Canadians reverting to childhood pastimes to combat stress

Finding yourself going back to childhood pastimes? In times of stress — work, chores, bills — many adults are taking comfort in hobbies from a simpler time.

“It was maybe around when I was like 8 or 9-years-old, is when the CD-ROMs in the cereal boxes started. I collected all of them,” said Sarah Jane Martin.

“All these synapses that have just been asleep for 20, 25 years are just like, rapid-fire.”

Martin, 31, is around five months pregnant with her first. In the past few months, she began watching YouTube playthroughs of old video games she used to play.

“Just the other night I started looking up all of the JumpStart games,” she said.

Martin said her mother was adamant she play mostly educational video games. She said she’s looking forward to passing on the tradition to her own child as she sees present-day benefits from her childhood experience.

“Looking back, in hindsight, I actually learned so much from them. I really, really loved the grammar games. Fast forward to now, I’m a writer editor and I got straight A’s in grammar so I’m like, thank you Reader Rabbit!”

“There is a whole bunch of research on, the toys that we played with and the games that we played when we were much younger, have a pathway for helping to choose our careers,” explained clinical psychologist, Dr. Jay Greenfeld, who says it’s no surprise people want to be reminded of childhood.

“You think back to your life when certain things were most consistent, easiest, all that kind of bit. Where the worries were perceivingly less. That timeframe can oftentimes be around elementary school because that’s right when you’re in the thick of the routine of things. Everything is structured. Your activities are structured. Your school is structured. Things are sort of laid out for you.”

Greenfeld added, “When things start to settle in that adult life of yours, you’re looking for some type of connection like that. Some type of stimulation, some type of enjoyment, where you can naturally feel happy. When you think, back then, when was I happiest, you go back to that moment and you pick on those things immediately.”

He says it’s most important for people to be able to share moments of happiness with other people, whether it be from activities from childhood or something else.

“We can’t eliminate stress but we can decrease the negative effects of it by being able to adapt to whatever pressure is coming our way. And so if we have to rely on old ways of doing things or we have to rely on old things that we enjoyed or that kind of stuff in order to help adapt to some of that pressure, embrace it. Just don’t obsess about it.”