392. Why is whimsy so powerful

We often dismiss the small, playful things we do to keep life joyful: collecting trinkets, baking for no reason, blowing bubbles, looking for magic. They’re labelled childish, unnecessary, or unserious. But psychology and neuroscience tell a very different story. Today, we're breaking down the psychology of whimsy, including: What “whimsy” actually is and why it’s trending again How play helps regulate your nervous system The neuroscience of stress, imagination and brain plasticity The science of beauty and the brain (neuroaesthetics) Why small acts of joy can be psychologically protective 15 whimsy activity ideas Listen now! Watch on Netflix http://netflix.com/thepsychologyofyour20s Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg https://www.instagram.com/jemmasbeg/?hl=en# Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast https://www.instagram.com/thatpsychologypodcast/?hl=en# Subscribe on Substack: @thepsychologyofyour20s https://substack.com/@thepsychologyofyour20s For business: [email protected] mailto:[email protected] The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:02Jemma Sbeg?

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• 3:05Jemma Sbeg?

  Hello, everybody. I'm Jemma Sbeg and welcome back to the Psychology of Your 20s, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology.

• 3:25Jemma Sbeg?

  Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is so great to have you here back for another episode as we, of course, break down the psychology of our 20s. If you could not tell from my little getup today, I have my tiara on, I have my magic sparkling wand. We are talking about the psychology of whimsy and why whimsy is so uniquely powerful. Side note, I'm also recording this episode on Friday, the 13th. And so I feel like I need this kind of glittery, glowy princess energy to like ward off the evil spirits. The reason I really wanted to do this episode, and I'm now I'm debating whether I keep holding my wand or whether I throw it away.

• 4:09Jemma Sbeg?

  I'm going to keep it for the intro and then I'm going to toss it aside. But the reason I wanted to do this episode is because people often dismiss the silly little things we do to keep our joy alive in life. As immature, you know, the trinkets that we collect, the games that we play, the silly scenarios or like dress up situations that we we encourage and we love to do. People label them as very childlike and unintelligent. And yeah, they don't give them the time of day that they deserve. What these people don't know and what you are about to is that having whimsy in your life

• 4:48Jemma Sbeg?

  is likely going to make you smarter, more emotionally intelligent, more mentally adjusted, more mentally flexible and a whole lot happier. There is so much neuroscience behind the power of play, the power of imagination, the power of creativity and silliness. And today I'm going to share it with you guys, including everything from major peer reviewed studies from the likes of Stanford and Harvard on the power of whimsy to listener stories about what we all do, what I do, what you guys do to keep your life light and fluffy in what are very hard times. Uh, side note, thank you to everyone who did send those in.

• 5:33Jemma Sbeg?

  I genuinely got thousands of whimsical activity examples that I had never thought of before. So stick around to the second half of the episode where we talk about those. But I'm so excited to get into this. I'm sure we've all seen whimsy trending online recently and maybe we're quick to dismiss it, but this is the episode where we really get into the scientific evidence for why it is emotionally and psychologically protective. So without further ado, let's get into it.

• 6:10Jemma Sbeg?

  Okay, now that we've done with the intro, I'm going to throw my wand aside, but I'm going to keep my, for those watching on Netflix, I'm going to keep my little, um, my little tiara on because I feel like it's appropriate. But like I said before, whimsy, whimsy is one of those things that you, you know it when you see it, but you especially know it when you feel it because it's just so light and playful and there is a part of you that really can tap into it and feels differently. The best description of whimsy that I've ever seen came from a therapist in Colorado whose name I am forgetting in this very moment, but. What she basically said was that whimsy is playfulness deliberately woven into the ordinary.

• 6:52Jemma Sbeg?

  And I think that is the best description I could come come up with, or she could come up with. It is doing things just for the sake of doing them because they are strange, because they are humorous, because they are fun. And nostalgic and a core part of this is that they don't have to serve any other purpose, right? They don't have to be productive. It is why we like to blow bubbles as you walk down the street or collect trinkets. It's playing dress ups, it's dancing in the woods, it's using the good candle that you normally save. It's like baking a chocolate cake just because you felt like it, just because it brings you joy.

• 7:33Jemma Sbeg?

