definition of leisure essay

800.747.4457

Mon-Thurs 7am - 5pm CST

Get in touch with our team

Frequently asked questions

• Fitness & Health
• Sport & Exercise Science
• Physical Education
• Strength & Conditioning
• Sports Medicine
• Sport Management

Definitions of leisure, play, and recreation

This is an excerpt from park and recreation professional's handbook with online resource, the by amy hurd & denise anderson..

Defining leisure, play, and recreation provides us as leisure professionals with a strong foundation for the programs, services, and facilities that we provide. While we might disagree on the standard definition of leisure, play, or recreation, we are all concerned with providing an experience for participants. Whether we work in the public, private nonprofit, or commercial sector, all three concepts are driving forces behind the experiences we provide. Table 1.1 outlines the basic definitions of leisure, play, and recreation.

Definitions of Leisure

There is debate about how to define leisure. However, there is a general consensus that there are three primary ways in which to consider leisure: leisure as time, leisure as activity, and leisure as state of mind.

Leisure as Time

By this definition leisure is time free from obligations, work (paid and unpaid), and tasks required for existing (sleeping, eating). Leisure time is residual time. Some people argue it is the constructive use of free time. While many may view free time as all nonworking hours, only a small amount of time spent away from work is actually free from other obligations that are necessary for existence, such as sleeping and eating.

Leisure as Activity

Leisure can also be viewed as activities that people engage in during their free time—activities that are not work oriented or that do not involve life maintenance tasks such as housecleaning or sleeping. Leisure as activity encompasses the activities that we engage in for reasons as varied as relaxation, competition, or growth and may include reading for pleasure, meditating, painting, and participating in sports. This definition gives no heed to how a person feels while doing the activity; it simply states that certain activities qualify as leisure because they take place during time away from work and are not engaged in for existence. However, as has been argued by many, it is extremely difficult to come up with a list of activities that everyone agrees represents leisure—to some an activity might be a leisure activity and to others it might not necessarily be a leisure activity. Therefore, with this definition the line between work and leisure is not clear in that what is leisure to some may be work to others and vice versa.

Leisure as State of Mind

Unlike the definitions of leisure as time or activity, the definition of leisure as state of mind is much more subjective in that it considers the individual's perception of an activity. Concepts such as perceived freedom, intrinsic motivation, perceived competence, and positive affect are critical to determining whether an experience is leisure or not leisure.

Perceived freedom refers to an individual's ability to choose the activity or experience in that the individual is free from other obligations as well as has the freedom to act without control from others. Perceived freedom also involves the absence of external constraints to participation.

The second requirement of leisure as state of mind, intrinsic motivation, means that the person is moved from within to participate. The person is not influenced by external factors (e.g., people or reward) and the experience results in personal feelings of satisfaction, enjoyment, and gratification.

Perceived competence is also critical to leisure defined as state of mind. Perceived competence refers to the skills people believe they possess and whether their skill levels are in line with the degree of challenge inherent in an experience. Perceived competence relates strongly to satisfaction, and for successful participation to occur, the skill-to-challenge ratio must be appropriate.

Positive affect, the final key component of leisure as state of mind, refers to a person's sense of choice, or the feeling people have when they have some control over the process that is tied to the experience. Positive affect refers to enjoyment, and this enjoyment comes from a sense of choice.

What may be a leisure experience for one person may not be for another; whether an experience is leisure depends on many factors. Enjoyment, motivation, and choice are three of the most important of these factors. Therefore, when different individuals engage in the same activity, their state of mind can differ drastically.

Definition of Play

Unlike leisure, play has a more singular definition. Play is imaginative, intrinsically motivated, nonserious, freely chosen, and actively engaging. While most people see play as the domain of children, adults also play, although often their play is more entwined with rules and regulations, which calls into question how playful their play really is. On the other hand, children's play is typified by spontaneity, joyfulness, and inhibition and is done not as a means to an end but for its inherent pleasure.

Definition of Recreation

There is some consensus on the definition of recreation. Recreation is an activity that people engage in during their free time, that people enjoy, and that people recognize as having socially redeeming values. Unlike leisure, recreation has a connotation of being morally acceptable not just to the individual but also to society as a whole, and thus we program for those activities within that context. While recreation activities can take many forms, they must contribute to society in a way that society deems acceptable. This means that activities deemed socially acceptable for recreation can change over time.

Examples of recreational activities are endless and include sports, music, games, travel, reading, arts and crafts, and dance. The specific activity performed is less important than the reason for performing the activity, which is the outcome. For most the overarching desired outcome is recreation or restoration. Participants hope that their recreation pursuits can help them to balance their lives and refresh themselves from their work as well as other mandated activities such as housecleaning, child rearing, and so on.

People also see recreation as a social instrument because of its contribution to society. That is, professionals have long used recreation programs and services to produce socially desirable outcomes, such as the wise use of free time, physical fitness, and positive youth development. The organized development of recreation programs to meet a variety of physical, psychological, and social needs has led to recreation playing a role as a social instrument for well-being and, in some cases, change. This role has been the impetus for the development of many recreation providers from municipalities to nonprofits such as the YMCA, YWCA, Boy Scouts of America, Girl Scouts of the USA, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. There are also for-profit agencies, such as fitness centers and spas, designed to provide positive outcomes.

Latest Posts

• Body Processes Awareness
• Dance Composition
• Exploring Modern Dance
• Management Versus Leadership
• Job positions at fitness facilities
• Effect of COVID-19 on the Fitness Industry

Philosophy of Leisure and Recreation Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Definition of leisure and recreation, impacts of leisure and recreation.

Leisure and recreation are different concepts but always seem to go hand in hand. People tend to use them in the same breath as if the concepts cannot exist apart from each other (Difference Between, 2012). They can and actually exist apart from each other. This essay seeks a deeper understanding of the two concepts and their impact on lifestyles.

Leisure relates to that free time at the disposal of a person in which the person can do what they feel like doing away from the routine (Veal, 1992). It is a condition of the mind marked by the time without obligations coupled with willing optimism (Veal, 1992). Leisure does not posit an activity; it can be the absence of activity too (Veal, 1992). At such times, an individual is not under any compulsion to do a particular activity but has discretion to choose (Veal, 1992).

Recreation, on the other hand, is the experiences and expeditions a person chooses to pursue at the spare time (Merriam-Webster, 2013). The experiences and expeditions chosen by the individual give an individual energy to resume routine duties. (Veal, 1992). In relation to leisure, recreation is any activity performed during leisure time and includes shopping, hiking among others (Veal, 1992).

Deriving from the above distinction, leisure is the time at one’s disposal to perform the non-routine activities and is usually rooted in the mind. Recreation is a pursuit that an individual engages in during leisure time. Recreation is an activity of leisure (Human Kinetics, 2013).

Concerning health, recreational activities enable an individual to relax by giving a pacifying wellness to the nerves (scilifestyle, 2012). Moreover, it helps an individual to vent out tension and conserve equilibrium. Recreation reduces stress too and enables the individual to keep minor ailments at bay (Definitions of leisure, play, and recreation, 2013).

On the social aspect, recreation affords social benefits to an individual as it enables the individual to encounter likeminded friends and build healthy relationships with them (Recreation, n.d.). Likeminded people are likely to come up with mutually beneficial ideas or activities and this enables the group members to achieve things the individual would have never achieved alone in their routine activities. Such initiatives include visiting the less fortunate members of the society as a group or coming up with an investment or welfare groups.

Leisure activities have an impact on the economy too. Such activities include tourism activities, visiting amusement parks and restaurants. This helps in building the economy through fees and costs incurred because more business means more revenues to the government and growth in development. Leisure is the fastest growing industry in United Kingdom (Osborne, 2010). In addition, when leisure groups meet and start investment groups, it boosts both the individual and state economy.

Leisure time affords people to catch up and participate in the political sphere of life (David). This happens through group meetings where members seek to inform others or get information during their meetings. It is also commonplace for governments to declare public holidays on days the citizens cast votes. This is leisure time, which enables the individual to perform the civic duty of electing public officials.

Finally, leisure activities have an impact on the culture in the sense that it provides a platform for cultural exchanges and learning. When tourists visit different places, they learn a lot from the host communities. Some have remained behind in tourist destination areas and adopted the local culture (David, Web).

Recreation activities are significant to both the individual and the community. For such activities to take place, leisure is necessary.

Brightbill, C. K. (1960). The challenge of leisure . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Difference Between Leisure and Recreation . (2012). Web.

David. Activity and Leisure . Web.

Definitions of leisure, play, and recreation. (2013). Human Kinetics . Web.

Recreation. (n.d.). In Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online. Web.

Osborne, A. (2010). Leisure could be one of UK’s fastest growing industries, if Government takes it seriously . Web.

Scilifestyle. (2012). The importance of recreation . Web.

Veal, A. J. (1992). Definitions of Leisure and Recreation. Australian Journal of Leisure and Recreation, 52. pp. 44-48. Web.

• Worldview Structure and Functions
• Various theories of human nature
• Recreation Zones and Public Administration Issues
• Leisure Service Providers Comparison
• Therapeutic Recreation - Prader-Willi Syndrome
• Nietzsche’s Zarathustra is a Camusian Absurd Hero, That’s to Say He Has No Hope
• Nature Interaction with Humans
• A Matter of Life and Death, or Did You Hear Someone Knocking?
• Philosophy as a Way of Life
• Happiness Meaning and Theories
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2019, April 16). Philosophy of Leisure and Recreation. https://ivypanda.com/essays/philosophy-of-leisure-and-recreation/

"Philosophy of Leisure and Recreation." IvyPanda , 16 Apr. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/philosophy-of-leisure-and-recreation/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Philosophy of Leisure and Recreation'. 16 April.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Philosophy of Leisure and Recreation." April 16, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/philosophy-of-leisure-and-recreation/.

1. IvyPanda . "Philosophy of Leisure and Recreation." April 16, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/philosophy-of-leisure-and-recreation/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Philosophy of Leisure and Recreation." April 16, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/philosophy-of-leisure-and-recreation/.

Elizabeth J. Peterson

Thinking Through Philosophy, Culture, and Psychology

A More Descriptive Definition of Leisure

What is “leisure”? The word is often considered to be simply the time spent outside of work, synonymous with ‘non-working’ time. This leaves space for too many questions to be a useful definition. Is sleep considered leisure? Watching television? What about commuting or eating dinner? Is housework leisure? Clearly, we need a more exact and helpful description.

The question, “What is leisure?” is seemingly philosophical, but practical because it relates to so much advice we hear today about a need to find rewarding hobbies and ways to reduce stress. How can we reduce stress, though, if we don’t know which activities actually help with stress? We’ve heard for decades that Americans don’t use their vacation time – perhaps it’s because we haven’t any idea what to do with it? Defining leisure more clearly will help millions of Americans to identify the sorts of activities most likely to help them de-stress and improve themselves at the same time. The aim of this essay is to arrive at a working definition for leisure.

Continuing the conversation begun in Leisure Isn’t About Not Working, It’s About Improvement , the notion of leisure is much older than the emergence of the middle class. Today’s perception of the term is a far cry from the ancient Greek notion of leisure which usually involved exertion and creation, and included activities like wrestling, athletic competitions, pottery, and play music. Their understanding was leisure required effort and was done to accomplish a purpose. This means the activity was done for its own sake, as in the playing of an instrument, painting, or woodworking. True leisure isn’t a “side hustle,” either. The leisurely painter dabs at his canvas for his own enjoyment; the leisurely violinist learns and performs Beethoven not because she needs to perform in order to eat, but for the thrill of playing iconic classical compositions. The idea that passive consumption or spending exorbitant amounts of money is leisure is a recent development.

Does leisure involve consumption?

Thorstein Veblen’s 1899 Theory of the Leisure Class describes the new phenomenon of the leisure class, an upper class which emerged in the 1850s who are neither nobility nor rulers, but wealthy enough they don’t have to work. The leisure class signal their elite position in how they spend their days and time; on frivolous purchases; by collecting collegiate degrees a status symbols, not as a requirement for their profession; in trophy hunting; and fussy or even impractical dressing.

The key argument of Veblen’s Theory , and the most identifiable feature of the leisure class, is their participation in activities which serve no economic purpose. This includes such hobbies as hunting, gambling, learning multiple languages, playing instruments, practicing grammar or writing belles lettres ; all markers of much time and money to spend.

Veblen’s work considers consumption a central tenet of the leisure class. Veblen even coined the term “conspicuous waste,” in reference to the superfluous goods flaunted by this class, like fur coats, awards of distinction, the building of ostentatious houses, breeding and racing of horses, etc. His theory was based on signaling; you can’t automatically size up how much money a person has, so the leisure class developed signs which signaled to others they could afford to spend money on frivolous chattel. This elite signaling then trickles down to the working classes. Modern examples include buying (and discarding) fashionable garments every season, buying new cars every year, collecting art, or gambling. It is all conspicuous consumption designed to membership in a leisure class, thereby distancing themselves from the working class.

Does the leisure class actually encapsulate the term leisure in any way? The leisure class are concerned with appearances and maintaining their elite status. True leisure is not externally motivated like this; leisure is about nourishing and growing the mind and heart. It’s about taking the time to become a better and wiser person. However, the stigma of doing nothing all day remains in our productivity minded society; one must be able to show what they’ve done with their time and resources. For this reason, the signal aspect of Veblen’s leisure class is still very much necessary to our definition, while consumption is not.

The more ancient and Greek notions would suggest consumption is not only not required, but antithetical to leisure. What we today consider “leisure” time is mostly spent consuming, usually watching television or scrolling social media. Our more established descriptions involve building, rather than passively consuming. This would suggest true leisure is meant to enrich, not simply passing non-working time, and is not primarily concerned with consumption.

Does leisure involve creation?

Does leisure require creating something? A painting, a new understanding of a concept, a beautifully played sonata; some sort of creation one can point to and say, “This is how I’ve spent my time.” A requirement of creating something new does square nicely with Veblen’s theory. He points to the various insignias, awards, trophies, and distinctions the leisure class weave as social proof they spend their time on costly things, though only on activities not associated with manual labor:

“As seen from the economic point of view, leisure, considered as an employment, is closely allied in kind with the life of exploit; and the achievements which characterise a life of leisure, and which remain as its decorous criteria, have much in common with the trophies of exploit. But leisure in the narrower sense, as distinct from exploit and from any ostensibly productive employment of effort on objects which are of no intrinsic use, does not commonly leave a material product. The criteria of a past performance of leisure therefore commonly take the form of “immaterial” goods. Such immaterial evidences of past leisure are quasi-scholarly or quasi-artistic accomplishments and a knowledge of processes and incidents which do not conduce directly to the furtherance of human life.” -Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class

Today’s leisure class signals might include examples like Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld’s classic car collections; the antique and rare art collections of many upper class families; advanced degrees; learning multiple languages; involved gardens, and hunting trophies. All are examples of leisurely objects pursued at one time by the leisure class, but which trickled down over time to the working classes. In fact, trophy hunting in America, only really took off with the creation of the leisure class, around the 1850s. Every single example involves creating something – a trophy or signal – which didn’t exist before. Even going back further to the Greeks, they awarded physical competition and performed the plays written in leisure time. It would seem then, that historical examples require leisure to include the creation of some sort of social signal.

Improvement is required.

What is meant by “improvement”? Only that leisure is concerned with progress and becoming a more knowledgeable, empathetic, responsible, and well-rounded person. This ties into the signal requirement; there needs to be some demonstrable result of how one spends their time. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to enter formal competitions, like sporting or painting competitions, but simply that whatever you choose to do, you are aiming to improve your skills and yourself. This can apply to virtually anything, of course; making wooden furniture, building birdhouses, running faster or lifting more weight, sharpening your photography skills, tightening your writing, understanding more about astrophysics; any venture where you can show improvement.

Is leisure active or passive?

Our more precise definition of leisure, then, is reserved for things like photography, studying, and gardening; the activities we do because we enjoy them and they make us better people, but don’t necessarily have a monetary incentive associated with them. Because leisure involves creating something new, it must be an active and not passive activity.

This leaves us in a quandary with so-called leisure activities. We often call things like watching television, conversation, scrolling social media, reading for enjoyment, or taking a walk leisure. These sorts of things would be considered pastimes- and there is nothing wrong with them – they simply do not fit into this more precise definition of leisure. While these can all be great activities and are certainly parts of modern life, considering them leisure seems a step too far. In order to refresh our minds, we have to engage and use our minds. Passive activities simply don’t meet this requirement. Likewise, normal healthy activities like exercise and eating aren’t included as leisure because they aren’t done with a specific goal of improvement.

A definition.

In my previous essay on the topic I concluded, “Leisure refers to purposeful activities that nourish and enrich a person. While we have more free time than ever, we engage in less true leisure time.”

Today, we’ve expanded this definition by determining leisure is active, requiring the creation of some sort of signal to show others how we’ve spent our time, and secondly, it requires some form of personal development. True leisure refers to the activities one does in their free time by creating some object in the pursuit of improving oneself.

What are the implications of understanding leisure?

Why does leisure matter? Leisure is often how measure our lives – am I able to spend my time doing the things I want to do? Joseph Pieper called leisure the basis of culture. It’s what we all work toward, and we continue to find more efficient ways to complete work, presumably to spend our time on leisure. Most of us though, aren’t actually spending time on leisure, but on those passive activities which don’t reduce stress and aren’t helping us to find fulfillment. Instead we’re just passing time.

With a clearer understanding of leisure, and by proceeding with a more precise definition like the one we’ve concluded with today, we give ourselves a better idea of the kinds of activities we want to explore. A clearer definition helps us to ask whether we’re really engaged in anything, and how we’d like to see ourselves improve. It’s the adult equivalent of when your mom told you to go play outside instead of spending all day indoors. “Find something interesting to do.”

Leisure, truly, is what gives our lives color; it’s paint on the blank canvas of a day. Leisure offers fulfillment, which is the ingredient missing from modern life. We work jobs and come home to relax, but we don’t aim for fulfillment. In the past few decades marked by positive psychology, the message has been to chase happiness. The problem is happiness is a byproduct, not an end of itself. Fulfillment is found in having the freedom to choose what you want to do and having the ability to do that thing. Choosing truly leisurely activities will go a long way toward personal fulfillment.

We’ve refined the definition of leisure to have two requirements; the active creation of a signal and involving an element of demonstrable personal improvement. What remains to be seen is whether there are more components to true leisure, or if by refining the term we can bring meaningful, widespread change to the realities of modern life.

Painting: Auf der Ligethi Puszta (1884) by von Hörmann, Theodor (1840 – 1895).

You might also like

Hitchens’ Razor and the Burden of Proof

On “Exploring my Options”: An Argument for Making Commitments

Seven Lessons on Ego from Sophocles’ “Antigone”

Leisure, the Basis of Culture: An Obscure German Philosopher’s Timely 1948 Manifesto for Reclaiming Our Human Dignity in a Culture of Workaholism

By maria popova.

