If play is one of the most fundamental ways humans learn, then it matters even more for people whose brains and nervous systems do not respond well to pressure, coercion, or narrow definitions of “the right way” to do things.

For many neurodivergent people, the difficulty is not a lack of intelligence, motivation, or care. It is what happens when autonomy disappears. When demands pile up, expectations harden, and the sense of choice quietly drains away, the system doesn’t mobilise, it protects itself.

This is where pressure becomes a problem.

Under pressure, the brain does not become sharper or more efficient. It becomes vigilant. The nervous system reads pressure as threat, as something is trying to attack me or trap me, and the brain shifts into survival mode. When that happens, we move away from the calm, reasoning parts of the brain and into automatic trauma responses.

Freeze, fight, flight, fawn, flood.

These are not conscious choices. They are protective reactions. And crucially, when they are active, the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for planning, reasoning, flexibility, and decision-making, goes offline. The very capacities we are trying to access through pressure are the ones that get shut down by it.

This is why “just try harder” so often fails.

When we apply pressure, internally or externally, we are often shutting down the exact resources we are hoping to mobilise. Focus narrows, creativity drops, memory falters, and starting becomes harder, not easier. Over time, living in that state of constant mobilisation and self-pressure is what creates burnout. The system never gets the signal that it is safe to stand down.

For neurodivergent people, this dynamic is often intensified by hypervigilance, by a long history of needing to do the right thing, get it right, or adapt in order to cope, and yes, perfectionism. The nervous system stays on high alert, scanning for mistakes, consequences, and expectations. And when pressure is added on top of that, it doesn’t motivate, it traps.

Trauma, at its core, is not just about what happened. It is about the felt sense of being trapped with no way out.

Anyone who has experienced a strong trauma response knows this bodily feeling. The urge to escape at all costs, the sense that you would chew your own leg off if that were the only way to get free. It is physical, visceral, and entirely convincing to the nervous system.

This is why autonomy matters so much.

Autonomy tells the nervous system that there is choice. That you are not trapped. That there are options. That nothing terrible will happen if you pause, adjust, or approach something differently. Agency is what brings the system back from threat into engagement.

And this is exactly where play comes in.

At its core, play is an act of reclaiming autonomy. It is engaging with something because you want to, not because you are being forced. It replaces pressure with curiosity, demand with choice, threat with exploration. Instead of “I must do this,” the nervous system hears, “I am allowed to try.”

That shift is not cosmetic, it’s about regulating ourselves.

When you invite play, you are not avoiding the task. You are changing the conditions under which it is approached. You are telling your nervous system that it is safe enough to engage, that this is not a trap, that there is room to move. And once that happens, capacity often returns.

This is why play so often shows up as gamification, what-ifs, experiments, or sideways approaches for neurodivergent people. Turning something into a game, adding novelty, reframing a task as exploration, or telling yourself you are “just having a look” are not tricks. They are ways of restoring agency.

Play brings choice back into the system.

Many neurodivergent adults already do this instinctively. They listen to music to get through tasks, create playful challenges, build rituals, follow interest rather than instruction, or find unconventional ways into work. These are not signs of avoidance. They are signs of self-regulation.

What gets in the way is the belief that learning and work have to be driven by pressure to be valid.

But for neurodivergent nervous systems, pressure is often the very thing that shuts learning down.

Play does not mean the work is light, easy, or inconsequential. Play can be demanding, absorbing, frustrating, and effortful. What makes it play is not the absence of effort, but the presence of choice. The sense that you are participating, not being coerced.

This is why autonomy and capacity are so closely linked. When autonomy is present, the nervous system settles and engagement becomes possible. When autonomy is removed, even simple tasks can become overwhelming.

So the invitation is not to push harder, but to listen differently.

Instead of asking, “How do I force myself to do this?”, a more useful question is often, “How can I approach this in a way that gives me more choice, more room to explore, more agency?” That might mean reducing stakes, introducing curiosity, allowing mess, or reframing the task as play rather than proof.

None of this is indulgent, it’s a measured and clever response to an otherwise thorny connundrum. Play works for neurodivergent people because it reduces threat, restores agency, and tells the nervous system that it is not trapped. And that is why play is not a distraction from work, but one of the most effective ways back into it.

It belongs firmly in the toolbox.