  What's interesting to me actually, as a little sidebar, is how feminized whimsy really is. A lot of what we see as whimsical, I've started to realise is just domestic tasks or domestic activities. Like that are solely reserved for women now being reclaimed as fun for women. Like baking, frolicking, dressing up, collecting. You know, another huge part of whimsy is it's very childlike, right? It's very nostalgic, which we're gonna get into a lot more later on. But whimsy and the way that it's now nowadays portrayed, um, it's not just reserved for one gender. Or indeed just for children. And I fear that some of the framing that's taking place, especially online.

• 8:18Jemma Sbeg?

  Might exclude a lot of people who could genuinely use its psychological benefits. Whimsy can also be more traditionally masculine as well. Adventure, building something by hand that you could probably go out and buy. That would be better. Um, and indeed also frolicking, also cooking, also dancing and being present. Whimsy is for everyone because it's truly about returning to this very core gooey, gentler part of yourself. That has been, not to sound severe, but like. Kind of lost to the grief of growing up and seeing how harsh the world can really be.

• 8:58Jemma Sbeg?

  I think this is why we are seeing such like a reclamation or a resurgence of whimsy, especially in recent years. Almost as like a psychological and mental protest of the equally pressing trends of like the five AM morning routines and productivity planners and hustling and ambition blocked days and ten liters of water, ten thousand steps, ten squeezes of lemon at ten AM, ten thousand of hours of habits and discipline like. Whimsy is the antithesis of all this and people are getting sick of feeling like their lives need to be so structured and organised and perfect. And it's kind of this completely contradictory attitude that says, let's not

• 9:44Jemma Sbeg?

  look for ways to be more productive. Let's actually not look for purpose in everything we do. Let's just exist and appreciate how special and silly life really is for no other reason other than that we can. Obviously, people have then realised they can make a lot of money off that feeling as they can make money off of any human feeling these days. And that has definitely branched off into a few big trends that we've seen come and go in the past few years that are a direct response to, you know, our need for more whimsy, but it's just been packaged by people who can make money off of it. So like the biggest and most obvious one was cottage core, right? The idea of

• 10:23Jemma Sbeg?

  um, slow living and collecting produce and dressing cute and in flowy skirts and floral patterns and having the gig and bed sheets. Um, then brands like Shein and Amazon marketed that for us and made the cute strawberry dresses and made like the sticker books and made like all that stuff. Another one was fairy core. Um, there was definitely this whole, I think it's kind of still ongoing of people like playing dress ups and I guess I'm wearing the little crown right now, people wearing crowns and now I think the next like iteration of that, and don't hate me for saying this, but I think.

• 11:01Jemma Sbeg?

  The resurgence of analog activities and arts and crafts and snail mail and junk journaling. That is our, that is the next whimsy trend. That is the next way that we are trying to adopt more whimsy into our lives. And I really hope at last, like, I so hope that this is the trend, the whimsy trend that sticks. And won't just produce more landfill because, like I said, whimsy and activities like this. Ones that serve no purpose other than joy are really important, especially in this day and age, hence why they're trending. You know, a core part of why whimsy is so great is that it's choosing to focus on the good, right?

• 11:44Jemma Sbeg?

  Particularly what feels nice and light and enjoyable for the mind and for the soul. There's this core cognitive psychology principle that what you choose to focus on expands and dominates your mindset. And what you don't focus on, you know, hopefully, doesn't have as much of a say on your mindset and doesn't hurt you as as much. Right now, the world is a pretty despicable place and sometimes that's all we can focus on. And that's the only thing we can pay attention to. And if that is the only thing you can pay attention to, you could very easily become convinced that this is the one thing that the world is. The world is just terrible.

• 12:27Jemma Sbeg?

  Like, in its singularity, the world is just cruel, the world is just evil. Life is only about struggle and life is only hard because that's what's really being pushed into our face. And also, not pushed, like, just looking around anywhere, it's, you don't have to search for how terrible things are. And that, like, the deep psychological pessimism that this creates can actually increase our sense of powerlessness because everything we're facing feels totally immovable. No human mind, no human soul can survive in a mental environment where they truly believe that the world is just truly evil and incapable of change.

• 13:08Jemma Sbeg?

  So making whimsy a spiritual and psychological practice for ourselves, that breaks that pessimism loop. Even just occasionally, it diverts your attention to all the good that still exists, and we really need that more than ever. When we hear people say, joy is resistance, right? This is what I always think of. Whimsy, joy, those practices restock, they restock like your mental and emotional reserves so that you can go on. Especially separately, if you're in your twenties. It can quickly feel like during this decade that life is just an endless to do list and you're

• 13:47Jemma Sbeg?

  really finally being exposed to like what true adulthood is like and more and more people expect things from you, more and more tasks are required from you.