Today, in our culture of productivity-fetishism, we have succumbed to the tyrannical notion of “work/life balance” and have come to see the very notion of “leisure” not as essential to the human spirit but as self-indulgent luxury reserved for the privileged or deplorable idleness reserved for the lazy. And yet the most significant human achievements between Aristotle’s time and our own — our greatest art, the most enduring ideas of philosophy, the spark for every technological breakthrough — originated in leisure, in moments of unburdened contemplation, of absolute presence with the universe within one’s own mind and absolute attentiveness to life without, be it Galileo inventing modern timekeeping after watching a pendulum swing in a cathedral or Oliver Sacks illuminating music’s incredible effects on the mind while hiking in a Norwegian fjord.

So how did we end up so conflicted about cultivating a culture of leisure?

In 1948, only a year after the word “workaholic” was coined in Canada and a year before an American career counselor issued the first concentrated countercultural clarion call for rethinking work , the German philosopher Josef Pieper (May 4, 1904–November 6, 1997) penned Leisure, the Basis of Culture ( public library ) — a magnificent manifesto for reclaiming human dignity in a culture of compulsive workaholism, triply timely today, in an age when we have commodified our aliveness so much as to mistake making a living for having a life.

Decades before the great Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast came to contemplate why we lost leisure and how to reclaim it , Pieper traces the notion of leisure to its ancient roots and illustrates how astonishingly distorted, even inverted, its original meaning has become over time: The Greek word for “leisure,” σχoλη , produced the Latin scola , which in turn gave us the English school — our institutions of learning, presently preparation for a lifetime of industrialized conformity , were once intended as a mecca of “leisure” and contemplative activity. Pieper writes:

The original meaning of the concept of “leisure” has practically been forgotten in today’s leisure-less culture of “total work”: in order to win our way to a real understanding of leisure, we must confront the contradiction that rises from our overemphasis on that world of work. […] The very fact of this difference, of our inability to recover the original meaning of “leisure,” will strike us all the more when we realize how extensively the opposing idea of “work” has invaded and taken over the whole realm of human action and of human existence as a whole.

Pieper traces the origin of the paradigm of the “worker” to the Greek Cynic philosopher Antisthenes, a friend of Plato’s and a disciple of Socrates. Being the first to equate effort with goodness and virtue, Pieper argues, he became the original “workaholic”:

As an ethicist of independence, this Antisthenes had no feeling for cultic celebration, which he preferred attacking with “enlightened” wit; he was “a-musical” (a foe of the Muses: poetry only interested him for its moral content); he felt no responsiveness to Eros (he said he “would like to kill Aphrodite”); as a flat Realist, he had no belief in immortality (what really matters, he said, was to live rightly “on this earth”). This collection of character traits appears almost purposely designed to illustrate the very “type” of the modern “workaholic.”

Work in contemporary culture encompasses “hand work,” which consists of menial and technical labor, and “intellectual work,” which Pieper defines as “intellectual activity as social service, as contribution to the common utility.” Together, they compose what he calls “total work” — “a series of conquests made by the ‘imperial figure’ of the ‘worker'” as an archetype pioneered by Antisthenes. Under the tyranny of total work, the human being is reduced to a functionary and her work becomes the be-all-end-all of existence. Pieper considers how contemporary culture has normalized this spiritual narrowing:

What is normal is work, and the normal day is the working day. But the question is this: can the world of man be exhausted in being “the working world”? Can the human being be satisfied with being a functionary, a “worker”? Can human existence be fulfilled in being exclusively a work-a-day existence?

The answer to this rhetorical question requires a journey to another turning point in the history of our evolving — or, as it were, devolving — understanding of “leisure.” Echoing Kierkegaard’s terrific defense of idleness as spiritual nourishment , Pieper writes:

The code of life in the High Middle Ages [held] that it was precisely lack of leisure, an inability to be at leisure, that went together with idleness; that the restlessness of work-for-work’s-sake arose from nothing other than idleness. There is a curious connection in the fact that the restlessness of a self-destructive work-fanaticism should take its rise from the absence of a will to accomplish something. […] Idleness, for the older code of behavior, meant especially this: that the human being had given up on the very responsibility that comes with his dignity… The metaphysical-theological concept of idleness means, then, that man finally does not agree with his own existence; that behind all his energetic activity, he is not at one with himself; that, as the Middle Ages expressed it, sadness has seized him in the face of the divine Goodness that lives within him.

We see glimmers of this recognition today, in sorely needed yet still-fringe notions like the theology of rest , but Pieper points to the Latin word acedia — loosely translated as “despair of listlessness” — as the earliest and most apt formulation of the complaint against this self-destructive state. He considers the counterpoint:

The opposite of acedia is not the industrious spirit of the daily effort to make a living, but rather the cheerful affirmation by man of his own existence, of the world as a whole, and of God — of Love, that is, from which arises that special freshness of action, which would never be confused by anyone [who has] any experience with the narrow activity of the “workaholic.” […] Leisure, then, is a condition of the soul — (and we must firmly keep this assumption, since leisure is not necessarily present in all the external things like “breaks,” “time off,” “weekend,” “vacation,” and so on — it is a condition of the soul) — leisure is precisely the counterpoise to the image for the “worker.”

But Pieper’s most piercing insight, one of tremendous psychological and practical value today, is his model of the three types of work — work as activity, work as effort, and work as social contribution — and how against the contrast of each a different core aspect of leisure is revealed. He begins with the first:

Against the exclusiveness of the paradigm of work as activity … there is leisure as “non-activity” — an inner absence of preoccupation, a calm, an ability to let things go, to be quiet.

In a sentiment Pico Iyer would come to echo more than half a century later in his excellent treatise on the art of stillness , Pieper adds:

Leisure is a form of that stillness that is necessary preparation for accepting reality; only the person who is still can hear, and whoever is not still, cannot hear. Such stillness is not mere soundlessness or a dead muteness; it means, rather, that the soul’s power, as real, of responding to the real — a co -respondence, eternally established in nature — has not yet descended into words. Leisure is the disposition of perceptive understanding, of contemplative beholding, and immersion — in the real.

But there is something else, something larger, in this conception of leisure as “non-activity” — an invitation to commune with the immutable mystery of being . Pieper writes:

In leisure, there is … something of the serenity of “not-being-able-to-grasp,” of the recognition of the mysterious character of the world, and the confidence of blind faith, which can let things go as they will. […] Leisure is not the attitude of the one who intervenes but of the one who opens himself; not of someone who seizes but of one who lets go, who lets himself go, and “go under,” almost as someone who falls asleep must let himself go… The surge of new life that flows out to us when we give ourselves to the contemplation of a blossoming rose, a sleeping child, or of a divine mystery — is this not like the surge of life that comes from deep, dreamless sleep?

This passage calls to mind Jeanette Winterson’s beautiful meditation on art as a function of “active surrender” — a parallel quite poignant in light of the fact that leisure is the seedbed of the creative impulse, absolutely necessary for making art and doubly so for enjoying it.

Pieper turns to the second face of work, as acquisitive effort or industriousness, and how the negative space around it silhouettes another core aspect of leisure:

Against the exclusiveness of the paradigm of work as effort, leisure is the condition of considering things in a celebrating spirit. The inner joyfulness of the person who is celebrating belongs to the very core of what we mean by leisure… Leisure is only possible in the assumption that man is not only in harmony with himself … but also he is in agreement with the world and its meaning. Leisure lives on affirmation. It is not the same as the absence of activity; it is not the same thing as quiet, or even as an inner quiet. It is rather like the stillness in the conversation of lovers, which is fed by their oneness.

With this, Pieper turns to the third and final type of work, that of social contribution:

Leisure stands opposed to the exclusiveness of the paradigm of work as social function. The simple “break” from work — the kind that lasts an hour, or the kind that lasts a week or longer — is part and parcel of daily working life. It is something that has been built into the whole working process, a part of the schedule. The “break” is there for the sake of work. It is supposed to provide “new strength” for “new work,” as the word “refreshment” indicates: one is refreshed for work through being refreshed from work. Leisure stands in a perpendicular position with respect to the working process… Leisure is not there for the sake of work, no matter how much new strength the one who resumes working may gain from it; leisure in our sense is not justified by providing bodily renewal or even mental refreshment to lend new vigor to further work… Nobody who wants leisure merely for the sake of “refreshment” will experience its authentic fruit, the deep refreshment that comes from a deep sleep.

To reclaim this higher purpose of leisure, Pieper argues, is to reclaim our very humanity — an understanding all the more urgently needed today, in an era where we speak of vacations as “digital detox” — the implication being that we recuperate from, while also fortifying ourselves for, more zealous digital retox, so to speak, which we are bound to resume upon our return.

Leisure is not justified in making the functionary as “trouble-free” in operation as possible, with minimum “downtime,” but rather in keeping the functionary human … and this means that the human being does not disappear into the parceled-out world of his limited work-a-day function, but instead remains capable of taking in the world as a whole, and thereby to realize himself as a being who is oriented toward the whole of existence. This is why the ability to be “at leisure” is one of the basic powers of the human soul. Like the gift of contemplative self-immersion in Being, and the ability to uplift one’s spirits in festivity, the power to be at leisure is the power to step beyond the working world and win contact with those superhuman, life-giving forces that can send us, renewed and alive again, into the busy world of work… In leisure … the truly human is rescued and preserved precisely because the area of the “just human” is left behind… [But] the condition of utmost exertion is more easily to be realized than the condition of relaxation and detachment, even though the latter is effortless: this is the paradox that reigns over the attainment of leisure, which is at once a human and super-human condition.

This, perhaps, is why when we take a real vacation — in the true sense of “holiday,” time marked by holiness, a sacred period of respite — our sense of time gets completely warped . Unmoored from work-time and set free, if temporarily, from the tyranny of schedules, we come to experience life exactly as it unfolds, with its full ebb and flow of dynamism — sometimes slow and silken, like the quiet hours spent luxuriating in the hammock with a good book; sometimes fast and fervent, like a dance festival under a summer sky.

Leisure, the Basis of Culture is a terrific read in its totality, made all the more relevant by the gallop of time between Pieper’s era and our own. Complement it with David Whyte on reconciling the paradox of “work/life balance,” Pico Iyer on the art of stillness , Wendell Berry on the spiritual rewards of solitude , and Annie Dillard on reclaiming our everyday capacity for joy and wonder .

— Published August 10, 2015 — https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/08/10/leisure-the-basis-of-culture-josef-pieper/ —

www.themarginalian.org

PRINT ARTICLE

Email article, filed under, books culture josef pieper philosophy psychology, view full site.

The Marginalian participates in the Bookshop.org and Amazon.com affiliate programs, designed to provide a means for sites to earn commissions by linking to books. In more human terms, this means that whenever you buy a book from a link here, I receive a small percentage of its price, which goes straight back into my own colossal biblioexpenses. Privacy policy . (TLDR: You're safe — there are no nefarious "third parties" lurking on my watch or shedding crumbs of the "cookies" the rest of the internet uses.)

• Search Menu
• Sign in through your institution
• Advance articles
• Themed Collections
• Editor's Choice
• Ilona Kickbusch Award
• Supplements
• Author Guidelines
• Submission Online
• Open Access Option
• Self-Archiving Policy
• About Health Promotion International
• Editorial Board
• Advertising and Corporate Services
• Journals on Oxford Academic
• Books on Oxford Academic

Article Contents

Leisure as a context for active living, recovery, health and life quality for persons with mental illness in a global context, recovery defined, re-defining active living, enjoyable and meaningful leisure as a context for active living, purpose statement, toward a holistic/ecological framework of the roles of leisure in active living, recovery and health/life-quality promotion among persons with mental illness, potential contributions of leisure to active living, recovery and health/life quality among people with mental illness, importance of cultural and environmental factors and health care systems, holistic, person-centered, recovery-oriented, strengths-based, and culturally sensitive health and human care.

• < Previous

Leisure as a context for active living, recovery, health and life quality for persons with mental illness in a global context

• Article contents
• Figures & tables
• Supplementary Data

Yoshitaka Iwasaki, Catherine P. Coyle, John W. Shank, Leisure as a context for active living, recovery, health and life quality for persons with mental illness in a global context, Health Promotion International , Volume 25, Issue 4, December 2010, Pages 483–494, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daq037

• Permissions Icon Permissions

Globally, the mental health system is being transformed into a strengths-based, recovery-oriented system of care, to which the concept of active living is central. Based on an integrative review of the literature, this paper presents a heuristic conceptual framework of the potential contribution that enjoyable and meaningful leisure experiences can have in active living, recovery, health and life quality among persons with mental illness. This framework is holistic and reflects the humanistic approach to mental illness endorsed by the United Nations and the World Health Organization. It also includes ecological factors such as health care systems and environmental factors as well as cultural influences that can facilitate and/or hamper recovery, active living and health/life quality. Unique to this framework is our conceptualization of active living from a broad-based and meaning-oriented perspective rather than the traditional, narrower conceptualization which focuses on physical activity and exercise. Conceptualizing active living in this manner suggests a unique and culturally sensitive potential for leisure experiences to contribute to recovery, health and life quality. In particular, this paper highlights the potential of leisure engagements as a positive, strengths-based and potentially cost-effective means for helping people better deal with the challenges of living with mental illness.

Globally, mental disorders are prevalent across all cultures—more than 450 million people suffer from mental disorders worldwide ( Hyman et al ., 2006 ). The World Health Organization ( WHO, 2001a ) estimated that mental disorders would account for 15% of the total burden of disease in the year 2020, and showed that mental disorders would be the principal cause of Years Lived with Disability internationally. Despite advances in pharmacological and psychosocial treatments, the quality and adequacy of health care for persons with mental illness ‘remain fragmented, disconnected, and often inadequate, frustrating the opportunity for recovery’ ( New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, 2003 , p. 1).

Within Transforming Mental Health Care in America, Federal Action Agenda , recovery is emphasized as the single most important goal for the mental health system ( USDHHS, 2006 ). Also, as a follow-up to the 2001 World Health Report, the mental health Global Action Programme (mhGAP) was developed and provides a strategy for closing the gap between what is urgently needed and what is currently available to help individuals and families affected by mental illness ( WHO, 2001a ). Achieving the highest level of recovery was identified as a major goal of the mhGAP (WHO).

According to the National Consensus Statement on Mental Health Recovery , derived from over 110 expert panelist deliberations, recovery is defined as ‘a journey of healing and transformation enabling a person with a mental health problem to live a meaningful life in a community of his or her choice while striving to achieve his or her full potential’ ( USDHHS, 2006 ). Recovery involves a holistic, person-centered, strengths-based approach that focuses on: self-direction, respect, hope, connectedness, peer support, empowerment, spiritual fulfillment and meaningful life (including education, employment and leisure) ( Sells et al ., 2006 ; USDHHS, 2006 ). The practical use of these key elements of recovery (e.g. hope as the very idea that recovery is possible) was emphasized in Sartorius and Schulze's ( Sartorius and Schulze, 2005) document based on reports from the World Psychiatric Association's effort to fight against stigma of mental illness.

Understanding the true meaning and essence of recovery as an expectation for and by people with mental illness is a global concern. Davidson and Roe conducted an extensive review of the empirical literature on recovery from an international perspective ( Davidson and Roe, 2007) . They identified two complementary meanings of recovery—‘The first meaning of recovery from mental illness derives from over 30 years of longitudinal clinical research, which has shown that improvement is just as common, if not more so, than progressive deterioration. The second meaning of recovery in derives from the Mental Health Consumer/Survivor Movement, and refers instead to a person's rights to self-determination and inclusion in community life, despite continuing to suffer from mental illness’ (p. 459).

Ramon et al . also surveyed the meanings of the term recovery from a global perspective, with particular attention given to service users' definitions ( Ramon et al ., 2007) . They concluded, ‘Recovery is not about going back to a pre-illness state, and means something very different from the ‘old’ emphasis on controlling symptoms or cure. Rather, it is a complex and multifaceted concept, both a process and an outcome, the features of which include strength, self-agency and hope, interdependency and giving, and systematic effort, which entails risk-taking’ (p. 119).

The concept of recovery is based on a vision that a majority of people with mental illness can lead meaningful lives in their community ( Clay et al ., 2005 ). Within the USA, active living is a public health issue and its health benefits have been well documented. Beneficial outcomes include improved health ( Tudor and Bassett, 2004 ), physical functioning ( Brach et al ., 2004 ), health-related quality of life ( Brown et al ., 2004 ) and lower mortality ( Gregg et al ., 2003 ). However, active living is typically understood from a physical activity/exercise perspective. This is increasingly the case in an international context, as well (e.g. Murray, 2006 ; Carless, 2007 ). While physical activity and exercise is undeniably a core component in active living, there is a risk of over-emphasizing physical activity as the defining element of active living. This creates a biased view of active living by overlooking the potential value of other types of activities that promote active engagement in one's life, such as non-physical or less physically demanding forms of leisure (e.g. expressive/creative, social, spiritual or cultural forms of leisure).

We propose a broader and more strength-based, humanistic approach to the conceptualization of active living. This conceptualization views active living as being actively engaged in living all aspects of one's life both personally and in families and communities in a meaningful and enriching way rather than the narrower conceptualization of active living, which is predominately biased toward physical activity and exercise only ( Iwasaki et al ., 2006 ; Kaczynski and Henderson, 2007 ). Both the United Nations (UN; Quinn et al ., 2002 ) and World Health Organization (WHO, 2005) support such a conceptualization, given their endorsement of a broad and strengths-based, human rights approach to health promotion among global populations (including individuals with disabilities such as mental illness) in both developing and developed countries.

A broader conceptualization of active living may be particularly salient to persons with mental illness not only because sedentary and inactive lifestyles are prevalent among this population group ( McElroy et al ., 2006 ), but also because their lives are often characterized by loneliness and isolation and a disconnection from their community ( Lemaire and Mallik, 2005 ). A conceptualization of active living that is attentive to the humanistic as well as physical outcomes derived from activity may be more effective in this population, especially since it can embrace the individual's need for meaning-seeking or -making. Examples of activities that illustrate this conceptualization of active living would include: (a) Tai Chi, a physical activity that promotes physical health but which also focuses on body-mind-spirit harmony; (b) social leisure activities with peers/friends that promote emotional health and which do not emphasize living with mental illness as an issue (i.e. stigma); and (c) culturally meaningful, spiritually refreshing and/or creative/expressive leisure activity such as art/crafts, music and dance that promote self-expression and identity.

In this paper, leisure is defined as a relatively freely chosen humanistic activity and its accompanying experiences and emotions (e.g. enjoyment and happiness) that can potentially make one's life more enriched and meaningful. The meaning-seeking or meaning-making functions of leisure have a long tradition in the leisure research field (e.g. Shaw, 1985 ; Samdahl, 1988 ; Henderson et al ., 1996 ; Kelly and Freysinger, 2000 ). Recently, Iwasaki ( Iwasaki, 2008) identified key pathways to meaning-making through leisure-like pursuits in global contexts. He showed that in people's quest for a meaningful life, these leisure-generated pathways seem to simultaneously involve both ‘remedying the bad’ (e.g. coping with/healing from stressful or traumatic experiences, reducing suffering) and ‘enhancing the good’ (e.g. promoting life satisfaction and life quality) through facilitating, for example, positive emotions, identities, spirituality, connections and a harmony, human strengths and resilience, and learning and human development across the lifespan. Overall, these notions of leisure emphasize: (a) meaning-oriented emotional, spiritual, social and cultural properties of leisure that reflect a broader and humanistic perspective than physical activity alone, and (b) the role of meaning-making through leisure in promoting active living, health and life quality for people including individuals with mental illness. Leisure is a key context for active living and an important pathway toward recovery, health promotion and life-quality enhancement. Leisure represents broad aspects of human functioning including emotional, spiritual, social, cultural and physical elements. The forms that leisure expressions take (e.g. sport, exercise, art, crafts, visits with friends) are secondary to the meanings derived from and associated with the leisure experiences, and it is the outcomes/meanings derived that present the potential contributions to these pathways.

