Avoid Burnout Through Play

Somewhere along the way, we decided that seriousness is the same as professionalism. That the harder the work, the more grim we should be about doing it. Play became something for children, for weekends, for people who don’t have real responsibilities. And yet the research keeps telling us the same thing: the absence of play is not maturity. It’s burnout.

Burnout isn’t just about working too many hours. It’s about working without the psychological resources to sustain engagement. When everything is urgent, when every interaction is transactional, when there’s no room for spontaneity or genuine human connection, people don’t just get tired — they disengage. They stop caring. They do the minimum. And no amount of PTO or wellness stipends fixes that, because the problem isn’t the hours. It’s the quality of the experience.

Play reintroduces something essential to the work experience: the feeling of being fully present and genuinely connected to the people around you. Not play as in goofing off. Play as in the kind of engaged, exploratory, low-stakes interaction that builds trust, sparks creativity, and reminds people why they chose to work together in the first place. It’s what happens when a team is laughing together, building on each other’s ideas, taking small risks and discovering that the world doesn’t end when something doesn’t work perfectly.

At CSz Portland, we’ve watched this dynamic transform teams in real time. Groups that walk in exhausted and skeptical walk out energized and connected. Not because we told them to have fun, but because the exercises naturally create the conditions for genuine play — and genuine play is deeply restorative. The laughter isn’t the point; it’s a byproduct of people feeling safe enough to be themselves.

If your team is showing signs of burnout — disengagement, cynicism, high turnover, declining creativity — consider that the solution might not be less work. It might be a different kind of work. Building regular opportunities for play into your team’s rhythm isn’t frivolous. It’s strategic. Because the teams that play together don’t just feel better. They perform better, stay longer, and adapt faster. That’s not soft. That’s sustainable.