• 14:00Jemma Sbeg?

  No, there is no answer for anything, everything is confusing, you have no idea what the next five years is gonna be, like there's this real whiplash into adulthood that can be really hard. And having whimsy in those moments, as a lot of us are choosing to to do and choosing to pursue, you know, something as simple as putting a ribbon on your back or putting a cute figurine on your windowsill for people to enjoy or like having a cupcake with lunch, that's not silly. That's really helpful in times when the world just constantly feels like it needs something from us. Part of this is also because whimsy allows you to stop taking certain things too seriously. And know that now I'm not referring to global and political things, I'm talking about

• 14:46Jemma Sbeg?

  personal things, but when you have whimsy in your life, the mistrain, the slow walker, like the rejection email from that job you applied for, um. We don't over invest in it as much. And when our mind does over invest in that stuff because there's nothing else to break up just our sense of failure or frustration, we actually hinder our brain's ability to rewire itself. When we only focus on the negative and the bad, that stunts our cognitive ability for transformation. Let's break into some neuroscience for a second to explain why this is, starting with the most basic first principles.

• 15:27Jemma Sbeg?

  Your brain is constantly changing and constantly building new connections and different lobes and and across different lobes and across different regions. A lot of people think of this as like electrical wiring or like um your neurological wiring is like a bunch of roads or or train lines or like a map, something like that. And it's much more like a forest, right? It's much more like a forest where seeds are planted, uh thousands of seeds, thousands of thoughts a day, thousands of potential habits are planted. And only a couple hundred of saplings emerge. And then from those saplings, only a dozen or even less than that of of those saplings turn into these big, strong pillars of your identity, these big, strong

• 16:12Jemma Sbeg?

  trees that make up your personality and make up your behaviour. And the thing is, when you experience stress, when you see the world is dangerous, when you're overwhelmed, that forest that your brain wants to build and is constantly building day in and day out, it, a lot of those new structures can only get so big and tall. Your ability to develop new copy mechanisms, develop new behaviours to change past behaviours, that growth is stunted. Your brain's ability to form new patterns is stunted because the external environment is hostile and it's scary. And so it becomes biologically harder to focus and form new patterns. This is simply because being in a state of stress

• 16:55Jemma Sbeg?

  or a state of real psychological negativity hijacks all of your resources whilst also suppressing dendritic branching and neurogenesis, especially in this region called the hippocampus. That is the part that's basically called the learning centre of the brain. Constant negativity and and stress, it's not always our choice, but when you can shift your brain to being playful in those environments and during these years of your life when things are just really intense,

• 17:25Jemma Sbeg?

  it's so helpful because you show your brain it's safe enough to prioritise more than just its stress response. And it's safe enough to prioritise things that aren't just negative. There's this incredible research paper that was published last year titled Playful Brains, which is such a cute name. And it essentially says whimsy and play keep your brain young.

• 17:50Jemma Sbeg?

  Because these activities require continuous adaptation and exploration. Whimsy, like how I like to see it in this kind of framework is like the rays of sunshine that like pour down on your neural forest and make it flourish. It is, it is literally fertilizing the soil in which your brain can grow new connections. It's also a somatic strategy, right? We're boosting oxytocin where it decreases cortisol. It's allowing your, your body and mind to shift from alert to safe and imaginative. And imagination, imagination is another big concept that makes whimsy so special and psychologically powerful.

• 18:35Jemma Sbeg?

  I feel like so many of these words that we're using today are like so synonymous with childhood, right? Imagination, play, joy, like, and, and that's not an accident. When is your brain forming the most connections? During childhood. When were you likely the most optimistic you've ever been in your life? During childhood. When did you have the biggest dreams during childhood? A lot of this is because we had permission to have fun. And having fun is a big part of how we learn to emotionally regulate. And how we learn to just learn and, and test our surroundings as much as that gets stripped from us in adulthood.

• 19:20Jemma Sbeg?

  Remember a few years ago, I don't know if, I'm sure we all remember this actually. Inner child healing was like huge and like the internet was obsessed with it and people would have a childhood picture of themselves up on the mirror and they would buy themselves like the toys, like the littlest pet shop. So like the Beanie Babies from childhood and they would re-watch movies from, from when they were a kid and there was such a resurgence of like Hannah Montana and like people wanting those remakes. I think that's still kind of ongoing now because it is so fantastic, but this is exactly what. This is the practice that we're getting at, right? This is the fundamental stuff that we're getting back, we're getting at. Childhood was the last time many of us felt like ourselves and felt good about the world.