Recent research has shown that leisure opportunities (e.g. through a peer-run program at recreation centers) can play a key role in the recovery of persons with mental illness ( Swarbrick and Brice, 2006 ). Davidson et al .'s multinational study on recovery from serious mental illness highlighted the importance of going out and engaging in ‘normal’ activities, and having meaningful social roles and positive relationships outside of the formal mental health system ( Davidson et al ., 2005) . Not only can leisure and recreation provide an opportunity for going out and socially valued normal activities, but these activities can also provide a context for having a positive relationship and pursuing a meaningful social role among people including individuals with disabilities ( Henderson and Bialeschki, 2005 ; Iwasaki et al ., 2006 ; Hutchinson et al ., 2008 ). Fullagar's qualitative study with 48 women with depression in Australia found that creative (e.g. art/craft, gardening, writing, music), actively embodied (e.g. walking, yoga, Tai Chi, swimming) and social (e.g. cafes, friend/support groups) leisure activities acted as a counter-depressant by eliciting positive emotions (e.g. joy, pleasure, courage) that facilitated recovery and transformation in ways that biomedical treatments could not ( Fullagar, 2008) . These findings show important practical implications that advocate a more humanistic, strengths-based and potentially cost-effective health-care approach.

Unfortunately, active living and health promotion research for individuals with mental illness has never directly integrated the concept of recovery. Conceptualizing active living from a broader, humanistic and meaning-oriented perspective is proposed as being preferable over a narrow single-dimensional (e.g. physical activity) perspective. Also, leisure pursuits seem to provide an important context for active living and recovery-oriented health and life-quality promotion ( Godbey et al ., 2005 ; Henderson and Bialeschki, 2005 ; Sallis et al ., 2005 ). This potential, however, has been neglected (and perhaps undervalued) and seldom studied directly. Therefore, based on an integrative review of the literature, this paper presents a heuristic conceptual framework of the potential role of enjoyable and meaningful leisure in facilitating active living, recovery and health/life-quality promotion among persons with mental illness from a more holistic/ecological and humanistic perspective in a global cross-cultural context. Holistic and ecological concepts supported by Ng et al . ( Ng et al ., 2009) , DeLeon ( DeLeon, 2000) and Bambery and Abell ( Bambery and Abell, 2006) are a basis of our framework.

First, inspired by Chinese medicine's holistic model, Ng et al . ( Ng et al ., 2009) conceptualized an Eastern body-mind-spirit approach to achieving a primary therapy goal of facilitating a harmonious equilibrium within oneself as well as between oneself and the natural and social environment. Advocating the notion of ‘beyond survivorship,’ this approach focuses on human strengths and thriving. For example, in this approach, striving for a vibrant mind/spirit is pursued through Tai Chi and Qigong exercises, which enable one to appreciate and affirm one's life through meaning-making, which can be a catalyst to transform clients for positive change. The aim of this holistic approach is to activate an interconnected body-mind-spirit system in order to reestablish a balance and harmony among clients contextualized within their broader community, society and environment.

DeLeon's Therapeutic Community (TC) model is also relevant to this holistic and ecological concept ( DeLeon, 2000) . The TC model is more comprehensive and integrative than those based on symptom reduction alone. It emphasizes the transformative influences of one's identity and culture through collective intervention formats using the power of social groups in augmenting active learning, personal and social responsibility, and collective growth. DeLeon's TC model aims to achieve an existentially derived and authentic purpose in life as the primary value of living, which he theorizes to include personal and social accountability, collective learning, community involvement and good citizenry within a broad societal system. These concepts are also in line with Bambery and Abell's ( Bambery and Abell, 2006) urge for shifting the mental health field's current paradigm of psychopathology to a more holistic and ecological perspective by supporting Fromm's ( Fromm, 1941 , 1955 , 1976 ) advocacy for a more comprehensive treatment of individuals including its sensitivity to a macro-context in which society (e.g. culture, historical forces, social class) influences one's behavior. These notions are further supported by Bambery and Abell's case study that addressed both individual psychopathology and larger societal ills influencing their study participants' lives including family, social and environmental factors from an ecological perspective.

Using a holistic and ecological perspective, our proposed conceptual framework (Figure  1 ) depicts the potential interrelationships among active living, recovery and health/life quality among people with mental illness. These potential pathways were derived from an extensive and comprehensive review of the literature including both qualitative and quantitative data from studies conducted in a cross-cultural, international context.

A heuristic holistic/ecological framework of the roles of leisure in active living, recovery and health/life-quality promotion among persons with mental illness. Broken lines (---) represent transactional reciprocal relationships and connectedness between the various factors depicted in the framework.

In this framework, enjoyable and meaningful leisure expressions are emphasized as a key context for active living, and as a major pathway to recovery, health and life quality. We recognize that other activities (e.g. employment) also contribute to active living and the reader should not think that we are placing leisure as the sole construct contributing to active living. Rather, this conceptual framework is developed to highlight how enjoyable and meaningful leisure, an often neglected life activity in the rehabilitation process, can and should be considered when designing interventions to promote active living, recovery and health/life quality for individuals with mental illness.

As depicted with bi-directional arrows, enjoyable and meaningful leisure is assumed to function as a critical proactive agent via its potential to promote personal identity and spirituality, positive emotions, harmony and social connections, effective coping and healing, human development, and physical and mental health. The bi-directional arrows also indicate the converse that personal identity and spirituality, harmony and social connections, coping and healing, etc., in turn, influence leisure expressions.

The circular structure in our framework illustrates a system of micro and macro factors from a holistic/ecological perspective. The factors within the outer circle (i.e. cultural, environmental and health-care system factors) are considered more macro than the factors within the inner circle. Also, both the distinction and interconnectedness between micro and macro factors are implied. For example, personal identity and spirituality as a micro element are located within the inner circle along with other potential leisure outcomes such as positive emotions, harmony and social connections, coping/healing and health, which are distinguished from (yet are connected to) cultural factors as a macro element. On the other hand, active living, recovery and life quality are highlighted as key leisure-generated outcomes, contextualized within the outer layer of macro factors (i.e. cultural, environmental and health-care system factors). These transactional reciprocal relationships and connectedness between the various factors within multiple layers of circles are depicted with broken lines (---) of circles in the conceptual framework. It must, however, be cautioned that our intention here is not to suggest causation. Rather, our conceptual framework is presented as a ‘heuristic’ map to stimulate a more balanced, holistic/ecological and humanistic orientation of practice toward active living, recovery and the promotion of health and life quality among culturally diverse groups of people with mental illness in a global context. It is also recognized that this reciprocal transaction can be both positive and negative. That is, discretionary time behaviors (leisure) can be detrimental to health just as environmental factors can support or impede meaningful leisure experiences. Nevertheless, this article focuses on ideal transaction.

Leisure's potential has increasingly been shown in a series of empirical research. For example, Lloyd et al .'s ( Lloyd et al ., 2007) study with 44 Australian clubhouse members with mental illness found a significant association between leisure motivation (measured with leisure motivation scale, Beard and Ragheb, 1983 ) and recovery (measured with recovery assessment scale, Corrigan et al ., 2004 ). Specifically, individuals who were motivated to engage in leisure were functioning well at a higher level of recovery, while goal- and success-oriented leisure motivation ( r = 0.84) and leisure motivation toward personal confidence and hope ( r = 0.83) had strongest correlations with recovery. These findings are consistent with Hodgson and Lloyd's ( Hodgson and Lloyd, 2002) qualitative study showing that the involvement in leisure activities plays a vital role in relapse prevention for individuals with dual diagnosis of mental illness and substance misuse, and with Moloney ( Moloney, 2002) and Ryan ( Ryan, 2002) who emphasized that the engagement in leisure is instrumental in a journey for recovery from a consumer perspective. Trauer et al .'s study with 55 clients with serious mental illness reported that one's satisfaction with leisure had the strongest association with global well-being (GWB) ( r = 0.76) ( Trauer et al ., 1998) . This association between leisure satisfaction and GWB was greater than any other life-domain measures such as health, family and social relations. Also, Lloyd et al .'s ( Lloyd et al ., 2001) study found that individuals with mental illness who participated in a community-based rehabilitation program reported positive effects of leisure on intellectual stimulation, relaxation and enjoyable relationships with others. By integrating the findings of these studies, Lloyd et al . ( Lloyd et al ., 2007) emphasized that leisure-based programs should be considered for community reintegration and social inclusion of people with mental illness. This recommendation is in line with Heasman and Atwal's ( Heasman and Atwal, 2004) finding that leisure participation can contribute to greater social inclusion among British adults with mental illness.

Frances' ( Frances, 2006) evidence-based review highlighted the role of outdoor recreation (e.g. walking, cycling, hiking, kayaking, canoeing) as a viable therapeutic means for people with mental illness, particularly its role in facilitating positive identity and life quality ( Frances, 2006) . Also, Babiss' ( Babiss, 2002) ethnographic study of women with mental illness provided evidence that expressive activities such as art, music, writing and dance promote the process toward recovery, specifically as a vehicle for learning about self and for identifying feelings one cannot express verbally. Babiss indicated that ‘expression just for the sake of expression has value’ (p. 118), while emphasizing ‘the stunning importance of the human interaction and the human touch’ (p. 106). In fact, self-expressions and meaningful interpersonal interactions are two key benefits of leisure and recreation ( Driver and Bruns, 1999 ).

Yanos and Moos' integrated model of the determinants of functioning and well-being among individuals with schizophrenia identified leisure activities as a key dimension of social functioning ( Yanos and Moos, 2007) . Minato and Zemke's study with 89 community residents (aged 19–64 years) with schizophrenia in Sapporo, Japan showed that leisure can act as a stress-reliever ( Minato and Zemke, 2004) . As shown earlier, Davidson et al .'s ( Davidson et al ., 2005) international study (conducted in Italy, Norway, Sweden and the USA) found that going out and engaging in normal activities, having meaningful social roles and maintaining positive interpersonal relationships outside of the formal mental health system were found as salient themes of recovery processes.

From a positive strengths-based perspective, Carruthers and Hood ( Carruthers and Hood, 2004) stressed the role of therapeutic recreation services for individuals with mental illness in facilitating resilience, thriving and life satisfaction. Pedlar et al .'s study pointed to the importance of informal recreation opportunities (e.g. informal get-together during which women inmates with mental health challenges living in a prison system spent a leisurely evening together with people from the community) rather than a conventional formalized intervention to facilitate friendship and community reintegration ( Pedlar et al ., 2008) .

The notion of leisure as an antidote to depressive symptomotology was shown in Fullagar's ( Fullagar, 2008) study with 48 Australian women with depression. This study drew on post-structural feminist theories of emotion to explore the significance of leisure within women's narratives of recovery from depression. Specifically, Fullagar found evidence that leisure: (a) helped open up positive experiences of self beyond the experiences with the medical/clinical treatment, (b) had transformative effects on gender identity (learning really ‘who I am’), (c) generated ‘hope’ that there is life beyond depression and (d) enabled the women to exercise a sense of entitlement to play and enjoy life. Importantly, recovery-oriented leisure practices involved setting new boundaries for self (e.g. personal space) and others, and elicited emotions (e.g. joy, pleasure, courage) that facilitated transformation in ways that biomedical treatments could not. Fullagar stated, ‘The recovery practices adopted by women were significant not because of the “activities” themselves but in terms of the meanings they attributed to their emerging identities. Women talked about how they engaged in leisure “for” themselves (e.g. alone or with others)’ through creative (e.g. art/craft, gardening, writing, reading, music, community theatre, self-education), actively embodied (e.g. martial arts, walking, bowls, dance, yoga, Tai Chi, swimming, meditation) and social activities (e.g. cafes, dance courses, support groups, pets, church, helping others) (p. 42).

Thus, active engagements in leisure give attention to the experiences and meanings derived from these engagements. For example, individuals with mental illness can engage in a nature walk with peers and/or friends that can provide an opportunity to gain social (e.g. companionship), emotional (e.g. positive moods) and spiritual (e.g. spiritual renewal) benefits within a natural environment beyond physical and physiological benefits of a nature walk. Empirical evidence is emerging to demonstrate that enjoyable and meaningful leisure can facilitate coping with stress and healing from trauma, and promote hope, identity (e.g. deeper understanding of self), connectedness, appreciation for life, human growth/transformation and life quality among people including persons with mental illness (e.g. Kleiber et al ., 2002 ; Hutchinson et al ., 2006 , 2008 ; Iwasaki et al ., 2006 ). Consistent with this evidence, Ritsner et al .'s ( Ritsner et al ., 2005) study with Jewish or Arab Israelis with mental illness found that leisure activities facilitated finding meaning in life, which counteracted negative states of depression and emotional distress. In addition, a recent National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI, 2004) document included an illustration about the power of enjoyable and meaningful forms of actively engaged leisure for individuals with serious mental illness.

Furthermore, from a health-promoting perspective, leisure seems to have the potential to reduce secondary health conditions (e.g. obesity) of individuals with mental illness. Healthy People 2010 ( USDHHS, 2000 ) defines secondary conditions as ‘medical, social, emotional, family, or community problems that a person with a primary disabling condition likely experiences.’ It has been shown that the reduction and prevention of secondary conditions are very important for persons with mental illness because of their adverse effects on health and life quality ( Johnson, 1997 ; Perese and Perese, 2003 ; Merikangas and Kalaydjian, 2007 ). The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) also recognizes the importance of managing secondary conditions of people with disabilities ( WHO, 2001b ). Beyond the primary disabling conditions, physical, social and environmental factors amendable through public health intervention are widely acknowledged to mediate the development of secondary conditions ( Wilber et al ., 2002 ), yet targeted lifestyle interventions for persons with mental illness are lacking ( Bradshaw et al ., 2005 ).

Within our model, and supported by recent research findings, the potential exists in utilizing leisure activities within a health promotion framework, especially physically and socially active leisure. For example, Richardson et al . ( Richardson et al ., 2005) implemented an 18-week lifestyle intervention program to promote physical activity and healthy eating among 39 individuals with serious mental illness and found observable weight loss (to reverse weight gain as a secondary condition) over the course of the intervention. Also, Cournos and Goldfinger ( Cournos and Goldfinger, 2005) reported some success with a cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) intervention to promote walking among individuals with comorbid depression and diabetes (i.e. another secondary condition). The role of social leisure in dealing with social isolation (still as another secondary condition) has been found (e.g. Heasman and Atwal, 2004 ; Davidson et al ., 2005 ; Pedlar et al ., 2008 ), as well as the role of leisure in relapse prevention for individuals with dual diagnosis of mental illness and substance misuse ( Hodgson and Lloyd, 2002 ).

The framework includes cultural factors, health care systems and other environmental factors (e.g. family and peer support, socio-economic living conditions, neighborhood and community including parks and recreation centers, educational and employment opportunities). The interactive effects of these macro factors are assumed to influence the other components included in the framework, which is consistent with an ecological perspective of health and disability ( WHO, 2001b ).

Giving attention to cultural factors (e.g. race/ethnicity) is a must in the conceptualizations of leisure, active living, recovery, health promotion, life quality and health care, and its interrelationships. For example, Davidson et al .'s ( Davidson et al ., 2005) multinational study showed that cultural differences among individuals with mental illness from each country were noted primarily in the nature of the opportunities and supports offered rather than in the nature of the recovery processes described. Mendenhall ( Mendenhall, 2008) discussed factoring culture into outcome measurement in mental health, while Warren ( Warren, 2007) described cultural aspects of bipolar disorder and interpersonal meaning for clients and psychiatric nurses. Also, Ida ( Ida, 2007) suggested that the critical role of culture should be acknowledged in the recovery and healing process within the context of ‘racism, sexism, colonization, homophobia, and poverty, as well as the stigma and shame associated with having a mental illness’ (p. 49). Hopper et al ., 2007) conducted a cross-cultural inquiry into marital prospects after psychosis, and Rosen ( Rosen, 2003) discussed how developed countries can learn from developing countries in challenging psychiatric stigma from a cross-cultural perspective. This may ‘include wider communal involvement in addressing external (psycho-sociocultural) causal or precipitating factors (e.g., losses, lack of meaningful role, spiritual crises) rather than relying on internal biological explanations and treatments’ ( Rosen, 2003 , p. S95). Fallot showed that spirituality is central to self-understanding and recovery experiences of many individuals with mental illness, and that recognizing the role of spirituality and religion in a particular culture is often essential to offering culturally competent services ( Fallot, 2001) . Also, Hwang et al . ( Hwang et al ., 2008) provided a conceptual paradigm for understanding how cultural factors (e.g. cultural meanings, norms, expressions) influence several core domains of mental health, including (a) the prevalence of mental illness, (b) etiology of disease, (c) phenomenology of distress, (d) diagnostic and assessment issues, (e) coping styles and help-seeking pathways and (f) treatment and intervention issues. In addition, cultural meanings of leisure engagements for racial/ethnic minorities should be acknowledged rather than imposing a dominant western idea of leisure, as emphasized in Iwasaki et al .'s ( Iwasaki et al ., 2007) call for a power-balance between East and West in leisure research.

Besides cultural factors, the other macro factors included in the framework represent health care systems and other environmental factors. Certainly, access to and the approaches used in mental health care systems will affect active living and recovery, including the propensity to consider leisure-based active living in overall health and life quality. Consider, for example, the personal recovery experiences described by Schiff ( Schiff, 2004) . As a consumer–survivor, Schiff described a recovery process that involved connections with others, the environment and the world as a key contributor to life quality. Specifically, besides her inner desire for ‘wanting to get better’ (p. 215), she talked about her own recovering experiences facilitated by her relationships with patients, medical staff and some others at university, and through reclaiming social roles with peers including helping others who have mental illness. Similarly, from a consumer perspective, Happell's ( Happell, 2008) study found a supportive environment, especially connectedness with and encouragement/support from staff and peers, as a key aspect of mental health services to enhance recovery, while emphasizing that increased attention should be given to the views and opinions of consumers to develop more responsive mental health services. Also, Yanos and Moos ( Yanos and Moos, 2007) identified various environmental conditions—including social climate (e.g. community stigma, economic conditions, local mental health policies), resources (e.g. social support, family resources) and stressors (e.g. family relationships, neighborhood disadvantage)—as key determinants of functioning and well-being among individuals with schizophrenia.

