Community Task Force

Emotional Benefits by Rita

• Emotional benefits are difficult to prove with research…
• Happiness
  • “Enjoyment, fun, pleasure, play and optimal experience are all important aspects of recreation activities, and these pleasant emotions, experience while engaging in interesting activities, can further an individual’s sense of personal happiness” (Estates and Henderson, 2).
  • “an important strategy for increasing happiness is directly related to leisure involvement and leisure services is to increase the number of daily pleasurable events” (Carruthers and Hood).
• Increased satisfaction with life
• Brings order to chaos
  • “adults…can benefit from play; stress and chaos can be forgotten and order can be restored” (Hall)
• Release from stress and boredom
• Positive emotion and mood
• “active engagement in recreation has an even greater impact on mood and pleasure than does passive engagement” (Carruthers and Hood).