Narrator: This is Science Today. Playtime isn't just for kids -
at least, for psychological reasons, it shouldn't be. In fact,
psychiatrist Lenore Terr of the University of California, San
Francisco, says when Sigmund Freud said a happy, balanced life
depended entirely on work and love, he simply overlooked the
importance of play. Terr: Adults need to continue playing way
past their childhoods. It is one of the three essentials of
adult life. Narrator: And Terr says playing doesn't necessarily
mean just sports activities. There all sorts of ways to have
playful fun - some may play chess, others may listen to music.
But Terr cautions that play does not necessarily mean leisure.
Terr: Just because we keep trying to be couch potatoes, does not
mean that at the time we are being couch potatoes that we are
truly playing. Play requires super concentration - concentration
that is better than the concentration that most of us have at
ordinary times in our work or at ordinary times over lunch when
we are talking to co