Besides ensuring the quality and accessibility of resources essential for daily community living (e.g. safety/security, health care, educational and employment opportunities), creating a more active-living-friendly neighborhood and community for people with mental illness is very important. To achieve this aim, however, the maintenance of accessible/inclusive, user-friendly and pleasant parks and recreation centers that offer a diverse range of opportunities for all to enjoy quality leisure time is a top priority. Recently, both American Journal of Preventive Medicine (e.g. Godbey et al ., 2005 ; Sallis et al ., 2005 ) and Leisure Sciences (e.g. Henderson and Bialeschki, 2005 ) featured a special issue on the role of recreation and leisure in promoting active lifestyles in neighborhoods and communities (e.g. engineering a safe/secure, visually attractive and user-friendly urban-park landscape) from a transdisciplinary perspective (e.g. urban planning, landscape architecture, engineering, leisure sciences, medicine, public health).

Another proposition implied in this framework is that persons with mental illness are in favor of and demand more holistic, person-centered, recovery-oriented, strengths-based and culturally sensitive health and human care beyond illness-focused care. Integrating humanistic leisure-based programs into health care systems would give attention to the wholeness of the individual and her/his life, in which personal and social behavior (including leisure behavior) and cultural and environmental factors influence each other. The quality and accessibility of community health care systems are an important factor for the lives of people with mental illness because the ability of those systems to adequately meet the unique needs of persons with mental illness is a critical concern for their health and life quality.

This paper has presented a heuristic conceptual framework in which the centrality of leisure engagements from a broader and more balanced experience- and meaning-oriented perspective (than simply behavioral) is viewed as a proactive, strengths-based agent and context for active living to facilitate recovery and health/life-quality enhancement. Emphasized in the framework include the functions of enjoyable and meaningful leisure not only to promote personal identity and spirituality, positive emotions, harmony and social connections, effective coping and healing functions, human development, and physical and mental health, but also the effects of these interrelated elements on promoting more enjoyable and meaningful leisure in a reciprocal way for persons with mental illness. This reciprocal transaction can, however, be both positive and negative. That is, negative discretionary time behaviors (e.g. deviant leisure; Rojek, 1999 ) can be detrimental to individuals just as environmental factors can support or impede meaningful leisure experiences.

Also, by adopting a holistic and ecological perspective, this framework stresses the significance of social and environmental factors including the need to transform neighborhoods and communities to be more resourceful and active-living friendly. From a global international perspective, however, the impact of cultural/cross-cultural factors should not be ignored as these are closely interconnected with neighborhood and community factors, health care systems and the other social and environmental factors (e.g. socio-economic).

Although potential contributions of leisure to active living, recovery and the promotion of health and life quality have been shown, empirical evidence is limited. Thus, we caution that: (a) key ideas presented in our heuristic conceptual framework do not necessarily imply causation with strong magnitude and duration in change through leisure, and (b) other factors may be responsible for the promotion of active living, recovery, health and life quality. Rather, the framework presented, while based on preliminary, empirical evidence, should be considered ‘heuristic’ with the intention to stimulate a more balanced, holistic/ecological and humanistic orientation for research and practice that focus on active living, recovery and the enhancement of health and life quality among culturally diverse groups of people with mental illness from both clinical and research perspectives. This paper offers some concepts that can be a guide for further thinking and inquiry about active-living and health promoting pathways through leisure from a holistic, strengths-based and humanistic perspective for culturally diverse populations with mental illness in a global context.

This paper is based on our project supported by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Mental Health (Award Number R21MH086136).

Google Scholar

Google Preview

Email alerts

Citing articles via.

• Recommend to Your Librarian
• Journals Career Network

Affiliations

• Online ISSN 1460-2245
• Print ISSN 0957-4824
• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Institutional account management
• Rights and permissions
• Get help with access
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

• More from M-W
• To save this word, you'll need to log in. Log In

Definition of leisure

• decompression

Examples of leisure in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'leisure.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Middle English leiser , from Anglo-French leisir , from leisir to be permitted, from Latin licēre — see license entry 1

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing leisure

• a lady / man / gentleman of leisure
• a life of leisure
• at one's leisure

leisure class

• leisure suit

Dictionary Entries Near leisure

Cite this entry.

“Leisure.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/leisure. Accessed 23 Aug. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of leisure, more from merriam-webster on leisure.

Nglish: Translation of leisure for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of leisure for Arabic Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about leisure

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Can you solve 4 words at once?

Word of the day.

See Definitions and Examples »

Get Word of the Day daily email!

Popular in Grammar & Usage

Plural and possessive names: a guide, 31 useful rhetorical devices, more commonly misspelled words, absent letters that are heard anyway, how to use accents and diacritical marks, popular in wordplay, 8 words for lesser-known musical instruments, it's a scorcher words for the summer heat, 7 shakespearean insults to make life more interesting, 10 words from taylor swift songs (merriam's version), 9 superb owl words, games & quizzes.

Recreation Theory and Philosophy

• Practice and Mastery
• Indomitable Human Spirit
• Role of the Goal
• Locus of Control
• Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
• Self-Efficacy
• Arousal Theory
• Flow Theory
• Self-Actualization
• Psycho-Social Development
• Environmental Stewardship
• Biophilia / Identity & Environment
• Leisure & Work
• Library Information

Definition:

Work is defined as an activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result. Leisure is defined as a freedom provided by the cessation of activities especially : time free from work or duties.

Work and Leisure Relationships

Spillover: Research has found positive relationships between work and leisure, such that people choose leisure activities involving the same psychological, social, and behavioral skills as their work.

Compensation: Other studies argue, negative relationship with individuals sometimes compensating for work deficiencies through leisure activities. For e.g. individuals with low occupational status are more likely to stress the importance of prize-winning in leisure than individuals with high status.

Segmentation: Work and leisure are independent and has no relationship.

Media/Videos:

Links/Documents:

• Why People Play at Work: A Theoretical Examination of Leisure-at-Work. Postmodern perspectives on work and leisure acknowledge the interwoven nature of these domains, an example being the increasing number of organizations intentionally incorporating leisure into the employee experience. Existing research, however, provides no specific theoretical guidance regarding the potential impacts of strategically integrating recreation activities into the work domain. Thus, based on positive organizational scholarship and leisure science theories, we build an individual level model describing the phenomenon of leisure-at-work (LAW). We propose LAW activities have the ability to produce feelings of personal expressiveness at work as moderated by employees' perceptions of the activities. Personal expressiveness then mediates LAW activities' ability to promote the development of organizational commitment, work engagement, and resilience among employees.
• Work and Leisure (eBook) Globalization, economic development and changes in social environments have put the relationships between work, leisure, social structure and quality of life under the spotlight. Profound transformations in the nature and organization of work are occurring, with potentially far-reaching social and economic consequences. Increasingly, organizations demand greater flexibility from their workforces and are introducing new technologies and practices in response to global competitive pressures. At the same time many employees are experiencing long working hours, increasing workloads and job insecurity, along with the challenge of balancing work and domestic responsibilities. These changes threaten long-term gain in leisure time while, simultaneously, the leisure environment is also changing radically, as we see increasing commercialization and professionalization of leisure services and experiences, the influence of the Internet, the rise of gambling and the decline of community-based activity. Exploring all of these issues, this book brings together specially commissioned chapters from international experts in a wide range of disciplines concerned with work, leisure and well-being. Each author takes stock of the current position, identifies core practical and theoretical issues and discusses possible future trends in order to provide an invaluable resource for all policy-makers, educators, employers and researchers in the field.
• Work-Leisure Relations The relationship between work and leisure, with regard to various aspects of work and its meaning, was examined in two groups of people: leisure-oriented and work-oriented. Leisure-to-work spillover characterized the relations between leisure orientation and the following variables: absolute work centrality, interpersonal contacts, intrinsic orientation, obligation norm, and weekly work hours. Compensation for work by leisure characterized the relation between job satisfaction and leisure orientation. The segmentation between leisure and work hypotheses, regarding economic orientation and entidement norm, were supported.
• Work and leisure: exploring a relationship hereas geographers have an established record of research into recreation and tourism, the wider issue of leisure has received less notice. This wider issue of' leisure ' deserves more attention by geographers at a time when both the organization of work and the availability of leisure time are undergoing significant change. These changes have implications in themselves but also raise more sharply the question of relationship between work and leisure. That some relationship exists is clear, less time at work means more time available for leisure, but other qualities of the link are less easily specified. A study of three groups of office workers at one workplace is used to examine the work-leisure relationship and significant differences in attitude to work can be related to contrasted perceptions of the role of leisure, though detailed leisure activities are less easily accommodated in any generalisation.

Audio Clips:

• Time Off: The Future of Work and Leisure on Spotify "Rest is essential. Unplugging in today's busy world is both a skill and a competitive advantage. Is it possible to get more done by working less? On this podcast, we talk to those who have developed a solid "rest ethic." They are people who successfully take time off through sabbaticals, active vacations, more play, fascinating hobbies, and other methods for becoming more interesting without burning out." Check out their Spotify page to stay up-to-date with their episodes.
• Time Off: The Future of Work and Leisure on Apple Listen on Apple Podcasts
• The Accented Philosophy Podcast on Spotify "The relevant philosophy podcast with Dr Ezechiel Thibaud and Dr Andreas Matthias. Two philosophers with cute accents and their guests discuss the intricacies of modern life. Brought to you by daily-philosophy.com. Every Tuesday." Check out their Spotify page to stay up-to-date with their episodes.
• The Accented Philosophy Podcast on Apple Listen on Apple podcasts
• << Previous: Biophilia / Identity & Environment
• Next: Library Information >>
• Last Updated: May 8, 2024 3:52 PM
• URL: https://libguides.ferrum.edu/rec360

• Entertainment
• Environment
• Information Science and Technology
• Social Issues

Home Essay Samples Life Freedom

Understanding The Meaning Of Leisure

Table of contents, literature review, what is leisure, three types of leisure, serious leisure serious, casual leisure, project-based leisure, constraints.

*minimum deadline

Cite this Essay

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing style below

• Self Reliance
• Having a Baby
• Thanksgiving

Related Essays

Need writing help?

You can always rely on us no matter what type of paper you need

*No hidden charges

100% Unique Essays

Absolutely Confidential

Money Back Guarantee

By clicking “Send Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails

You can also get a UNIQUE essay on this or any other topic

Thank you! We’ll contact you as soon as possible.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Front Psychol
• PMC10011693

Leisure and meaning in life

Seppo e. iso-ahola.

1 Department of Kinesiology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States

Roy F. Baumeister

2 School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

How people engage in leisure is an important but frequently underappreciated aspect of meaning in life. Leisure activities range from highly engaging and meaningful to subjectively trivial. Leisure itself is largely defined by meaning: The essence of leisure lies less in the specific activity than in the subjective perception of freedom, choice, and intrinsic motivation. People desire their lives to be meaningful, and leisure activities offer varying degrees of satisfying the basic needs for meaning (here covered as purpose, value, efficacy, and self-worth). Leisure activities vary along multiple conceptual dimensions, such as active vs. passive, seeking vs. escaping, solitary vs. interpersonal, and we consider the implications of these for meaningfulness. The most common leisure activity in modern society, watching television, encapsulates some of the paradoxes of leisure and meaningfulness. The study of how leisure enhances meaning in life is rich and ripe for future research.

Introduction

Research has abundantly confirmed the importance of both interpersonal relationships and work to the meaning of many lives ( Bellah et al., 1985 ; Stillman et al., 2009 ; Lambert et al., 2010 ). More precisely, meaning is often found in interpersonal relationships, especially strong and close ones, as well as in meaningful work. However, the contribution of work to life’s meaningfulness is highly variable. Some people find it highly engrossing, fascinating, and rewarding, while others see it as little more than a tedious activity necessary to provide money to support life. Indeed, a surprisingly large category of people describes their work as “bullshit jobs” and think society would be perfectly well off if their job did not even exist ( Graeber, 2013 , 2018 ). For such individuals, family, romance, and other forms of social contact loom as the primary source of meaning.

In this article, we seek to examine another possible source of meaning in life: leisure. While for most people, leisure remains secondary to work in terms of priority, it can nevertheless infuse substantial amounts of meaning into life, along with boosting happiness and satisfaction. We seek to explain just how leisure contributes to satisfying people’s needs for meaningfulness. For example, meaningfulness often emerges from close relationship bonds, and leisure is an avenue for doing activities with friends and family (e.g., Crandall, 1979 ; Iso-Ahola, 1980 , 1999 ). However, it is important to add that leisure activities are also done alone or in formal social contexts with weak interpersonal relationships, such as acquintances in structured programs.

When work is unsatisfying, leisure can potentially help fill the gap in meaningfulness, but it can also be meaningful in its own right. Although we focus on leisure’s potential contribution to meaning in life, we do not want to imply that work and interpersonal relationships, on their own without leisure, would not play an important role in people’s search for meaning in life. They certainly are important contributors, but we wish to highlight how and why leisure can make its own contribution. This is important because scholars, especially psychologists, have paid very little attention to the relationship between leisure and meaning in life. In contrast, some sociologists (e.g., Coalter, 1999 , p. 513) have acknowledged psychological aspects and centrality of leisure choices and their “situated meaning.”

Examination of the relationship between leisure and meaning in life is important not only for its own sake but also, for better understanding the complexity and breadth of meaning in life in general. Furthermore, the examination is important now in the aftermath of the wide-spread effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., remote work). Much has been said about the so-called Great Resignation or “quiet quitting” from jobs. Could leisure replace work or provide opportunities for doing something one always wanted to do and thereby help make his/her life more meaningful?

Along with the great resignation, there is a trend of adopting shorter workweeks without pay cuts. In Iceland, 86% of workers are expected to adopt a 4-day workweek based on the experimental findings, and Belgium announced that employees are allowed to request compressing their work hours into 4 days. In the U.S. Congress, a bill has been introduced to reduce all standard workweeks to 32 hours. All of this has a potential to increase leisure’s importance to meaning in life.

Recent years have seen researchers shift away from a focus on the meaning of life to meaning in life (e.g., Steger et al., 2006 ; Steger, 2009 ; George and Park, 2016 ; Martela, 2020 ). The difference is in the amount of integration required: A meaning of life presumably integrates much of the life, including most or all of the important parts, whereas meaning in life can be limited to one domain and can comfortably ignore large and important aspects of the life’s meaning. Finding meaning in life is a less grandiose aspiration than determining the meaning of a life or indeed of all life. This shift increases the possibilities for recognizing and studying the contribution of leisure pursuits. Although leisure may not rise to the level of providing the meaning of life for most people, it can provide substantial increases in the amount of meaning in a life. Our focus is to advance understanding of leisure’s potential to enhance meaning in life. Nevertheless, we stipulate that leisure can enhance the meaning of life also. For example, millions of people around the world spend their leisure in volunteer work helping the poor, serving the church, or improving the environment, and that provides not only meaning in but meaning of life for them.

Another important point is that leisure does not have to make unique contributions to meaning in life. Kelly and Kelly (1994) provided evidence that the meanings people find in leisure often overlap with what they find elsewhere (e.g., in work and family). Nevertheless, leisure can still contribute important and substantial amounts of meaningfulness.

The paper will proceed as follows. First, we consider the defining characteristics of leisure. Next, we review evidence relevant to the question of how leisure can satisfy people’s various needs for meaning. Following this generally positive appraisal of how leisure contributes meaning, we review evidence concerning several problematic aspects of the meanings in leisure. Television watching, in particular, is often rated as low in meaningfulness and happiness, yet it has often been found to be the most frequently reported form of leisure in modern life. We then cover evidence about several key dichotomies in leisure, including solitary versus interpersonal leisure, casual versus ‘serious’ leisure, and whether leisure is primarily an escape from something else or is sought and valued in its own right. We then conclude with some broad observations.

What is leisure?

Leisure can be defined by what it is and what it is not. First, leisure can be most easily defined by what it is not: It is not work, nor does it include other activities required for survival. Instead, leisure has traditionally been defined in three ways: As an activity or as time left over after work or as a subjective preception and experience ( Iso-Ahola, 1980 ). Most agree that it cannot be defined as an activity because any activity could sometimes be defined as leisure. It does not make sense to define leisure in terms of time left after work either, because time does not tell us anything about meaning, antecedents and consequences of behaviors done after work. If a person spends many hours watching TV but does not like it, it is a poor leisure experience ( Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi, 2002 ). There are numerous behaviors (e.g., chores, child care) undertaken after work that can be characterized as nonwork or free time, but few people would define them as leisure. There is a difference between the mere nonworking hours and extraction of meaning from these hours.

Multiple studies (e.g., Iso-Ahola, 1979 , 1980 ; Shaw, 1985 ; Mannell et al., 1988 ) have shown that leisure is a psychological entity overwhelmingly defined by people’s perceptions of freedom. In other words, a sense of freedom more than anything else defines what leisure is to people. Importantly, leisure means freedom to choose to do or not to do something. Otherwise a sense of obligation arises and a sense of leisure is lost. Thus, the etymological roots of the word “leisure” are linked to the concept of freedom. Freedom to choose allows people to pursue their values, goals, and identities ( Schwartz, 2004 ). Even though perceived freedom is a necessary condition for leisure, it does not guarantee a high-quality experience. One can freely choose to go and watch a basketball game, but if his/her team loses, this leisure experience would predictably be rated poor ( Madrigal, 2003 ). It should also be noted that not all scholars, especially sociologists (e.g., Rojek, 2010 ), agree with our social psychological approach to defining leisure.

Nevertheless, research suggests that an opportunity for freedom and choice is valuable in and of itself because a choice provides the means for exercising control over one’s environment, thereby suggesting that the need for freedom and choice is biologically based. To this extent, Leotti and Delgado (2011) showed that the mere anticipation of personal involvement in an activity through freedom of choice recruited affective and motivational brain circuitry, specifically corticostriatal circuitry known to be linked to reward processing. Research has further shown the fundamental importance of freedom, in that individuals prefer freedom to choose even when it impairs their social welfare and can lead to tragic medical decisions ( Botti and Iyengar, 2006 ; Botti et al., 2009 ).

The second most important characteristic behind the concept of leisure is intrinsic motivation, followed by “work-relation” and “goal-orientation.” In other words, it is freedom rather than lack of it, intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation, final goals rather than instrumental goals, and low work-relation rather than high work-relation which increased people’s perceptions of leisure ( Iso-Ahola, 1979 ). While the effects of the latter two were statistically significant, their effects on the perceptions were negligible compared to the former two, especially a sense of freedom. What this means is that any so-called leisure activity can turn into work-like activity when it is forced or has no sense of freedom associated with it.

In their classic study, Csikszentmihalyi and Graef (1979) showed that even such a supposedly pleasant leisure activity as being in a restaurant can be turned into anything but leisure when people are required to be there. All of this is also consistent with the research on the “overjustification” phenomenon which has shown that initially intrinsically motivating activities become work-like when they are externally sanctioned or extrinsically motivated ( Deci, 1971 ; Lepper et al., 1973 ; Deci et al., 1999 ). According to Csikszentmihalyi and Graef’s (1980) data, sports and games are activities in which people feel most free.

In short, leisure cannot be defined as an “activity,” such that some activities are leisure activities while others are not, because almost any activity can be experienced as either leisure or work, depending on perceptions of freedom. The definition of leisure therefore resides more in the person’s attitudes toward and feelings about the activity, rather than in the activity itself. Freedom and intrinsic motivation contribute to the understanding of leisure as something that the person wishes to do and feels free to decide whether to do it or not.

