited because there are so many ways there's a process of exploring that can be fun in itself.

So here's a few ideas for you to discover some of the activities that can bring you joy that maybe you haven't thought about for a while.

And my favourite is the first one, which is like, reflect on your past.

One thing that kids are great at is having fun, right?

They can have fun out of anything.

And you used to be a child, so there are things you can look back on and think, yeah.

Ask yourself, what did you like to do?

I used to love the swing and I used to love the roundabouts.

I mean, gosh, when I think about it now, they were so dangerous.

No wonder kids lost limbs on these things.

But they were also so much fun, right?

I can remember clinging onto them as the bigger children were sort of spinning us around.

And you know, when you were on the, on the swing and someone was pushing you as high as you possibly could get, it was loads of fun.

And we used to go to the fair and go on the waltzers.

I mean, when was the last time you went on a walsa?

I'm just thinking now, I haven't been on one for, gosh, since my children were little.

Maybe that's something I'll do soon.

But all of these things that we used to do that were fun, who's to say we can't do them now?

And I still love getting on a swing, one that I know will hold me.

And as you know, I'm not one for pushing little children off, off so that I can get on it.

But sometimes you can go, you know, where the big swings are and go and have.

Just have some fun.

So look at the things you used to do and just go and do it.

And I would definitely say that as an adult, it's quite fun to go and do it.

You kind of like, look over your shoulder, will anybody see me?

It all feels a bit sort of like you shouldn't be doing it, so not doing anybody any harm.

It is proper, real fun.

So reflect on your past, remind yourself of some of the things.

And just going back to that netball example, that might be a really good one.

If you played at school and you haven't played since then, why not see if there's a local club, you might just love it again and it might be the perfect exercise.

I think sometimes we're just taught, aren't we, that, you know, we need to go to the gym and we need to be running and doing all of these things and all things are great, but there are other activities.

So look to your past.

What did you love to do?

Is it something you can do again?

Another thing that's great to do is try new things.

Make a list of activities that you've been curious about that you haven't tried yet.

Maybe something you've never even done.

It might be, go to do some skiing, it could be that you try a dance class, maybe have a go at salsa, or do some crafting, try a new photography hobby or.

Or, you know, all of these things.

There are classes and pottery things.

There's so much available out there, but sometimes we're just so busy and wrapped up in our own lives, we don't give ourselves a chance to try something new and go and have some fun.

And here's the other thing about it as well.

Give yourself permission to be a beginner.

I think as we get older, if we can't be brilliant at it to start with, then we're like, I'm not even going to try it.

No, I'm going to be useless at that.

But.

But nobody gets good at anything without a bit of practice, right?

So give yourself permission to be a beginner, start over with something completely new.

And you don't have to be perfect at it, you're doing it for fun.

So some of those things I've just mentioned, if you're an introvert, you might be thinking, holy crap, there's no way I'm doing anything like that.

So tune into who you are, think about what it is for you.

Just because I've made those suggestions it doesn't mean that's the thing you've got to do, right?

But I just want to stimulate something in you.

And it might be that you might like jigsaws, that might be your thing.

Whatever it is, think about your type of personality and the type of activities that you would like to do.

It could be, you know, that it might be you decide you want to learn a language or educate yourself in something brand new.

It doesn't matter.

It's what brings you the joy, it's what you find the fun in.

And a good way to really understand what that is is to think about things that you do where you completely lose yourself in it.

So what is it for you?

What can you lose yourself in that you are in a state of flow, that it's just happening?

It could be cooking, it could be painting, it might be there's loads of puzzles and, you know, like brain teasers and all that kind of thing.

So think about those sort of things that you can explore some new activities a little bit further and give yourself a bit of variety.

You know, there's this high energy stuff like sports and dancing and things that we've talked about and then there's low energy things as well.

It doesn't matter.

It's all about where you find the joy.

Don't forget that.

Talk a lot on this podcast about change and how we evolve as people and how big changes make us that we're never the same again.

So it could be that something that you have tried before, maybe you weren't quite so keen on, you might really like now, often when people have gone through some big changes, you can have a real big reevaluation of what's important.

And sometimes, you know, we say this, don't we?

Like, life is too short, I need to start living.

And all of a sudden you might find yourself being a lot braver about the kind of things that you want to do because life is short and you haven't, you know, you want to get on with things and do all the things that maybe you were afraid to do before, but now with new perspective sounds like quite an exciting proposition.

So there we go.

Fun.

I think I've got the point across that it is really, really good for us and we should be doing more of it.

It makes you more productive.

It's going to give your brain, you know, that exercise that it needs.

And I hope that you have found some value in this particular episode.

That's all I have for you today.

But if you did try something new as a result of listening to this or if you can think of anybody who needs to hear this particular episode, then please do share it and I would love to hear from you.

You can get me on all the social media.

In fact, just listen to the rest of the podcast and you'll get all of the details there.

I hope you have a fabulous week and I'll see you next week.

You take care.

Thanks for listening.

Bye.

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