Top 10 Play your Way Sane Blog Posts of 2019

It's that time of year. A time to reflect back. And most certainly, a time for the ubiquitous top 10 lists.

2019 marks the first full year of my Play your Way Sane site. In late spring, I started an online digital marketing course and by June, I had finally transferred my hosting from a less than stellar weebly situation to the wordpress site you all know today.

Then, I started the Psychology Today blog with the same name, Play your Way Sane, in October. I started contributing regularly to Lifehack around the same time.

Recently, people have started inviting me to do Play your Way Sane workshops all over the country, and I look forward to doing more consulting and teaching in 2020, since it allows me to engage and play with people in person (much different than the solitary writer's life).

I've covered a wide-range of topics this year and appreciate every single one of you magical unicorns for checking the site out in these early days.

And without further ado, I present the top 10 most popular Play your Way Sane blog posts of 2019.

10. How to Stop Overthinking and Worrying

I explain how playfully changing your focus can have positive effects on reducing overthinking and worrying.

9. Advantages of Improvisation

Improv has so many fantastic benefits. Creativity, collaboration, altruism, and joy. I go through a laundry list of benefits in this post.

8. How to Relieve Stress Naturally

7 quick and easy, natural ways to de-stress.

7. 8 Fun Mindfulness Exercises

6. Benefits of Play

This was my first long-form blog post! Before this, I was just throwing some everyday games onto this site. Granted my tone was much sassier and irreverent back then, but the ideas still hold up.

5. Becoming Happier: The Small Talk Challenge

There's no better way to get into the playful spirit than to turn something into a challenge. I'm not a big small talker, but this challenge really helped me to put my guard down and connect.

4. Finally Stop Overthinking

Apparently I'm not the only overthinker. This post gives you 5 games to try to curb overthinking, and it's the 2nd that addresses overthinking to make the top 10 list.

3. Lessons for Life Inspired by Improv

12 lessons for life inspired by improv — If you want a better understanding of what Play your Way Sane is all about, this is the post for you. I go through the 12 lessons of PyWS to really explain how it helps you become more mindful, joyous, and connected.

2. How to Practice Mindfulness throughout the Day

This post goes through a hypothetical day and explains how you can become more mindful without meditating. It's also the 2nd mindfulness post to hit the top 10 list.

1. Embracing Mistakes

This is the most recent post, so it's pretty incredible that it rocketed to the top spot for 2019. Seems like a lot of people are interested in embracing mistakes. This post gives you 4 fun ways to do exactly that.

Bring on 2020

And just like that 2019 is drawing to a close.

In 2020, each of the 12 lessons inspired by improv are going to get their own month. We're going to start in January with Setting the Stage (becoming more mindful) and work our way through to Making Big Choices in December 2020.

I hope you'll join us and play your way through each of the 12 lessons in 2020.

Subscribe now so you can stay current on which lesson we're all working on and which everyday games we're playing. I'll also throw in bonus games that are only for my special subscribers.

Thanks for a wonderful 2019. And here's to playing our way even saner in 2020.

Cheers.