It should also be noted that not only an opportunity to choose to do something in free time makes that chosen activity leisure but also a choice not to do something is an expression of freedom ( Iso-Ahola, 2013 ). Thus, freedom gives people a license not to exercise!

It is easier to provide examples than a definition. Thus, leisure activities include hobbies, rest, entertainments, games, and sports (both as participants and spectators). Travel is also a popular leisure activity. Consumption of food, alcohol, and drugs is also a popular form. For all of these and others, the feeling of being free to do it or not do it is what makes it leisure. Travel can be required by work, and taking drugs may be required by addiction, and so forth, in which case they lose the character of leisure.

Regardless, the essence of leisure resides in its subjective meaning, as was well demonstrated empirically by Tonietto et al. (2021) . Their findings indicated that perceiving leisure as wasteful correlated with lower happiness and greater depression, anxiety, and stress. Furthermore, priming the belief that leisure is wasteful reduced enjoyment of leisure. Unfortunately, in the achievement-emphazing society like the U.S., priming productivity at the expense of leisure is common, and the utility of leisure is seen as the relief it affords from costly cognitive control in labor-leisure relationships and tradeoffs ( Kool and Botvinik, 2014 ).

Yet, research has shown the benefits of mentally disengaging from work during off-time. Individuals who are able to detach themselves from work during their off-job hours report higher life satisfaction and well-being and fewer symptoms of psychological strain ( Sonnentag, 2012 ). Moreover, there appears to be a curvilinear relationship between attachment from work during nonwork time and task performance such that both high and low levels of detachment were associated with poor task performance ( Fritz et al., 2010 ). This would seem to suggest that both too much and too little psychological separation between work and leisure is not good for employees’ well-being and job performance.

Leisure and needs for meaning

We turn now to the core question of how leisure activities can contribute to meaning in life (if not of life). The underlying premise is that people are broadly motivated to find or instill meaning in their lives ( Steger, 2009 ; Park, 2010 ). We enquire, therefore, how leisure pastimes may help accomplish this.

Meaning in life can be characterized as among those desirable things that many people want but are not sure quite what it is. Frankl’s (1976/1959) pioneering work on meaningfulness emphasized purpose as a fundamental and central form of meaning. Seeking to elaborate the notion of meaning motivation, Baumeister (1991a) proposed four somewhat distinct needs for meaning: Purpose, value, efficacy, and self-worth. Hence one way to elucidate the contribution of leisure to meaning is to analyze how various leisure activities address and potentially satisfy these four needs.

The four needs for meaning are a heuristic scheme. George and Park (2016) suggested purpose, mattering, and coherence, which initially seem different but on closer inspection are quite similar. (For example, value might seem to be missing from George and Park’s scheme, but they stipulate that the purposes must have value, and moreover, value is relevant to mattering.) A more thorough examination of how the different lists of meaning needs are actually quite similar can be found in Baumeister (2023) .

Purpose means that the present activities draw meaning from the future, such as aspirational goals or fulfillment states. Leisure activities vary widely as to how purposive they are. The single most common leisure pastime in modern Western civilization is watching television, which typically is lacking in either goals or fulfillment states. (That may explain why television watching is rated as among the least satisfying or pleasant of daily activities; Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi, 2002 ). At the opposite extreme, creative hobbies such as playing a musical instrument or painting have abundant goals and sometimes offer fulfillment states (i.e., the ecstasy of artistic creation).

Goals in leisure pursuits can be short-term, long-term, or both. As examples of short-term goals, sports, games, and athletic pursuits often come with proximal goals, such as winning the game, finishing the climb or hike, or solving the puzzle. Nevertheless, these activities are psychologically meaningful because there is often a strong relationship between challenge and enjoyment in them. Abuhamdeh and Csikzentmihalyi’s (2012) data showed that the challenge-enjoyment relationship is strongest for intrinsically motivated, goal-directed activities. The authors suggested that the motivational context (intrinsic-extrinsic motivation) and the nature of the activities (goal-directed or not) have to be considered to understand optimal challenges in sports and games and other leisure activities.

To be sure, leisure can involve long-term goals as well. So-called serious leisure (see later section) often is serious precisely because of commitment to long-term goals, such as playing in a local band or volunteering to help the environment. Moreover, even when the goals in leisure pursuits may be short-term, people repeat their leisure activities. For example, they do not just play tennis one time but rather tend to play frequently or even regularly. If done with family and good friends, leisure activities can become meaningful additions to people’s lives. Thus, they do not act as if the activity has enabled them to reach a goal — they may select the same sort of goal the next time they play. Short-term goals may not contribute much to the meaningfulness of a life as a whole, but they can add plenty of meaning into the life along the way. (They may try to win each tennis game; after all, scoring and winning are inherent to the game.) In contrast, some leisure activities do involve longer-term purposes. For example, singing in a choir or volunteering for community service may be undertaken month after month, year after year. The participation can be cumulative, such as enabling the choir to flourish or helping a series of individuals to have a better life.

Philosophical and sociological conceptions of value can be quite complex. Heinich (2020) has observed, among other insights, that it is best to focus on how individuals bestow or judge value, rather than treating value as an inherent property of things. Assignment of value combines properties of the object, characteristics of the person making the judgment, and the situational context. She resists reducing value to morals or to normative guides on how to act. Ultimately, she says, value is neither objective, nor subjective, nor arbitrary. In contrast, consumer psychologists tend to start by equating value with the monetary price of an item, but a more in-depth analysis of what consumers value led Almquist et al. (2016) to delineate 30 different elements of value, which can be sorted roughly into four master categories: Functional value, emotional value, life changing value, and social impact.

These apply to leisure in different ways. Leisure is not generally functional, although the leisure enthusiast may pay close attention to which products and accessories are most functional. (As example, note the ongoing refinements in skis over the past half century, which have made skiing much easier and more pleasant.) Emotional value is presumably the most frequent reason that people choose particular forms of leisure, including even the wish for vicarious emotional experience from watching television. Life change may occur, such as if dabbling in guitar to relax after work gradually moves into cultivation of musical talent and public performance. Last, some people may choose forms of leisure that have positive social impact, such as helping the homeless or volunteering at a recycling center.

Whereas Almquist et al. (2016) sought to cover the operation of values in consumer purchases, and Heinich (2020) undertook to analyze all forms of value, our emphasis is on how leisure contributes to the value aspect of meaning in life. The need for value is a matter of finding a way to regard oneself and one’s life as good. Some leisure pursuits enable one to claim value based on belonging to a socially admired category of persons (e.g., musician, painter, sailor, athlete), while others contribute to the betterment of society (e.g., volunteer work). Or, to put it another way, all theorists and measures include purpose as vital to meaning in life – but purposes are not all equal, and most people seek purposes that have positive value.

The origins of the concept of leisure (including the etymology of the word) involve being freed from the duties, obligations, and other necessities of life. This reflects a simple view of life as divided into things one must do in order to survive and things that one wishes to do. Self-determination theory ( Deci and Ryan, 1985 ) began with research on the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Working to make a living is essentially extrinsic because it is driven by external demands. In contrast, leisure is assumed to be largely intrinsically motivated. Freed from the necessity to comply with external demands, one is able to do what one wishes to do. The essence of intrinsic motivation is that one performs the activity for its own sake, such as for the inherent pleasure of doing it, rather than to achieve external goals. Sailing provides a useful example. At some times and places, sailing was a crucial way to travel. One sailed in order to reach a destination so as to pursue one’s business there. It was a means to an end. In contrast, the modern recreational sailor often has no destination in mind and sails for the pure joy of the activity. Typically, one sails from one’s dock or harbor out into open water, cruises around for a while, and then returns to the starting point.

The value of work as a centerpiece of life has eroded among an increasingly greater number of people. Some people are willing to forfeit or forgo a substantial amount of their salary for more free time, and half of all American workers would choose a different type of work if they had to do it all over again ( Marin and Gegax, 1997 ). At the same time, research has shown that involvement in meaningful nonwork activities helps people to detach from paid work, which in turn is associated with greater well-being ( Sonnentag, 2012 ). When combining all of this with research showing that people overwhelmingly prefer experiences over possessions ( Van Boven and Gilovich, 2003 ; Carter and Gilovich, 2012 ), it becomes clear that people are yearning for more meaning to their lives through means other than work, most notably through leisure that enables them to do personally meaningful activities.

However, it is not a question of substituting leisure for work but rather, providing an additional source for meaning in life. The problem is that 51% of the U.S. employees, according to a 2014 Gallup poll, do not feel involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work or workplace (and 17.5% “actively disengaged”) and would rather do something else if they could ( Adkins, 2015 ). But because most people cannot switch jobs, they are stuck and in a way, forced to turn to other sources of meaning in life, such as activities done with friends and family. It, then, is not surprising that people value experiences much more highly than material possessions ( Van Boven and Gilovich, 2003 ; Hunnicutt, 2020 ). A recent study found that valuing one’s experiences is positively correlated with perceptions of meaning even after controlling for purpose, mattering and coherence ( Kim et al., 2022 ).

Thus, the contribution of leisure activities to value in life is complex and multifaceted. Some pastimes have a strong moral component, such as volunteer work. By working to help people less fortunate than oneself, or to clean up the environment, or to save animals, or to help one’s church, people can add value to their lives. In contrast, watching television, indulging in alcohol or drugs, or prostitution would seemingly add little value. Indeed, such leisure pastimes are regarded by some as destructive and unhealthy activities that detract from the total value for individuals and society. It must be acknowledged, though, that even these seemingly unhealthy activities have some remeeding value, in that they can positively contribute to mental health and positive emotion in the short term.

Efficacy refers to the sense that one is making a difference, that one’s actions accomplish something. This is absent from some leisure activities, but is central to others, such as the examples of tennis and sailing. Thus, activities vary in how conducive they are in facilitating a sense of accomplishment, a sense of using one’s abilities to accomplish something personally and interpersonally meaningful and worthwhile. Learning to play a musical instrument or a skill-based sport requires practice so as gradually to build up one’s abilities. Successfully playing a complex piece on the piano or skiing down a steep hill seems likely to furnish a sense of efficacy, even if they fail to have any discernible or lasting effect on the external world. Likewise, winning a chess or card game furnishes a sense of efficacy, even if there are no lasting consequences (either for self or society).

At the same time, the complexity of leisure is apparent. Even those activities that do not seem to be ‘wholesome’ can be efficacious. For example, listening to music can improve one’s mood and thereby mental health in the short term. Similarly, moderate or social drinking can facilitate or “lubricate” meaningful social interactions ( Crandall et al., 1980 ). Thus, it is more constructive to look at these types of activities in terms of their harmfulness than making moral judgments about them. Almost any leisure activity can be harmful when taken to the extreme (e.g., marathon running). Again, the essence of leisure does not lie in the activity but rather, in its subjective meaning.

It can be considered remarkable how many leisure activities embody the cultivation of efficacy for tasks and skills that have no pragmatic utility in normal life. Many sports rely on highly specialized muscular skills that bear no resemblance to any earnest activity. Unlike swimming and jogging, which have at times some practical utility in being able to move about in water or on land, tennis and basketball rely on cultivating fine motor skills that are useless for anything else. Nevertheless, the satisfaction of achieving efficacy at these activities can presumably add meaning to life. It has been found that “serious leisure” (i.e., time spent above an individual’s average) was positively related to work-related self-efficacy ( Kelly et al., 2020 ). This presents intriguing possibilities for future research: Does leisure contribute significantly to meaning in life on its own or does leisure enhance work performance and self-efficacy and thereby increase meaning in life (a mediation effect)?

The fourth need for meaning involves finding some way to view oneself as a person of worth. This typically derives from comparison to others: By pursuing valued goals in an efficacious manner, one achieves self-worth. In practice, Baumeister (1991a) observed that this often takes the form of feeling superior to others. In any case, some leisure sports offer opportunities to feel good about oneself. Again, the morally virtuous leisure activities furnish a sense of being a good person (both in one’s own mind and sometimes in other people’s estimation). Likewise, the amateur athlete or artist can enjoy successes along with admiration of others.

To be sure, in principle the boost to self-worth does not have to rely on social comparison. Merely performing a leisure activity for its own sake could increase a sense of self-worth, especially if the activities are based on using one’s skills ( Csikszentmihalyi et al., 1977 ; Sheldon et al., 1996 ; Reis et al., 2000 ). Furthermore, an Australian study showed that those unemployed individuals who engaged in challenging activities, both social (e.g., sport and dancing) and solitary (e.g., hobbies, reading), reported higher levels of self-esteem than those unemployed whose leisure was dominated by “doing nothing” and watching TV ( Winefield et al., 1993 ). This clearly demonstrates the potential of leisure activities adding meaning to people’s lives and for maintaining their self-worth, even for unemployed individuals. In general, self-esteem is linked to actual and anticipated evaluations of self by others (e.g., Leary and Baumeister, 2000 ).

In Veblen’s classic ( Veblen, 1953/1899 ) analysis of the leisure class from the gilded age (late 19th century), self-worth was presumably a central motivation among the people he observed. The purpose of conspicuous consumption was to garner the admiration and perhaps envy of others. Notably, conspicuous consumption does not establish worth via virtuous deeds, successful achievements, or skillful performances. Rather, it showcases one’s wealth, presumably invoking the assumption that rich people are the elite of society. If nothing else, one envies them for their wealth, and being envied may contribute to a sense of superiority. However, engagement in leisure is not just a matter of flaunting one’s social status, or only a matter of intrinsic reasons. At times and in certain situations, both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators are present in leisure pursuits ( Mannell and Bradley, 1986 ; Mannell et al., 1988 ).

Problematic aspects of seeking meaningfulness in leisure

Thus far we have argued that various forms of leisure can satisfy the needs for meaning — some far more than others. Having elucidated the positive case for leisure’ contribution to meaningfulness, we turn now to some of the problems that may reduce such contribution.

As stated earlier, freedom is the essential, defining feature of leisure. Freedom is highly desired, and in general people express a pervasive and sometimes strong wish for greater freedom ( Iso-Ahola, 1980 ; Mannell et al., 1988 ). Yet when they get freedom, they often seem not to know what to do with it ( Csikszentmihalyi, 1999 ), resulting in boredom in leisure among other things ( Iso-Ahola and Weissinger, 1987 , 1990 ). This suggests that people often find extrinsically motivated activities, including work, to be burdensome, even aversive, but they wish to not have to do what others tell them to do. When they obtain freedom, however, they may find themselves at a loss as to what to do instead of extrinsically mandated activities. In fact, Mannell and Bradley’s (1986) experiment showed that individuals who believe that they have less control in their lives find free time threatening and therefore achieve high quality experiences in more structured and restricted settings. Consistent with this, it has been found that perception of having too much leisure time correlates with lower subjective well-being ( Sharif et al., 2021 ). The fact that an average American spends 3–5 h per day watching TV, depending on demographic groups studied ( Grontved and Hu, 2011 ; ATUS, 2018 ), may in part reflect a psychological threat that leisure poses to many because of not knowing what to do with unstructured free time. This and other paradoxes are inherent in television watching. We begin this section with a consideration of this popular leisure activity.

Television watching, leisure, and meaning in life

Among modern citizens in western civilization, watching television stands out as the most frequent leisure activity and indeed one of the main ways that people spend their time (mainly after work and sleep). According to the American time use survey ( ATUS, 2018 ), an average American spends 55% if his/her leisure time watching TV, with the number of hours varying from 2 h 46 min to even 8 h depending on the groups of individuals studied. In general, the older, less educated and less affluent people watch more TV. Research has shown that such a prolonged TV watching is associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality ( Grontved and Hu, 2011 ). It should be added that it is not just TV watching but spending an inordinate amount of time daily peering at smartphones (5 h on average) that makes people passive participants in leisure. Although we focus on TV watching in this analysis, it should not be forgotten that the total “screen time” is much greater than the mere hours of TV watching. Thus, TV watching understates the time spent in passive activity.

The high amount of television watching would be readily understandable if television watching were the most pleasant and satisfying of activities. But it is not. If anything, people report surprisingly low happiness, satisfaction, and meaningfulness associated with watching television. Using the experience sampling method, Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi (2002) found that heavy viewers (more than 4 h per day) enjoyed TV watching less than light viewers (less than 2 h/day), with the authors suggesting that twinges of unease and guilt in part depreciate the enjoyment. The heavy viewers also felt more anxious and less happy (than the light viewers) in unstructured situations, such as doing nothing, daydreaming or waiting in line. Something other than the quest for deeply rewarding leisure activities must explain the high amount of viewing.

Before dismissing television as a futile, self-defeating exercise of misguided quest for satisfaction, however, it is necessary to acknowledge that television audiences may derive some meaning from watching, even if it is not immediately obvious. Intellectuals and even ordinary people may not notice the meaningfulness of television watching or may be reluctant to admit it, possibly based on a stigmatizing stereotype that watching television is an unproductive activity. Television watching does furnish people with a sense of freedom, with the “felt freedom” in TV watching being only second to sports and games, and third after sports/games and reading in “I wanted to do it” ( Csikszentmihalyi and Graef, 1979 , 1980 ).

Another potential benefit of watching television is social connection. As already noted, people rate connecting socially with other people as a major source of meaningfulness (e.g., Lambert et al., 2010 ). Gabriel, et al. (2020) showed that people often feel a strong sense of connection with others while watching television, especially when watching in the presence of others. This included even strangers, that is, people felt a social bond with others who were watching the same event. This fact may contribute to the often-remarked finding that people prefer to watch sports events live rather than after a delay (e.g., Vosgerau et al., 2006 ) — presumably because when watching the show live, they know that many others are also watching exactly the same contest and having similar reactions. In connection with this, some commentators have suggested that the proliferation of television choices has actually contributed to the fragmentation of modern society. Murray’s (2012) book Coming Apart, which analyzed the disintegration of social cohesion in modern America, began its analysis with the night before the assassination of president Kennedy — when roughly a third of Americans were all watching the same show ( The Beverly Hillbillies ). Modern on-demand streaming services make it much easier for a viewer to choose to watch a favorite show at any time that is convenient, but perhaps in the process some connection to others in society is lost.

There may well be a second, occasionally even more important contribution to meaning by television watching ( Gabriel et al., 2016 ). Watching may immerse the viewer in what Gabriel et al. dub “surrogate social worlds.” Favorite television shows involve regular viewers in the fictional web of social relationships among the main characters. Although these relationships are not real, viewers may lose sight of that fact. Gabriel et al. point out that the human brain is not adapted to make strong distinctions between what is real and what is imaginary. People watch these favorite shows especially when they are feeling lonely, which is one indication that watching can provide a sense of belongingness. Experimental studies have confirmed that reflecting on threats to close relationships led to feelings of rejection, bad moods, and temporary loss of self-esteem – but reflecting on one’s favorite television shows eliminated those effects ( Derrick et al., 2008 ).