• 20:04Jemma Sbeg?

  Getting back to that and also mending the scars that were left on that version of us that still show up today. That is what prompts a lot of healing and whimsy is a direct path to doing that. There's another thing I said before that I just wanna quickly circle back on before I move on. Play as a form of emotional regulation. Literally, this may sound so weird, but whimsy is a form of emotional regulation. When you do arts and crafts, when you collect your little trinkets, you are essentially signaling to your brain. Well, if I'm having fun, like it can't be that serious, right? Like genuinely, they've done studies on this in Germany, in Malaysia, in the US.

• 20:48Jemma Sbeg?

  And play is essentially a signal to your nervous system that we are safe. And so it allows you to go from survival to engagement. So it's so important, like, don't let people make fun of you for this stuff. It is psychologically powerful for your nervous system and for your brain and every other system going on in your body. A couple of years ago, I got really into these adult coloring books. I feel like I talked about it on the show a bunch, but thirty minutes of that a night did more for me and my stress and my nervous system. Then I think most actual nervous system exercises that were given to me by a therapist. Now, that's not for everyone, but it worked for me.

• 21:30Jemma Sbeg?

  I really did reach like a flow state with this stuff and I experienced this like level of peace that I never had before. All because I had these like pink and yellow and green markers and I was able to switch my brain from hypervigilance to creative engagement. And that was what really made me feel better. A lot of people experience something similar, I think with like knitting, um, painting. Because that, again, that creative activation, sorry to like beat a horse dead, but like that creative activation unconsciously says to your brain. Hey, you're okay. Like, why else would we be making art if we weren't okay?

• 22:14Jemma Sbeg?

  On top of this, some researchers even suggested that adult playfulness will make you more intelligent. People who are more playful in adulthood are smarter. A 2021 study published in the US actually looked at over 300 students and it measured both their emotional intelligence and how playful they were. And what the study revealed, unsurprisingly, in their words, was that there was a strong, positive connection between intelligence and the more playful you were, or how fun-seeking you were. So this is what we're seeing so far, right? This is the point we keep kind of coming back to.

• 22:55Jemma Sbeg?

  Whimsy isn't just silly, it is psychologically protective during hard times. It helps your brain stay in an active state of rewiring. It helps you to regulate your emotions better than, I think, most strategies we have as adults, and it may make you more intelligent. There's just like so many wins to this that like we just cannot discount. And there's one final reason it's so powerful that I want to talk about as well before we get into how to make whimsy a habit. We're going to talk about that last significant reason after this short break, so stay with us.

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• 24:11Jemma Sbeg?

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• 24:48Jemma Sbeg?

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• 27:03Jemma Sbeg?

  Plus, it's non-GMO, gluten-free and third-party tested. Visit naturewise.com to explore their Vitamin D3 options and find the one that's right for you. Naturewise.com. The final reason I think that whimsy has some deep emotional power over us is because of how our brain responds to beauty. And so much of whimsy is, at the end of the day, about creating beauty in like the most mundane stuff. Making art, making things pretty for no reason, buying flowers just because you want to, like bringing in colour and all those kinds of stuff.

• 27:45Jemma Sbeg?

  It's just trying to make the world more beautiful and lovely. I read this phenomenal substack the other day by this writer who goes by Plumpits, and it just stopped me in my tracks because she was talking about this. And she was talking about this distinct field of research called neuroaesthetics, which essentially explains what we're talking about, right? How the brain reacts to beauty and how powerful that is. In the late 20th century, there was this one man in particular, this Turkish neurobiologist, who is still alive today, and he became really fascinated with this. He was like, why do our brains, or how do our brains respond to beauty in such a different way to how they respond to the rest of the world?

• 28:29Jemma Sbeg?

  And he started doing these very simple experiments to try and kind of figure out what was happening behind the scenes. These experiments were just so basic and so profound. He would essentially just show people different kinds of art and music, and he would just look using fMRIs and EEGs. He would just see how their brains responded, what parts of their brains were lighting up, what parts of their brains weren't. He found that our response to beauty isn't sectioned, it's not singular. It activates almost every single region of the brain all at once. So, yes, your sensory cortex is obviously going to be involved. The parts of your brain that are responsible for seeing and hearing and feeling are going to be involved.

