About
Length: 60 Minutes Certificate of Completion: 5 Question Quiz (Required) Overview: How often do you intentionally think about the recreational activities you choose during your free time? For many people, life feels overwhelmingly busy — balancing work, school, caregiving, responsibilities at home, and the endless demands of daily life. By the time free time finally appears, exhaustion often leads us to default to passive activities like scrolling through social media or watching television simply to decompress. Yet how we spend our free time profoundly influences our health, well-being, and happiness. In this session, participants will explore how recreation choices influence emotional well-being, learning, and overall quality of life. Through engaging discussion, practical reflection, and the analogy of a seashell jar, this presentation will examine how intentionally protecting even small moments of meaningful recreation can support health, self-care, positive emotion, and a more fulfilling life. And yes — by the end of the session, the connection to seashells will make perfect sense. Outcomes: Participants will --- • examine how play and recreation contribute to learning, health, and happiness through the pathways of neuroplasticity and positive emotion; • explore how different types of recreation activities influence emotion, engagement, and well-being through Flow Theory; and • apply the “seashell jar” analogy to better understand the role of recreation in self-care, well-being, and quality of life. Intended Audience: This session is designed for therapists, physicians, counselors, social workers, teachers, recreation professionals, and other health and helping professionals interested in using recreation to support health, well-being, self-care, and quality of life for themselves and others.