In some cases, people develop what Gabriel et al. (2016) label “parasocial relationships,” the feeling that one has a personal connection either to a character on a fictional show or the actor or actress who portrays that character. Such a one-sided interpersonal bond presumably provides a sense of meaning despite the apparent futility of having a relationship with someone who does not know you exist.

Ease and convenience may well contribute to the high rate of television watching despite its frequently meager returns on meaningfulness. Most modern citizens have access to television. Watching it requires relatively little in the way of active decision or effort. Iso-Ahola (2015) has noted that work and other demanding activities can induce a state of ego depletion, that is, temporarily reduced willpower emanating from work results in a decrease in self-control and executive function (e.g., Baumeister and Vohs, 2016 ). For a depleted individual, watching television may appeal because it makes relatively few demands. Motivating oneself to engage in strenuous sport or musical practice may seem extra difficult to them, whereas turning on the television is quite easy. People may often say ( Kaplan and Berman, 2010 ) that they believe they should not watch so much television and should engage in productive or constructive activities instead, but in a depleted state, their self-control to live up to those goals is reduced, and perhaps the appeal of a pastime that makes no executive demands on the self is extra salient.

Indeed, a growing body of research suggests that “people are unable to resist spending more time engaging in this activity (TV watching) than they would consider healthy or desirable” ( Kaplan and Berman, 2010 , p. 49). As Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi (2002) reported, for many TV watching borders being an addiction, in the words of one respondent: “If television is on, I just cannot take my eyes off it, I do not want to watch as much as I do, but I cannot help it, I feel hypnotized when I watch television.” Viewing begets more viewing, as the authors suggested. Finally, Csikszentmihalyi et al. (1977) reported that such important indicators of psychological well-being as mental alertness, sense of control, sense of competence, and sense of challenge were at their lowest when watching TV, while these indicators were at their highest when playing sports and games.

All of this evidence points out that the best leisure experiences are freely chosen activities in which people can use their skills and meet challenges. So, for example, recreational tennis and racquetball players do not choose to play against those who are much better or much worse but rather, those who are equal in skills or slightly better. Such opponents push one to the outer limits of his/her skills and provide a balance between challenges and skills, a prerequisite for “flow” experiences ( Csikszentmihalyi, 1999 ). These experiences are based on “active” involvement rather than being passively absorbed in receiving information. Their range varies greatly from sports and games to travel and painting. They do not have to be physically demanding activities, but merely cognitively engaging like in reading interesting novels. Social interaction is a big part of leisure and may in part be so because it is a cognitively stimulating activity, an “active” activity.

Active versus passive

An ironic paradox of leisure participation, however, is that while active activities like sports and games help satisfy the basic needs and provide rewarding and meaningful daily experiences, people spend most of their free time in passive activities like TV watching — even while describing them as the worst experiences ( Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi, 2002 ). In contrast, a long line of research ( Iso-Ahola, 1997 ) has shown that those who maintain an active leisure lifestyle and actively participate in specific activities have higher perceived physical, mental, and social health. Roberts et al. (1989) found that people with a “rich” leisure pattern (i.e., more varied and frequent involvement than the average for the sample) were the healthiest group, whereas those with “impoverished” leisure were least healthy of all participants in their study. Participants’ health status was a combination of four physical health indicators and two self-ratings of health. Other studies ( London et al., 1977 ) have shown a significant positive relationship between leisure participation and indicators of mental health (i.e., reduced depression and anxiety). To be sure, this does not exclude reciprocal causality, in that healthy people are better able to engage in various leisure activities.

Nevertheless, the Roberts et al. study and other similar studies indirectly reveal leisure’s important contribution to meaning in life, namely, through close relationships and social interaction. To be sure, friendships can be established and meaningful social interactions had at work, but most of the time and for most people, meaningful social relationships take place in leisure time, be it family activities or doing something with good friends. Thus, it is not surprising that social relations/interaction and how time is spent correlate highest with happiness, with social interaction being fundamental and “necessary” for happiness ( Baumeister and Leary, 1995 ; Diener and Seligman, 2002 ; Diener et al., 2018 ). Nor is it surprising that social connection is a major determinant of morbidity and mortality ( Rook, 2015 ; Holt-Lunstad, 2021 ) and that social connection mediates the effect of positive affect on physical health, that is, as positive emotions increase so do positive social connections, resulting in better physical health (e.g., Kok et al., 2013 ).

Social leisure

A critical dimension of leisure is that it is largely a social experience and phenomenon (e.g., Crandall, 1979 ; Crandall et al., 1980 ). Samdahl (1991) found that some type of social interaction occurred in 54.4% of the occasions labeled leisure, and much of this (44.7%) was characterized by informal social interaction. Many studies (e.g., Larson et al., 1986 ; Argyle, 1992 ) have reported that having friends and companions with whom to do enjoyable activities together is related to higher psychological well-being. Similarly, another study ( Graef et al., 1983 ) found that “socializing” was as intrinsically motivating as other “active leisure” pursuits, and provided high levels of happiness. In order to achieve these benefits, however, it is important that people are able to regulate their social contacts and interactions; regulation of social interaction is “an optimizing process” ( Altman, 1975 ) in which people have to be able to control when and with whom to socially interact, sometimes shutting themselves off from others and at other times opening up themselves for interpersonal contacts. This also means that being alone is not necessarily a negative thing—as long as people choose it. A recent study by Uziel and Schmidt-Barad (2022) supported these ideas by demonstrating that people rate themselves as unhappiest when they do not choose to be others but still end up in unwanted social situations. But occasional times being alone bring happiness as long as it is freely chosen.

Social interaction is both motivation for and benefit of leisure participation ( Iso-Ahola, 1999 ). Sheer socializing with friends and companions becomes motivating and rewarding at the same time, whether it is escaping routine social contacts (i.e., work mates and family members) or seeking interpersonal rewards from doing things with best “buddies.” Copp (1975) reported that for hunters, being with friends was as important as getting away from the usual social contacts. This regulation enabled them to achieve an optimal and ideal level of desired social contact and interaction. It is then not surprising that Crandall (1979) concluded that the “best” leisure activities are those that involve activity and friends. Its is worth noting that the greatest amount of time with family members was spent in maintenance and passive activities (e.g., TV watching), while active pursuits were much more frequent with friends, with more positive experiences realized with friends rather than with family members ( Larson et al., 1986 ). This, then, expresses the essence of leisure: doing what one wants to do in his or her free time and doing it with whom and when he or she wants to ( Iso-Ahola, 1999 ). Unquestionably, such leisure adds a significant amount of meaning to one life.

Seeking versus escaping

Besides social connection and social interaction, leisure contributes to meaning in life through psychological benefits derived from free-time engagement. Mannell and Reid (1993) studied 416 Canadian managers and professionals to determine how they organize work and leisure in their lives and psychological benefits they derive from both. Results revealed that group differences could be accounted for by two independent factors: the extent to which these managers used leisure rather than work to seek out personal and interpersonal rewards and satisfactions, and the extent to which they used leisure rather than work to escape personal and interpersonal environments. In other words, improved psychological well-being is attained when people use their leisure time to seek personal rewards (e.g., a sense of competence through sports and games) and simultaneously escape personal difficulties and problems, as well as to seek interpersonal rewards (e.g., friends’ company) and simultaneously escape the routine interpersonal world (e.g., workmates and family members).

As such, results supported a 2-vector theory of leisure motivation ( Iso-Ahola, 1989 , 2022 ), according to which people use leisure to seek personal rewards from engagement and to simultaneously escape personal problems and the routine environment (not just work) on one hand and to use leisure to seek interpersonal rewards by doing things with friends but simultaneously escaping or leaving the routine interpersonal world behind on the other. In other words, leisure engagement brings meaning to people’s lives, because it enables them to pursue personal rewards in skillful activities and interpersonal rewards in social interaction with friends, but also at the same time allows them to escape or leave behind every day personal issues and usual interpersonal contacts. Indeed, Baumeister (1991b) proposed that the modern self can be burdensome and stressful, and people have acquired a wide assortment of activities specifically designed to escape from self-awareness.

The fact that Mannell and Reid’s and others’ (e.g., Snepenger et al., 2006 ) data have strongly supported the theory suggests that through the two dimensions (seeking and escaping), participation in leisure activities adds significantly to people’s felt meaning in life. Thus, in leisure, individuals can pursue such intrinsic rewards as self-development and feelings of competence and interaction with friends, as well rewards from being able to leave behind the usual personal environment and perhaps forced interpersonal contacts (e.g., workmates). A recent study showed that freely chosen social interaction had the strongest positive correlation with subjective well-being, sense of meaning, and perceived control, but being with others not by choice had the strongest negative relationship with subjective well-being ( Uziel and Schmidt-Barad, 2022 ). It is proposed that of the two dimensions, seeking rather than escaping is more conducive to meaning in life, but this remains to investigated empirically.

Serious versus casual leisure

We have emphasized how diverse leisure pursuits are. One important dimension along which they vary is seriousness. Some leisure pursuits may be trivial and frivolous, such as playing a Sudoku game to pass the time, others may become quite serious, such as the amateur musician who spends hours practicing each day, joins an ensemble or local band, follows a long-term plan for skill improvement, and performs for paying audiences. The latter may still regard music as a hobby and rely on his “day job” for most of his income and to support his family. As another example, there are people who occasionally play a game of cards for fun — and others who play almost every day after work, systematically hone their skills, and seek out intense competition in national tournaments. This is particularly true of playing video games. Playing these games is an interesting case because of its increasing popularity among youth and because one can turn into a professional and earn lucrative living doing so. Undoubtedly, many, if not all, began playing these games for sheer intrinsic interest, but for some it grew into a serious leisure activity, and for the best, a profession on its own.

According to Stebbins (1992 , p. 3), serious leisure is “the systematic pursuit of an amateur, hobbyist or volunteer activity that participants find so substantial and interesting that they launch on a career centered on acquiring and expressing its special skills, knowledge and experience.” It is the opposite of casual leisure (e.g., TV watching and eating) that is not classifiable as amateur, hobbyist or career volunteering. Although serious leisure can be anything from amateur astronomy and archeology to barbershop singing and highly committed community service (e.g., volunteer work at a food bank), what is common to all participants in these activities is strong identification with and deep meaning derived from their pursuits.

However, it should be noted that Stebbins’ idea of serious leisure has not been accepted without criticism. Veal (2016) has suggested that serious leisure and casual leisure are not binary categories, but instead, serious leisure should be viewed as a continuum. (We find this point persuasive; most psychological phenomena exist on continuums.) Accordingly, most leisure activities are participated in with varying degrees of seriousness.

Serious leisure is different from project-based leisure ( Stebbins, 2005 ), which refers to one-time special leisure occasions, like attending festivals and graduations or preparing and attending birthdays and Christmas get-togethers (baking, decorating etc.). Although such leisure episodes can be rewarding and meaningful, their effects on meaning in life are likely to be short-term compared to serious leisure. However, for many parents and grandparents, life’s meaning is in seeing and experiencing their children’s and grandchildren’s growth and achievements. To them, leisure occasions (e.g., birthdays) become special and memorable, adding significantly to meaning in life even if they are not experienced as often and regularly as serious leisure pursuits (e.g., volunteering).

Serious leisure is similar to “recreation specialization” that has mainly been studied in outdoor contexts among boaters, hunters, fishermen, campers, and birdwatchers. Essentially, the person is highly devoted to a particular leisure activity. The recreation specialist engages repeatedly and regularly in that activity, as opposed to having different leisure activities. Obviously, devotees of serious leisure typically do the same. Specialized recreation may differ from serious leisure in that many participants in specialized recreation do not seek to cultivate advanced levels of skill. They may favor a particular hobby or activity and even feel personally invested in and committed to it (e.g., social bridge and dancing; Scott and Godbey, 1992 , 1994 ; Brown, 2007 ), but they tend to eschew skill development and expertise in them. In other words, people participate in these activities regularly to derive enjoyment from being able to use their skills in freely chosen activities and good social company, while not striving to become highly skilled competitors and experts. As an example, one of the present authors has skied regularly for many years and gives priority to good skiing opportunities, but makes hardly any effort to improve his skills, being comfortable identifying himself as a permanently intermediate level skier.

Serious leisure can satisfy all four of the needs for meaning, and not just on a temporary basis but over a long period of time. Undoubtedly, it contributes considerably more meaning to life than casual leisure. Specifically, serious leisure pursuits involve purposive activity, with goals and anticipated fulfillments extending far into the future. It becomes a key source of value in the person’s life (and we assume it is typically consonant with the person’s other main values). Most serious leisure pursuits provide a sense of efficacy, whether from skillful performance or virtuous community service. Last, we suspect people are typically proud of their serious leisure activities, so that any drive toward self-worth gains some satisfaction that way.

Serious leisure typically enjoys several additional features of meaningfulness. To become serious, the leisure activities must resonate with the self, and expressing the self is one component of meaningfulness (see Baumeister et al., 2013 ). Thus, they are chosen carefully based on the self. This personal meaningfulness can even enable some serious leisure activities to replace work as the most meaningful aspect of life other than family and social relations, as Stebbins (1992) showed with amateur archeologists and astronomers. We speculate that the rise of the internet has increased these capabilities, because they make it easier for the amateur to connect with others who share that passion and make it possible to spend countless hours in such online activity. Playing video games attests to this point.

In many cases, the person forms social relationships with others who share the same activity, whether it be amateur astronomy or birdwatching, and relationships contribute meaning. Meaning is also crucial in integrating experience across time ( Baumeister and Vohs, 2016 ). Serious leisure activities often require substantial commitment over long periods of time. Mere quantity of time is, of course, not sufficient to qualify an activity as serious leisure. To return to the obvious example: On average, people spend more time watching television than in any other activity, and few people regard television watching as either a serious leisure pursuit or a personally meaningful and satisfying activity. As another example, “hanging out” and associated drug use is common among youth.

Research has shown that involvement in serious leisure correlates positively with meaning in life, personal growth and improved health, enhanced social relationships, positive affect and life satisfaction, and work-related self-efficacy (e.g., Baldwin and Norris, 1999 ; Kim et al., 2011 , 2015 ; Heo et al., 2013 ; Phillips and Fairley, 2014 ; Kelly et al., 2020 ). All this evidence suggests that leisure pursuits, especially serious leisure, can significantly add to meaning in life, if not meaning of life, and even compensate for barren work. The ideal situation, of course, would be that both work and leisure together (or separately) increase the meaning in and of life.

Discussion and conclusions

The essence of leisure is not in the activity but rather in its subjective meaning. In particular, what makes something qualify as leisure is that it is experienced as free choice, where intrinsic motivation can be the deciding factor (unlike most work). In general, people express a high desire for freedom — yet when they get more free time, they often do not know what to do with it, so many leisure hours are dissipated in trivial and unsatisfying pursuits such as watching television. For many (though certainly not all) people, the desire for freedom may often be more a matter of wishing to be free of the external demands of work than to be able to engage in a particular activity. This tension is evident in one of the basic dimensions along which leisure pursuits vary, that is, escaping rather than seeking. Personal meaning is undoubtedly involved in both: One wishes to escape from work and other activities that are experienced as extrinsically motivated, or one seeks pleasure and sometimes meaning by engaging in activities that one regards as strongly intrinsically motivated. Escapist motivations for leisure are also suggested in the widespread prevalence of passive leisure activities, in contrast to the more active sorts of leisure. Yet the active ones are generally rated as more fulfilling than the passive ones.

Leisure has some power to add meaningfulness to life, but only if it is not seen as wasteful. Research has shown that those who believe that leisure is wasteful score lower in happiness and well-being and higher in depression, anxiety, and stress ( Tonietto et al., 2021 ). Perceiving leisure as wasteful obviously indicates that leisure is not seen to contribute to life’s meaningfulness. Yet, leisure may be particularly appealing to those individuals for whom work (and perhaps family) fail to provide satisfactory levels of meaningfulness. In terms of Baumeister’s (1991a) four needs for meaning, leisure offers some opportunities to satisfy each of them. In leisure, purposes tend to be short term, such as skiing down the slope or winning the game, but some can engage longer-term and thus more meaningful goals. How values are reflected in leisure pursuits may be a promising topic for future research, but the role of value is evident in the greater valuation of experiences as compared to owning possessions ( Van Boven and Gilovich, 2003 ). Moreover, volunteer work and other morally virtuous leisure activities seem highly likely to increase meaning. Many active leisure pursuits involve skills, the exercise of which undoubtedly furnishes a sense of efficacy. The volunteer work would likewise be an important basis for the sense that one’s leisure activities are making a positive difference in the world. Last, self-worth can be bolstered by leisure activities that enable competitive success, virtuous contribution to the betterment of society, and possibly other pathways.

Our analysis suggests multiple directions for future research. First steps would include directly testing hypotheses that participation in (some) leisure activities is linked to higher meaningfulness in life—and, importantly, demonstrating which leisure pursuits cause people to experience more meaningfulness, and why so. A related hypothesis would be that people who report higher search for meaning (as contrasted with the presence of meaning) may take up particular leisure pursuits in order to satisfy that unmet need for meaning. Additional hypotheses would be that meaningfulness is particularly gained by leisure pursuits that are long-term rather than short-term, interpersonal rather than solitary, active rather than passive, and seeking rather than escapist. The relationship between leisure and meaning in life also raises interesting theoretical questions. Assuming that meaning in life consists of components (mainly work, family/interrelationships, and leisure), Are the effects of these components additive or interactive? Or, are the effects compensatory? And what are their relative weights? How does leisure’s contribution compare to that of work and interrelationships – and how does this contribution vary as a function of situations and groups of individuals?

Although the time available for leisure has fluctuated widely throughout human history and prehistory ( Hunnicutt, 2020 ), and across different cultures and walks of life, leisure appears to be here to stay as an important fixture of modern life. And whereas the available time for leisure has varied in both directions, the diversity of opportunities for leisure pursuits has expanded dramatically. How people choose to spend their leisure time is a highly variable but important form of self-expression — and, ultimately, a variable but sometimes important contribution to the meaningfulness in and of life.