• 29:13Jemma Sbeg?

  But then it was also the medial obiofrontal cortex, which is involved in evaluating meaning. And also chasing what feels good. That part of our brain was like on fire. And also the emotional parts of our brain, the emotional cores of our brain, which also influence our nervous system response, showed a big reaction when we saw beauty, when we saw art. The emotional activation that beauty brings, that, that is why we feel emotional and we hear, hear like wonderful music. That is why we like sometimes cry when we see art. Or like feel intense happiness, but also sadness when we see like

• 29:55Jemma Sbeg?

  a thousand year old church, or we see the sun hitting the tulips that we got for five ninety nine on the way home from work. Beauty elicits awe. It elicits wonder, it elicits gratitude. It, it will just make you cry from happiness and cry from just wonder. And that obviously has a neurobiological impact. There was one University of Michigan study that found that our appreciation for beauty in this way and our everyday, I don't know, our everyday preference for what looks lovely and pretty. When we experience more of that, that decreases inflammation.

• 30:38Jemma Sbeg?

  It reduces risk of depression, risk of diabetes, risk of cardiovascular disease. When people say, you know, art isn't important, or nature isn't important, or whatever other crap people say. Like.

• 30:53Jemma Sbeg?

  I don't wanna hear it, because this is what the science says, this is what you need to remind them of. Practices and activities that bring the beauty of life to the surface and make things look pretty and aesthetic and lovely and which feel good to look at. That's life changing, that's not, that's not like a benign thing, that is truly powerful and dare I say, I honestly think that whimsy and beauty are as spiritual in some ways as prayer or traditions or celebrations or repenting or sacrifice. Your body, for whatever mysterious and wonderful reason, wants you to experience more of this. And it wants you to, like, it's just such positive signs that this is an experience we should be chasing.

• 31:39Jemma Sbeg?

  And also, just to add to that, I think this is something about whimsy we really need to concentrate on more. So often, if we want it to be, like, a lot of these examples are free or very affordable, and these days, so much of what is meant to help us out mentally is very expensive. Therapy is very expensive. I genuinely, I think I pay my therapist two hundred pounds a session. That is in, an insane amount. Self-care practices are very expensive, especially in the way that they're marketed to us these days. And whimsy, on the other hand, is a very affordable practice. And yes, it's currently being commercialized and it's being turned into products and into an aesthetic that you can buy.

• 32:24Jemma Sbeg?

  But being a little bit silly, leaving like a secret note in a library book, painting rocks and leaving them for others to find, random acts of kindness, that costs you nothing if not very, very little. So, if you want to fully capture the power of all of this whimsical, magical, wonderful thinking, let's talk about A, some fun examples of activities that you can do, and B, how to turn whimsy from something that you do occasionally into an actual habit. I had my own list of like, activities, whimsical activities, ready to go, and then I thought, actually, I'm gonna ask you guys, hence why I have my phone.

• 33:09Jemma Sbeg?

  Um, let me make sure that's on silence since I'm in the studio, I always forget to do that, but, um. When you guys sent me your responses, I just, I scrapped my list. And I decided just to go with what you guys were saying because you guys gave me such creative, amazing ideas that you guys do. And I just not surprised because we have some very creative people who listen. But I want to read out some of these to you for inspiration. If you're thinking about whimsy and like come kind of coming up. Blank. Okay. If you're ready, here we go. This first one comes from Jeannie and this was one of my favorites. She says, I say hi and bye to my car whenever I drive him.

• 33:51Jemma Sbeg?

  Firstly, love that she said him, like she's personalized, like personified him. That is so cute. There were surprisingly so many that were car related. People who would like thank their car, people who would like um decorate their cars. Very car focused whimsical activities on this list. Um, this next one, I say thank you to my candles before I blow them out. I say a spell and I wish myself a good day when I apply perfume in the morning. When I have to do my uh skincare, I apply my moisturizer or my sunscreen in a heart on my face. That is so cute. I'm gonna steal that one. I unbag my groceries like I'm filming a haul for my boyfriend, even though we just bought them all together.

• 34:36Jemma Sbeg?

