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What are the benefits of leisure?

This is an excerpt from Leisure Program Planning and Delivery 2nd Edition by Amy R. Hurd,Denise M. Anderson.

The many benefits of leisure converge to create an all-around sense of well-being. Leisure is of vital importance to the vitality of our neighborhoods, towns, regions, states or provinces, nations, and world. It builds vigorous and caring communities, facilitates a strong and healthy workforce, has the power to create equity among diverse people, builds economies (see the sidebar “A Sampling of Leisure’s Economic Outcomes”), solves social problems, and makes the environment more aesthetic (Russell, 2020). Several basic concepts—wellness, life satisfaction, and quality of life—capture all of these benefits.

Wellness

Wellness has been defined as “the active pursuit of activities, choices and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health” (Global Wellness Institute, n.d., para. 3). This definition suggests that wellness, often used interchangeably with the term well-being, is a positive and proactive approach requiring good daily decisions, including eating nutritious food, wearing safety belts in automobiles, not smoking, and regularly participating in healthful leisure pursuits. Through a healthful lifestyle, we focus on enhancing our well-being rather than on merely avoiding getting sick or on treating illness when it occurs. The box “Educating for Wellness” describes one college’s commitment to wellness.

Life Satisfaction

Leisure’s benefits to us individually can also contribute to life satisfaction, which is often thought of as happiness and contentedness about life. If we are satisfied with life, we feel good about it—we are happy. Although it is difficult to pin down a precise definition of life satisfaction, we certainly recognize it when we have it! It is an internal, subjective, emotional condition, and it is not static. We must constantly behave, think, and feel in ways that make us happy. The benefits of happiness go well beyond life satisfaction. Happiness has been tied to improved heart health, ability to combat stress more effectively, a stronger immune system, a healthier overall lifestyle, better chronic pain management, and increased longevity (Mead, 2019).

Leisure contributes to life satisfaction by providing all these things. Like a rolling snowball, happy people are more likely to engage in wholesome leisure activities, feel positive about their leisure, and believe that leisure is helping them feel happier. If we do not regularly and joyfully participate in positive leisure activities, we do not necessarily feel worse; we simply do not feel better.

Work–life balance, or balancing work demands with time spent in activities outside of work, is key to achieving life satisfaction. Across the globe, up to 69 percent of workers reported being willing to take a 20 percent pay cut to achieve a lifestyle that prioritized their quality of life, and in the United States, the proportion was 50 percent (Ford Motor Company, 2024).

Quality of Life

A third concept that captures the significance of leisure’s many benefits is quality of life. Quality of life concerns what people are capable of doing and the resources that support them. According to the World Health Organization (2001), quality of life is an individual’s position within the context of a culture and value system. It is a combination of a person’s financial status, ability to live in a clean and healthy environment, literacy level, ease of access to health services, safety, position in a family and in social hierarchies, and other factors the person expects and believes to be important, including meaningful work and leisure.

More Excerpts From Leisure Program Planning and Delivery 2nd Edition

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