Author contributions

Both authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

• Abuhamdeh S., Csikzentmihalyi M. (2012). The importance of challenge for the enjoyment of intrinsically motivated, goal-directed activities . Pers. Soc. Psychol. 38 , 317–330. doi: 10.1177/0146167211427147, PMID: [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Adkins A. (2015). Majority of U.S. employees not engaged despite gains in 2014. Available at: http://news.gallup.com/poll/181289/majority-employees-not-engaged-despite-gains-2014.aspx .
• Almquist E., Senior J., Bloch N. (2016). The elements of value . Harv. Bus. Rev. 94 , 46–53. [ Google Scholar ]
• Altman I. (1975). The Environment and Social Behavior: Privacy, Personal Space, Territory . Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole. [ Google Scholar ]
• Argyle M. (1992). The Social Psychology of Everyday Life . London: Routledge. [ Google Scholar ]
• ATUS (2018). Beyond the numbers. U.S. bureau of labor statistics . Spec. Stud. Res. 7 [ Google Scholar ]
• Baldwin C., Norris P. (1999). Exploring the dimensions of serious leisure: “love me-love my dog!” . J. Leis. Res. 31 , 1–17. doi: 10.1080/00222216.1999.11949848 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baumeister R. F. (1991a). Meanings of Life . New York: Guilford Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Baumeister R. F. (1991b). Escaping the Self . New York: Basic Books. [ Google Scholar ]
• Baumeister R. F. (2023). “ Psychological approaches to life’s meaning ” in Oxford Handbook of Meaning in Life . ed. Landau I. (New York: Oxford University Press; ) [ Google Scholar ]
• Baumeister R., Leary M. (1995). The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation . Psychol. Bull. 117 , 497–529. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.117.3.497, PMID: [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baumeister R. F., Vohs K. D. (2016). Strength model of self-regulation as limited resource: assessment, controversies, update . Adv. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 54 , 67–127. doi: 10.1016/bs.aesp.2016.04.001 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baumeister R., Vohs K., Aaker J., Garbinsky E. (2013). Some key differences between a happy life and a meaningful life . J. Posit. Psychol. 8 , 505–516. doi: 10.1080/17439760.2013.830764 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bellah R. N., Madsen R., Sullivan W. M., Swidler A., Tipton S. M. (1985). Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Botti S., Iyengar S. (2006). The dark side of choice: when choice impairs social welfare . J. Public Policy Mark. 25 , 24–38. doi: 10.1509/jppm.25.1.24 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Botti S., Orfali K., Iyengar S. (2009). Tragic choices: autonomy and emotional responses to medical decisions . J. Consum. Res. 36 , 337–352. doi: 10.1086/598969 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Brown C. (2007). The Carolina shaggers: dance as serious leisure . J. Leis. Res. 39 , 623–647. doi: 10.1080/00222216.2007.11950125 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Carter T., Gilovich T. (2012). I am what I do, not what I have: the differential centrality of experiential and material purchases to the self . J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 102 , 1304–1317. doi: 10.1037/a0027407, PMID: [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Coalter F. (1999). “ Leisure sciences and leisure studies: The challenge of meaning ”, in Leisure Studies: Prospects for the Twenty-First Century . eds. Jackson E., Burton T. (State College, PA: Venture; ), 507–519. [ Google Scholar ]
• Copp J. (1975). Why hunters like to hunt . Psychol. Today 9 :67. [ Google Scholar ]
• Crandall R. (1979). Social interaction, affect and leisure . J. Leis. Res. 11 , 165–181. doi: 10.1080/00222216.1979.11969394 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Crandall R., Nolan M., Morgan L. (1980). “ Leisure and social interaction ” in Social Psychological Perspectives on Leisure and Recreation . ed. Iso-Ahola S. (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas; ), 285–306. [ Google Scholar ]
• Csikszentmihalyi M. (1999). If we are so rich, why aren’t we happy? Am. Psychol. 54 , 821–827. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.54.10.821 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Csikszentmihalyi M., Graef R. (1979). Feeling Free . Psychology Today , 98–99.
• Csikszentmihalyi M., Graef R. (1980). The experience of freedom in daily life . Am. J. Community Psychol. 8 , 401–414. doi: 10.1007/BF00912853 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Csikszentmihalyi M., Larson R., Prescott S. (1977). The ecology of adolescent activity and experience . J. Youth Adolesc. 6 , 281–294. doi: 10.1007/BF02138940 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Deci E. L. (1971). Effects of externally mediated rewards on intrinsic motivation . J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 18 , 105–115. doi: 10.1037/h0030644 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Deci E., Ryan R. (1985). Intrinsic Motivation and Self-determination of Behavior . New York, NY: Plenum. [ Google Scholar ]
• Deci E., Koestner R., Ryan R. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation . Psychological Bulletin 125 , 627–668. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Derrick J. L., Gabriel S., Tippin B. (2008). Parasocial relationships and self-discrepancies: faux relationships have benefits for low self-esteem individuals . Pers. Relat. 15 , 261–280. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6811.2008.00197.x [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Diener E., Seligman M. (2002). Very happy people . Psychol. Sci. 13 , 81–84. doi: 10.1111/1467-9280.00415 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Diener E., Seligman M., Choi H., Oishi S. (2018). Happiest people revisited . Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 13 , 176–184. doi: 10.1177/1745691617697077, PMID: [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Frankl V. E. (1976/1959). Man’s Search for Meaning . New York: Pocket. [ Google Scholar ]
• Fritz C., Yankelevich M., Zarubin A., Barger P. (2010). Happy, healthy, and productive: the role of detachment from work during nonwork time . J. Appl. Psychol. 95 , 977–983. doi: 10.1037/a0019462, PMID: [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gabriel S., Valenti J., Young A. F. (2016). Social surrogates, social motivations, and everyday activities: the case for a strong, subtle, and sneaky social self . Adv. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 53 , 189–243. doi: 10.1016/bs.aesp.2015.09.003 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• George L. S., Park C. L. (2016). Meaning in life as comprehension, purpose, and mattering: toward integration and new research questions . Rev. Gen. Psychol. 20 , 205–220. doi: 10.1037/gpr0000077 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Graeber D. (2013). On the phenomenon of bullshit jobs: a work rant. Strike! , Issue 3.
• Graeber D. (2018). Bullshit Jobs: A Theory . London, UK: Penguin. [ Google Scholar ]
• Graef R., Csikszentmihalyi M., Gianinno S. (1983). Measuring intrinsic motivation in everyday life . Leis. Stud. 2 , 155–168. doi: 10.1080/02614368300390121 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Grontved A., Hu F. (2011). Television viewing and risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality . JAMA 305 , 2448–2455. doi: 10.1001/jama.2011.812, PMID: [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Heinich N. (2020). A pragmatic redefinition of value(s): toward a general model of valuation . Theory Cult. Soc. 37 , 75–94. doi: 10.1177/0263276420915993 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Heo J., Stebbins R., Kim J., Inheok L. (2013). Serious leisure, life satisfaction, and health of older adults . Leis. Sci. 35 , 16–32. doi: 10.1080/01490400.2013.739871 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Holt-Lunstad J. (2021). The major health implications of social connection . Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 30 , 251–259. doi: 10.1177/0963721421999630 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hunnicutt B. (2020). The Age of Experiences . Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Iso-Ahola S. (1979). Basic dimensions of definitions of leisure . J. Leis. Res. 11 , 28–39. doi: 10.1080/00222216.1979.11969373 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Iso-Ahola S. (1980). The Social Psychology of Leisure and Recreation . Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown. [ Google Scholar ]
• Iso-Ahola S. (1989). “ Motivation for leisure ,” in Understanding Leisure and Recreation . eds. Jackson E., Burton T. (State College, PA: Venture Publishing; ), 247–279. [ Google Scholar ]
• Iso-Ahola S. (1997). “ A psychological analysis of leisure and health ,” in Work, Leisure and Well-Being . ed. Haworth J. (London: Routledge; ), 131–144. [ Google Scholar ]
• Iso-Ahola S. (1999). “ Motivational foundations of leisure ” in Leisure Studies: Prospects for the Twenty-first century . eds. Jackson E., Burton T. (State College, PA: Venture; ), 35–51. [ Google Scholar ]
• Iso-Ahola S. (2013). Exercise: Why it is a challenge for both the nonconscious and conscious mind . Review of General Psychology 17 , 93–110. [ Google Scholar ]
• Iso-Ahola S. (2015). Conscious versus nonconscious mind and leisure . Leis. Sci. 37 , 289–310. [ Google Scholar ]
• Iso-Ahola S. (2022). Toward a theory of conscious-nonconscious processing and getting hard (and easy) things done in everyday life . Psychol. Conscious. Theory Res. Pract. 9 , 40–63. doi: 10.1037/cns0000291 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Iso-Ahola S., Weissinger E. (1987). Leisure and boredom . J. Soc. Clin. Psychol. 5 , 356–364. doi: 10.1521/jscp.1987.5.3.356 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Iso-Ahola S., Weissinger E. (1990). Perceptions of boredom in leisure: conceptualization, reliability and validity of the leisure boredom scale . J. Leis. Res. 22 , 1–17. doi: 10.1080/00222216.1990.11969811 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kaplan S., Berman M. (2010). Directed attention as a common resource for executive function and self-regulation . Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 5 , 43–57. doi: 10.1177/1745691609356784, PMID: [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kelly J., Kelly J. R. (1994). Multiple dimensions of meaning in the domains of work, family, and leisure . J. Leis. Res. 26 , 250–274. doi: 10.1080/00222216.1994.11969959 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kelly C., Strauss K., Arnold J., Stride C. (2020). The relationship between leisure activities and psychological resources that support a sustainable career: the role of leisure seriousness and work-related similarity . J. Vocat. Behav. 117 :103340. doi: 10.1016/j.jvb.2019.103340 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kim J., Dattilo J., Heo J. (2011). Taekwondo participation as serious leisure for life satisfaction and health . J. Leis. Res. 43 , 545–559. doi: 10.1080/00222216.2011.11950249 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kim J., Heo J., Lee I., Kim J. (2015). Predicting personal growth and happiness by using serious leisure model . Soc. Indic. Res. 122 , 147–157. doi: 10.1007/s11205-014-0680-0 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kim J., Holte P., Martela F., Shanahan C., Li Z., Zhang H., et al.. (2022). Experiential appreciation as a pathway to meaning in life . Nat. Hum. Behav. 6 , 677–690. doi: 10.1038/s41562-021-01283-6, PMID: [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kok B., Coffey K., Cohn M., Catalino L., Vacharkulksemsuk T., Algoe S., et al.. (2013). How positive emotions build physical health: perceived positive social connections account for the upward spiral between positive emotions and vagal tone . Psychol. Sci. 24 , 1123–1132. doi: 10.1177/0956797612470827 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kool W., Botvinik M. (2014). A labor/leisure tradeoff in cognitive control . J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 143 , 131–141. doi: 10.1037/a0031048, PMID: [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kubey R., Csikszentmihalyi M. (2002). Television addiction is no mere metaphor . Sci. Am. 286 , 74–80. doi: 10.1038/scientificamerican0202-74, PMID: [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lambert N. M., Stillman T. F., Baumeister R. F., Fincham F. D., Hicks J. A., Graham S. M. (2010). Family as a salient source of meaning in young adulthood . J. Posit. Psychol. 5 , 367–376. doi: 10.1080/17439760.2010.516616 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Larson R., Mannell R., Zuzanek J. (1986). Daily well-being of older adults with friends and family . J. Psychol. Aging 1 , 117–126. doi: 10.1037/0882-7974.1.2.117 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Leary M. R., Baumeister R. F. (2000). “ The nature and function of self-esteem: Sociometer theory ” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology . ed. Zanna M. (San Diego, CA: Academic Press; ), 1–62. [ Google Scholar ]
• Leotti L., Delgado M. (2011). The inherent reward of choice . Psychol. Sci. 22 , 1310–1318. doi: 10.1177/0956797611417005, PMID: [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lepper M. R., Greene D., Nisbett R. E. (1973). Undermining children’s intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward: a test of the “overjustification” hypothesis . J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 28 , 129–137. doi: 10.1037/h0035519 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• London M., Crandall R., Fitzgibbons D. (1977). The psychological structure of leisure: activities, needs, people . J. Leis. Res. 9 , 252–263. doi: 10.1080/00222216.1977.11970338 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Madrigal R. (2003). Investigating an evolving leisure experience: Antecedents and consequences of spectator affect during a live sporting event . J. Leis. Res. 35 , 23–48. doi: 10.18666/jlr-2003-v35-i1-609 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mannell R., Bradley W. (1986). Does greater freedom always lead to greater leisure? Testing a person x environment model of freedom and leisure . J. Leis. Res. 18 , 215–230. doi: 10.1080/00222216.1986.11969661 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mannell R., Zuzanek J., Larson R. (1988). Leisure states and “flow” experiences: testing perceived freedom and intrinsic motivation hypotheses . J. Leis. Res. 20 , 289–304. doi: 10.1080/00222216.1988.11969782 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mannell R., Reid D. (1993). Does the job dictate the work-leisure orientation of managers and professionals? Paper presented at the 7 th Canadian Congress on leisure research, Winnipeg, Canada.
• Marin R., Gegax T. (1997). ‘Sell in’, bliss out. Newsweek, 72–74.
• Martela F. (2020). A Wonderful Life: Insights on Finding a Meaningful Existence . New York: Harper Design. [ Google Scholar ]
• Murray C. (2012). Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010 . New York: Crown Penguin Random House. [ Google Scholar ]
• Park C. (2010). Making sense of the meaning literature: an integrative review of meaning making and its effects on adjustment to stressful life events . Psychol. Bull. 136 , 257–301. doi: 10.1037/a0018301, PMID: [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Phillips P., Fairley S. (2014). Umpiring: a serious leisure choice . J. Leis. Res. 46 , 184–202. doi: 10.1080/00222216.2014.11950319 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Reis H., Sheldon K., Gable S., Roscoe J., Ryan R. (2000). Daily well-being: the role of autonomy, competence, and relatedness . Personal. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 26 , 419–435. doi: 10.1177/0146167200266002 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Roberts K., Lamb K., Dench S., Brodie D. (1989). Leisure patterns, health status and employment status . Leis. Stud. 8 , 229–235. doi: 10.1080/02614368900390231 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Rojek C. (2010). The Labor of Leisure: The Culture of Free Time . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rook K. (2015). Social networks in later life: weighing positive and negative effects on health and well-being . Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 24 , 45–51. doi: 10.1177/0963721414551364, PMID: [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Samdahl D. (1991). Measuring leisure: categorical or interval? J. Leis. Res. 23 , 87–93. doi: 10.1080/00222216.1991.11969845 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Schwartz B. (2004). The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less . New York, NY: Ecco Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Scott D., Godbey G. (1992). An analysis of adult play groups: social versus serious participation in contract bridge . Leis. Sci. 14 , 47–67. doi: 10.1080/01490409209513156 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Scott D., Godbey G. (1994). Recreation specialization in the social world of contract bridge . J. Leis. Res. 26 , 275–295. doi: 10.1080/00222216.1994.11969960 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sharif M., Mogilner C., Hershfield H. (2021). Having too little or too much time is linked to lower subjective well-being . J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 121 , 933–947. doi: 10.1037/pspp0000391 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shaw S. (1985). The meaning of leisure in everyday life . Leis. Sci. 7 , 1–24. doi: 10.1080/01490408509512105 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sheldon K., Ryan R., Reis H. (1996). What makes a good day? Competence and autonomy in the day and in the person . Personal. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 22 , 1270–1279. doi: 10.1177/01461672962212007 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Snepenger D., King J., Marshall E., Uysal M. (2006). Modeling Iso-Ahola’s motivation theory in the tourism context . J. Travel Res. 45 , 140–149. doi: 10.1177/0047287506291592 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sonnentag S. (2012). Psychological detachment from work during leisure time: the benefits of mentally disengaging from work . Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 21 , 114–118. doi: 10.1177/0963721411434979 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Stebbins R. (1992). Amateurs, Professionals, and Serious Leisure . Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Stebbins R. (2005). Project-based leisure: Theoretical neglect of a common use of free time . Leis. Stud. 24 , 1–11. doi: 10.1080/0261436042000180832 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Steger M. F. (2009). “ Meaning in life ” in Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology . eds. Lopez S. J., Snyder C. R.. 2nd ed (New York: Oxford University Press; ), 679–687. [ Google Scholar ]
• Steger M. F., Frazier P., Oishi S., Kaler M. (2006). The meaning in life questionnaire: assessing the presence of and search for meaning in life . J. Couns. Psychol. 53 , 80–93. doi: 10.1037/0022-0167.53.1.80 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Stillman T. F., Baumeister R. F., Lambert N. M., Crescioni A. W., DeWall C. N., Fincham F. D. (2009). Alone and without purpose: life loses meaning following social exclusion . J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 45 , 686–694. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2009.03.007, PMID: [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Tonietto G., Malkoc S., Reczek R., Norton M. (2021). Viewing leisure as wasteful undermines enjoyment . J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 97 , 104198. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2021.104198 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Uziel L., Schmidt-Barad T. (2022). Choice matters more with others: choosing to be with other people is more consequential to well-being than choosing to be alone . J. Happiness Stud. 23 , 2469–2489. doi: 10.1007/s10902-022-00506-5, PMID: [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Van Boven L., Gilovich T. (2003). To do or to have? That is the question . J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 85 , 1193–1202. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.85.6.1193 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Veal A. (2016). The serious leisure perspective and the experience of leisure . Leis. Sci. 39 , 205–223. doi: 10.1080/01490400.2016.1189367 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Veblen T. (1953/1899). The Theory of the Leisure Class . New York: Mentor. [ Google Scholar ]
• Vosgerau J., Wertenbroch K., Carmon Z. (2006). Indeterminacy and live television . J. Consum. Res. 32 , 487–495. doi: 10.1086/500478 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Winefield A., Tiggemann M., Winefield H., Goldney R. (1993). Growing up with Unemployment: A Longitudinal Study of Its Psychological Impact . London: Routledge. [ Google Scholar ]

24/7 writing help on your phone

To install StudyMoose App tap and then “Add to Home Screen”

Recreation, Leisure and Play

Save to my list

Remove from my list

• Are there any instances in life that would prevent you from experiencing free will?
• Do we always make decisions based on our desires?
• Do having priorities that are not in sync with our desires negate our free will? These questions came after having a conversation with my friend. She told me that when you are a parent, you have obligations to your children that may interfere with your free time.
• Voluntary behavior
• Stepping outside of “ordinary life”
• Secluded and limited in time and space
• Not serious but absorbs the player intensely
• Bounded by rules
• Promoting formation of social groups that surround themselves with secrecy
• Games of chance
• Make Believe
• Braaf, E. (2003). Why animals love to play. Retrieved September 20, 2006, from Find Articles Website: http://www. findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_qa4128/ is_200311/ai_n9307508/pg_1 Caillois, R. (1958).
• Man, play and games. Glencoe, IL: The Free press. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990).
• Flow ' The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York, NY. Harper and Row. Fairchild, H. (1944).
• Dictionary of sociology (pp. 251-252). New York, NY: Philosophical Library. Godbey, G. (2003).
• Leisure in your life: An exploration. State College, PA: Venture Publishing. Gray, D. and Greben, S. (1974, July).
• Future Perspectives. Parks and recreation, 61, 49 Hiuzinga, J. (1950).
• Homo ludens: A study of the play element in culture. Boston, MA: Beacon Press Martin, A. (1975, March). Leisure and our inner resources. Parks and Recreation, 69. 1-16 Neulinger, J. (1974).
• The psychology of leisure: Research approaches to the study of leisure. Springfield, IL: Charles Thomas Publishers.