  Cute. I have a monthly newsletter with my best friend called the whimsy sisters. That one's from Maya. Maya, that is a great idea. Honestly, if any of my friends are listening to this, Emma, Kate, Sarah, I'm thinking about you guys. I feel like this is a great idea, a whimsy newsletter or a monthly newsletter. Sorry Maya, we're gonna steal your whimsy sister's name for like your long distance friends would be just such a great way of staying in touch. This next one as well, I just thought was so genius. Is genius the right word? I think genius is the right word. I put fun sprinkles in my oatmeal and yogurt bowls to add a bit of whimsy to my morning. How have I never thought about that?

• 35:21Jemma Sbeg?

  Like, that's such a great idea. I leave notes on napkins at restaurants and cafes when the service was really good. I talk to my plants and I tell them that I love them when I water them. That is so special. I drink any drink I want in a wine glass, milk, Diet Coke, water, whatever. Because I can. I have a weekly fairy walk I go on where I pretend I'm a fairy observing the world for the first time. I dwell in circles, I spread some magic and I pretend that I'm leaving a glitter trail wherever I go. This actually brings me to the story of why I have this wand, because I did something similar the other day with my friend Jack. And if you follow me on Instagram, maybe you saw this reel, but

• 36:04Jemma Sbeg?

  both of us have been definitely feeling like the sad, the seasonal affective disorder of of the London winter, of the UK winter. Especially coming from Australia, like I just don't think my body is built for this. Um, but we went on this walk in Hampstead Heath and we were, as we were walking down from like the train station. There's this magic shop and we, I don't know why we walked in, it's like a puppet, a puppet and a ma- magic shop. We walked in and they were selling these wands, that one over there for like five ninety nine or something. Not that expensive. And we just kind of looked at each other and we were like, we should just, we should just buy one of these and we should go for a little walk and we should spread some magic. And we should, I don't know, we just were like running around the park.

• 36:47Jemma Sbeg?

  Honestly slipping in a lot of the mud and just like spreading magic and anytime like it was quite funny, like obviously. We were like making little noises and like waving this big magic stick around. And uh, there's like a bunch of dogs there and all the dogs were kind of going like a little bit crazy for it. Uh, I think they probably didn't realize, they just thought we were weird, which makes sense, right? Or they thought we were like trying to play like fetch with them and it was just the most magical day I've had in a while. I genuinely felt like I was glowing for the rest of the afternoon, like vibrationally, emotionally, it was like I had done some like energetic cleanse or like some mental detox. I just felt phenomenal.

• 37:31Jemma Sbeg?

  And part of that is what's inspired this episode, right? Thinking about.

• 37:37Jemma Sbeg?

  Why I felt that great and why there must be some kind of science to to the transformation it kind of gave me even just for a day. And that's the other thing with whimsy, right? You can either ritualize it or you can just use it as like a spontaneous mood. Pick me up. There is definitely evidence, though, as much as like those one off things are amazing, the more you ritualize your whimsy, the better, as long as it's not like too burdensome. I know this may sound very like contra to what we've been discussing this whole time. You know, whimsy is meant to be spontaneous and sporadic and playful. That's like the whole nature of this.

• 38:15Jemma Sbeg?

  But what I mean by ritualizing whimsy is that making it a daily or a weekly priority rather than something you just do when like you just feel really crap is going to bring about a lot more of those mental and emotional results. Tying your whimsy especially to something you do every day, like um that perfume example or the moisturizer example or the glass example, that increases how easily you're going to be able to see whimsy and happiness and joy everywhere else. And I think it will also increase like the long term positive dose that your brain and

• 38:58Jemma Sbeg?

  your body will get from, you know, the psychological power of whimsy. Making it a daily practice, the way that you make exercise a daily practice or you make hygiene or sleep a daily practice is something we could definitely all benefit from, especially in this day and age. I would also say, remind yourself that most whimsy should cost you nothing. That's what I really liked about a lot of those examples people sent in. I kind of keep returning to this, but you don't need the $200 art kit and you don't need to host like an expensive themed dress up night or whatever else to feel the positive effects.

• 39:36Jemma Sbeg?

  There is no hierarchy, there is no kind of, the more money you spend on whimsy, the better. In fact, a lot of research says that the most organic and rudimentary forms of play, um, the better the joy is, the deeper the joy is, because it actually allows for more gratitude towards the ordinary, rather than needing to do something extraordinary to feel good. Basically, when you try to force whimsy, when you try to buy whimsy, you actually lose a fundamental part of it, which is that it is about the mundane.

• 40:16Jemma Sbeg?

  It is about recognizing what is simply around you and making that special. The big events, the big shows, the parties, like, that's actually, that's great, and that's a lot of fun. But it's not what whimsy is, is about, and it does not, it does not make whimsy sustainable. Also, whilst I'm at it, another thing you can do to definitely, like, elevate your whimsy is, yeah, make it affordable, um, and involve other people. This taps into something we know in developmental psychology as parallel play. When two people, often in this case, children, engage in playful activities side by side, it is really, really powerful and really, really healing.

• 41:00Jemma Sbeg?

  Going further and then involving somebody, not just doing it next to each other, but involving somebody in your stories and in your imagination. Um, you know, both of you trying not to step on the, on the cracks, both of you waving your wands around, both of you looking for the four-leaf clover, like, whatever it is, whether it's your boyfriend, it's your friend, it's your siblings, that can literally be a form of co-regulation. You know, we mentioned self-regulation a lot at the beginning and how whimsy is an emotional regulator. But when you are with another person and you're feeling calm, you're feeling magical, you're feeling creative and playful, that internal mindset, that internal feeling, that's contagious.

• 41:44Jemma Sbeg?

  If you've ever heard of the term mirror neurons, which I'm sure you have at this point, especially if you're a psychology student, mirror neurons, this is exactly what is at play here. Mirror neurons are essentially the mind's social mirror.

• 41:59Jemma Sbeg?

  And specifically to kind of explain it more. It's why when you see someone else doing something, or you see somebody else performing a behaviour, or you see somebody else singing or whatever it is, a part of you automatically responds to them and wants to copy what that person is doing and wants to copy their behaviour and get involved. I don't know, guys, I just whimsy because of that and how it activates mirror neurons and how it's contagious. I think that's why it's so life changing and why it could really change the world and make us all hopefully a happier species if we just like invited more people in. Because it's so organic and it's so like in our DNA to find purpose just in simple beauty and in the ordinary.

• 42:44Jemma Sbeg?

  And I feel like a lot of technology and a lot of rapid advancements and a lot of what's going on in the world right now is made that feel very inaccessible.

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• 43:28Jemma Sbeg?

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• 46:56Jemma Sbeg?

  of whimsy, one quick caveat. Whimsy is very special. It is very beautiful. It is not the solution to all of our problems. I know somebody is going to come to me, somebody's going to come at me, like, in the comments, in my DMs, and be like, "You still need therapy," and you, like, "We still need stronger social supports, and you still need good mental health habits." Like, whimsy is not that important. Let's make that very clear. Yes, you cannot just play mermaids in the pool and think that that is your dose of good psychological vibes for the month. I feel like a lot of you already know this without me, but I just, it goes without saying, or I feel like I have to say it, whimsy cannot be everything. Especially right now,

• 47:39Jemma Sbeg?

  you know, I see a lot of people being like, "Joy is resistance, joy is protective, joy is power," and it is all of those things, but don't let it become an avoidance technique. I think, I guess what I'm saying is, don't let your whimsy turn into just another reason to spend money, or pure hedonism, where you only prioritize pleasure, you only prioritize you feeling good without thinking about your community, or thinking about those around you. Just, like, keep it in the balance. And I'm, I don't want to end on, like, kind of a more, I don't want to end on, like, a realistic, like, kind of downer. Tone, but I just think it's important.

• 48:24Jemma Sbeg?

  I just think it's whimsy is so fantastic. It cannot be everything. It is like any other psychological tool, great in small doses. Um, let's wrap up the episode, shall we? I feel like that's everything I have to talk about. I'm sure there's more that I've forgotten about, but you know what? Before we leave, I want to continue that list. If you are listening on Spotify, what is your whimsical practice that we did not include in this episode? What is something that you do to keep the sparkle alive? To keep that like childlike goodness alive? I really want to hear from you guys. I really want to make this, maybe I'll make like a big collaborative list or like whimsy bucket list for all of us to,

• 49:10Jemma Sbeg?

  I don't know, for all of us to like, to start ticking things off and into kind of sharing. So thank you for listening to this episode. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you found it joyful. I hope you got some inspiration from it. I hope you liked my tiara, especially if you are watching on Netflix. Make sure that you are following us on Instagram at that psychology podcast. Following us on Substack if you want to read the transcript and all the papers that we referenced in this episode. That is where you can find them. But until next time, be safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself. Enjoy some whimsy today and we will talk very, very soon.

• 49:56Jemma Sbeg?

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• 50:33Jemma Sbeg?

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