Recreation, Leisure and Play. (2017, Feb 02). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/recreation-leisure-and-play-essay

"Recreation, Leisure and Play." StudyMoose , 2 Feb 2017, https://studymoose.com/recreation-leisure-and-play-essay

StudyMoose. (2017). Recreation, Leisure and Play . [Online]. Available at: https://studymoose.com/recreation-leisure-and-play-essay [Accessed: 23 Aug. 2024]

"Recreation, Leisure and Play." StudyMoose, Feb 02, 2017. Accessed August 23, 2024. https://studymoose.com/recreation-leisure-and-play-essay

"Recreation, Leisure and Play," StudyMoose , 02-Feb-2017. [Online]. Available: https://studymoose.com/recreation-leisure-and-play-essay. [Accessed: 23-Aug-2024]

StudyMoose. (2017). Recreation, Leisure and Play . [Online]. Available at: https://studymoose.com/recreation-leisure-and-play-essay [Accessed: 23-Aug-2024]

• Customer Service in Leisure and Recreation Pages: 6 (1751 words)
• Tda 2.16 Support Children and Young People with Play and Leisure Pages: 3 (712 words)
• The Importance Of Play And Leisure For Children Pages: 5 (1279 words)
• A Hobby - Recreation Of Our Pastime Pages: 2 (406 words)
• History - Development Of Travel, Holiday And Leisure Activities And Tourism Pages: 6 (1686 words)
• Work Less and Have More Leisure Time Pages: 2 (425 words)
• Sport and leisure Pages: 1 (283 words)
• Hobbies And Leisure Time Activities Done In Holidays Pages: 2 (347 words)
• Sociological Perspectives in Leisure Science Pages: 10 (2958 words)
• Some Productive Ways Students Can Spend Their Leisure Time Pages: 2 (387 words)

👋 Hi! I’m your smart assistant Amy!

Don’t know where to start? Type your requirements and I’ll connect you to an academic expert within 3 minutes.

Leisure: Recreation Takes its Place in our View of Wellness

Home » Articles » Leisure: Recreation Takes its Place in our View of Wellness

Recognizing how important leisure is to general health, therapeutic recreation is concerned with making sure leisure and recreation is accessible to everyone, regardless of their ability. This is particularly important for those living with MS, when anything from routine symptoms to advanced effects of the disease can make even the idea of recreation a seemingly daunting proposition.

According to ATRA, research into therapeutic recreation programs has significant positive impacts on a number of health outcomes:

Physical health: Since many recreation activities are physical in nature, there’s a component of exercise built in. Exercise and physical activity is a well-known component of a healthy lifestyle, and therapeutic recreation can help tailor physical activities that not only suit a person’s abilities, but also their interests.

Psychosocial health: Defined as mental, emotional, social and spiritual wellbeing, a boost in psychosocial status can result from leisure and recreation’s tendency to relieve tension and stress. Making time for an activity you enjoy is not only a break from work and other responsibilities, but also a break from thinking or worrying about them.

Cognitive health: Active brains are healthy brains, and keeping your mind active is a key part of maximizing lifelong brain health – the cornerstone of the Rocky Mountain MS Center’s treatment philosophy. Engaging in activities you enjoy can boost emotional and cognitive health by keeping the brain sharp, beyond the daily routine of work, your task list and chores.

Research led by the University of North Carolina’s Barbara Fredrickson demonstrated that positive emotions can help manage and even reverse the negative impacts that stress can have on our health. By incorporating engaged leisure activities into our lives, our brains can focus on challenges, learning and fun instead of ruminating on worries. It gives our brains a chance to reset and rest. For more information on the benefits of leisure and therapeutic recreation for health and wellness, and how the concepts of the field are put to use every day at the Rocky Mountain MS Center’s King Adult Day Enrichment Program (KADEP), see our interview with KADEP Director Michelle King.

Making Leisure and Recreation Part of Your Routine

The ATRA says recreation therapists have been around for a long time in places like health care agencies, inpatient hospitals and residential health facilities. But with this growing understanding that leisure is an important aspect of overall health, the field is expanding far beyond its traditional roles.

Recreation specialists can now be found in mental health centers, adult day programs, community centers and school systems. There’s even a growing number of TRs working in private practice providing services directly to individual clients.

Leisure and recreation is becoming so accepted as a part of wellness that many insurance providers now consider therapeutic recreation as a reimbursable expense. That’s not to say they’ll fund all your hobbies, but they may cover things like consultation with a Recreation Therapist, or therapy sessions that have been recommended by a physician.

Either way, it’s worth doing your own research – see what opportunities are available through health centers, gyms or organizations near you, then ask what might be covered. See if they accept insurance, and if they do, check with your provider to see what services might be covered.

If a formal recreation therapy experience isn’t in the cards for you, you can still make sure leisure and recreation are a part of your life.

Find something you enjoy doing. Maybe it’s a hobby you’ve given up, maybe a sport you didn’t think you could play anymore. If necessary, find a way to adapt it to your life and make it possible. Make time for it. Set aside some time, and keep your appointment. Protect your time from work, chores, or anything else that might disrupt it. Whether you use your Outlook calendar on your phone or a paper day-planner, schedule in time, even if it’s just 15 minutes per day, and treat it like every other calendar item on your agenda.

Understand you need it. Leisure isn’t just for those working long hours in demanding jobs – we all need regular, healthy breaks from our day to day responsibilities. Take it seriously. We’ve established that your leisure time is an important component of wellness – now don’t forget to treat it that way. Avoid falling back into the thought process that sees leisure as “extra” or “bonus.” It’s not an add-on, it’s an important, enriching, and healthy part of life.

Leisure is, at its most basic level, doing something you enjoy doing, with no particular responsibility or need to get things done. Especially in a group setting, recreational activities can connect you with your community, get you out and socializing with friends and peers, or help you build or maintain a social network.

Share this:

Related articles and resources, you're reading:.

InforMS: Spring 2018

Complete InforMS Archives

About the author.

Pete Broderick is the Marketing and Communications Manager at the Rocky Mountain MS Center. He is also the editor and one of the primary writers for InforMS Magazine.

More From This Issue:

Wellness is the key to healthy living, and it’s critical to those with chronic diseases like multiple sclerosis. it’s accepted by most that things like eating well, regular exercise and..., therapeutic recreation: finding pathways to wellness through leisure, michelle king, ms, ctrs is the program director of the king adult day enrichment program (kadep). she has a master’s degree in therapeutic recreation from indiana university, and more than..., the medicaid buy-in program: an overlooked option for social security recipients and others incapable of work for medical reasons, the critical safety net for most disabled americans is social security disability insurance (ssdi). by providing an income to some people with disabilities, ssdi has prevented many from experiencing the..., ms4ms: fun & philanthropy, the 2018 multiple summits for multiple sclerosis (ms4ms) campaign is underway join the rocky mountain ms center in our efforts to conquer ms in this unique and fun event. ms4ms..., the ms center celebrates 40 years, in 2018, the rocky mountain ms center is excited to celebrate our 40th anniversary. throughout the year, we will be sharing with you some of the significant events, developments and milestones....

© 2024 Rocky Mountain MS Center.

• COVID-19 & MS
• MS: The Basics
• Treating MS
• Medications
• Brain Health & Well-being
• Living with MS
• Related Neurological Diseases
• InforMS Magazine: Issues
• eMS News Updates
• Conversations on MS
• Education Summits
• Caregivers & Support Partners
• Medical Clinic (The MS Center at CU)
• King Adult Day Enrichment Program (KADEP)
• MS Young Professionals Network (MSYPN)
• Hydrotherapy & Online Exercise
• MS ID Cards
• Disability & SSDI
• Research Programs
• Adaptive Exercise
• Virtual Counseling
• Health & Wellness Coaching
• InforMS Magazine
• Volunteer Opportunities
• MS Awareness Month
• Complete Calendar
• Education Programs
• Community Events
• Our Research Program
• Clinical Research & Trials
• MS Center Biorepository
• How To Donate Brain Tissue
• For Researchers
• Friends of the MS Center
• Dr. Timothy Vollmer Legacy Fund
• Fundraising Events
• Other Ways to Donate
• Board of Directors
• Annual Report and Financials
• Meet Our Medical Team
• Our Clinics
• Fees & How To Apply
• Volunteers & Interns
• Hydrotherapy and Adaptive Exercise
• Disability Assessment Services
• Legal & Employment Issues
• Counseling Services
• Movement Matters: In-Person Classes
• InforMS Advertising
• Learn About MS
• Translational Research Lab
• Gifts of Stock & Securities
• Workplace Giving (matching gifts)
• Corporate Partners
• Planned Giving
• Donor Advised Funds
• Cryptocurrency
• Donate a Vehicle
• Give Back Shopping Opportunities
• Colorado Income Tax Donation (ReFUND CO)
• Answering MS Questions
• Annual Gala
• Multiple Summits 4 MS (MS4MS)

Sample details

• Philosophy,
• Words: 1529

Related Topics

• Age of Enlightenment
• Immanuel Kant
• Organic compounds
• Determinism
• Microbiology
• Natural Selection
• Photosynthesis
• Rationalism
• Regeneration
• Consumerism

Leisure Definition

Understanding Leisure.

Too much work with no play makes Jack a dull boy.  This is a very common saying which depicts clearly the importance of leisure time to human beings.  Leisure time can have very many definitions but all of them emphasize on the fact that, it is time spent on other activities away from the normal day to day chores.  The definition of the word leisure is quite broad and complex but most people have tried to define it in simpler terms associating it to an act of having fun.  According to Hermann (2007), the origin of this word dates back to the 1300’s in Greece where it was defined as a state at which one has some free time at his own disposal to do as he pleases.  Since then, this word has been in use but no definite definition has been put forward as yet.  This research paper seeks to  explore the different definitions on the subject of leisure from various literature materials and their analysis in relation to a personal definition of the same.

ready to help you now

Without paying upfront

Definitions of leisure from the literature reviewed.

There are very many definitions for the word leisure.  Some people have the notion that leisure is a vital part of human life while others feel that it is a waste of time and resources.  One of the earliest definitions of leisure was put forward by Aristotle, the only philosopher who viewed leisure as a fundamental human value (Rogers, 1996).  According to him, leisure is the freedom given to someone to engage in any activity which can either be specified or implied.  He adds that leisure is very important as it is the goal of every labor.  In other words, he implies that people usually work hard in order to earn money for leisure (Rybczynski, 1996).  A very different view of leisure is however expressed by Miller who defines leisure as a synonym for frivolity.  According to him, leisure activities refer to those things which one does when he or she has nothing better to do.

Another view by Kaplan (2004) on leisure states that from a sociological point of view, nothing can be defined as leisure and that depending on the situation, anything can be defined as leisure.  In my view, this is controversial in that leisure is not anything, it refers to specific activities which are done away from the normal day-to-day activities.  Kaplan adds that from a humanistic kind of model, leisure is an end in itself and is also a state of being.  Similar views are shared by Pieper (2001) who defines leisure as a mental and spiritual state or an attitude of the mind and a state of the soul.  He argues that before one is compelled to take some time off-duty, the whole idea must first be visualized in the mind and soul and this forms the basis of the word leisure.

Another definition given by Saunders (2005) defines leisure as any free time spent out of work and other domestic activities.  He also adds that leisure time is a period during which one engages in recreational activities after finishing the compulsory activities for the day.  This includes time after work, school, household chores and so forth.  Saunders further adds that for any free time to be referred to as leisure time, it must meet three major factors, that is, it must be involving a state of mind, one must have voluntarily entered into that kind of state and finally, the activities involved must be mentally motivating and relaxing.  Saunders goes ahead to classify the two major types of leisure activities which include; passive and active activities.

Passive leisure activities involves things like watching television, listening to music, relaxing on the couch and so forth which do not require any physical or mental energy.  According to health professionals, this kind of leisure activities are not encouraged because they do not facilitate exercise which is highly important to the body.  Active leisure activities on the other hand require a lot of mental or physical energy and they include activities such as running, dancing, swimming, playing soccer and so on.  Other activities such as playing chess or solving a complex puzzle do not require much physical energy but they are mentally involving.  Experts highly recommend active leisure activities because they help to burn the extra calories in the body, assist in developing talents, encourage critical thinking and so on.

Today, the most commonly accepted definition of leisure is one put forward by Roberts (1999) which refers to leisure as the time which is not occupied by either paid or unpaid work, domestic chores or personal obligations.  This definition has been widely adapted because it is inclusive, non-normative and highly applicable in research.  It is non-normative in that it does not limit the activities of leisure to only one perspective like most other definitions.  It is all round and inclusive of all the time which is free of formal of informal commitments.  The increased technological, social and economic changes which have taken place in the modern society have however had an impact in the society’s view of the whole concept of leisure making it necessary to revise this definition.  The revision is necessary in order to take into account some new forms of leisure which have come with improved technology such as video games, chatting over the Internet among others.

Personal leisure definition.

From a personal point of view, leisure can be defined as a period of time when one is free from any duties and has the freedom to engage in any activity that he or she wishes to.  The whole essence of leisure is to relax away from the normal duties and have some fun.  Leisure time can be spent in different ways as long as the activities which one engages in are freely chosen.  Different people have different ways of spending their leisure time.  Some may decide to engage in their favorite hobbies during this time, play games, take a walk, watch television among other things which are relaxing in their own perspective.

  I agree with Aristotle’s definition of leisure in that leisure time is fundamental for body relaxation and revitalization of the mind.  For any activity to be defined as a leisure activity, it should be able to confer either physical or mental relaxation.  In addition, it is true that the activities which one engages in during this free time should be voluntary, either specific or implied.  However, Miller’s view of leisure is quite different from my personal view because it does not see the importance of leisure.  Miller’s definition sees leisure time as the time left for waste when nothing better is there to do.  This is not true because leisure time is just time off-duties and not necessarily time left for waste as proposed by Miller.

From the views by Kaplan and Pieper, it is true that the basis of leisure is the mind and it provides an end in itself.  This views however tend to concentrate too much on the state of mind and ignore the other factors of leisure which include time and leisure activities.  When defining leisure, time and activities should be included since they dictate the essence and the benefits of leisure.  The amount of relaxation or benefits achieved from a certain leisure activity depends on the amount of time spent on that particular activity and hoe effectively that time is utilized.  The definition given by Roberts according to my opinion is all inclusive and clearly defines the meaning of leisure.  My personal definition shares a lot of similarities with the Aristotle’s, Saunders and Roberts’ definition of leisure in terms of the time-factor and activities done during this free time.

Conclusion.

Though there is no any definite method of defining leisure, almost all the definitions reviewed reveal that leisure time is very important and it contains some aspect of free time. Activities done during this time are also voluntary, motivating and fun to engage in.  Leisure is very important in promoting both physical and mental health in that it helps to cope with work related stress, family stress and other type of stresses emanating from day to day activities.  The physical activities in which people engage in during their leisure time are also helpful in burning extra calories in the body, improving talents and gathering knowledge through mentally involving activities.  In conclusion it can be said that, any time spent in a properly organized kind of leisure activity is time well spent for the mind, body and soul.  Leisure time should be o0rganied in order to achieve maximum benefits in terms of physical and mental relaxation from every activity.

References.

Herman, H. (2007). The democratic philosophy of education: companion to Dewey’s       democracy and education. New York: Macmillan publishers.

Kaplan, G. (2004). Leisure and recreation management. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Miller, M. (2006). Leisure theory of value. Boston: McGraw publishers.

Pieper, R. (2001). Leisure and sociology. New York: Viking

Roberts (1999). Constraints on leisure. New York: Macmillan Publishers.

Roger, B. (1996). Theories of Tyranny: From Plato to Arendt. Pennsylvania: Penn State Press

Rybczynski, W. (1996). Waiting for the weekend. New York: Viking. pp. 21-22.

Saunders, P. (2005). Psychology of leisure. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

Cite this page

https://graduateway.com/leisure-definition/

You can get a custom paper by one of our expert writers

• Cohabitation
• Respiration
• Nervous System
• Thomas Hobbes
• Personal Philosophy
• Peter Singer

Check more samples on your topics

Anne marie grozdanich vs. leisure hills center.

1.                  Has there been quid pro quo/tangible employment action harassment? Neither term can be applied to this case.  Quid pro quo, or mutual consideration, is an exchange of valuables between parties, wherein each party has something to give and receive.  In this case, the complainant, Anne, was not presented with an offer for exchange of valuables,

Leisure and Recreational Activities

John Ruskin once said, “You must get in the habit of looking intensely at words. You must learn to read syllable by syllable, nay, letter by letter. ” By this, he means that as readers and writers, you need to look at the deeper meaning of the words instead of just what you think it

Support Children and Young Poeple’s Play and Leisure

Supporting children & young people’s play & leisure Describe the importance of play & leisure for children & young people. Children learn through play. Every moment that the child is playing they are learning new skills, words and meanings. Play gives children the opportunity to explore, take risks, challenge themselves and have fun whilst learning.

Entertainment and Leisure Attractions in Canada

Canada offers a lot to a tourist or a local when it comes to entertainment and leisure. Canada caters to four seasons, which allows for different activities and various sights to see. Leisure and entertainment attractions in Canada could be classified into three major groups, namely, amusement parks, gaming and casinos, and public space highlights. One

Implementing Wellness and Leisure in the Workplace

 Implementing Wellness and Leisure in the WorkplaceCompanies of all sizes are starting to realize the effect of increasing health care costs on their bottom line. According to the National Business Group on Health 2007-2008 Report, employers identified stress in the workplace as the major factor affecting their productivity (NewsWire, 2008).  The same report also pointed

Watson Leisure Time Sporting Goods

Exhibit 1 Income Statement 200X 200Z Sales (all on credit) $1,500,000 $2,160,000 Cost of goods sold 950,000 1,300,000 Gross profit 550,000 860,000 Selling and administrative expense* 380,000 590,000 Operating profit 170,000 270,000 Interest expense 30,000 85,000 Net income before taxes 140,000 185,000 Taxes 46,120 64,850 Net income $ 93,880 $ 120,150 Shares 40,000 47,000 Earnings per share $2. 35 $2. 56 *Includes $20,000 in lease payments for each year. Exhibit 2 Balance Sheet 200X 200Z Assets Cash $ 20,000 $ 20,000 Marketable securities 30,000 50,000 Accounts receivable 150,000 330,000 Inventory 250,000 325,000 Total current assets 450,000 725,000 Net plant and equipment 550,000 1,169,000 Total assets $1,000,000 $1,894,000 Liabilities and Stockholders’ Equity Accounts payable $ 100,000 $ 200,000 Notes payable (bank) 100,000 300,000 Total current liabilities 200,000 500,000 Long-term liabilities 250,000 550,740 Total

Research on Sports and Leisure Facilities in University.

Executive summary The main topic discussed in this report is the current facilities provided by universities. In order to enhance the sports facilities at universities and enable students to receive more advantages from sports activities and improve the reputation of the university through sports, we conducted a survey among students at Superior University. The

Ecoforest Leisure’s Digital Marketing SMART Objectives

The goal of this product portfolio is to set and further implement on EcoForest Leisure’s digital marketing SMART objectives. Previous assignment focused on the company's marketing environment, external and internal environments, and discussed digital marketing strategies based on analysis of these environments. This portfolio will cover SMART objectives, action plans, strategy implementation and evaluation through

Leisure Activities

Progressive Era

Throughout history, we have seen America change greatly. This nation was discovered in 1492. Since then, we have come a long way and much had changed. However, to get them to where we are today, werewhereAmericans he wasn't easy. Many years ago, women were only even as submissive. Throughout, the progressive era, many things were

Hi, my name is Amy 👋

In case you can't find a relevant example, our professional writers are ready to help you write a unique paper. Just talk to our smart assistant Amy and she'll connect you with the best match.