I’m a gamer, I like to have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s special mission for this talk: I’m going to try increase the life span of every single person in this room seven and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because you this talk.
Some of you are looking a little skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I have to prove that it is possible. It won’t make sense now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will my gift to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. Your mission to figure out how you want to spend your extra and a half minutes. And I think you should do something unusual with them, these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know what wants us to do with those minutes, she wants us to spend them playing games. Now this is totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite a habit of encouraging to spend more time playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, I did propose we should spend 21 billion hours a week, as planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s lot of time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the one unsolicited comment that I have heard from people all over the world since I gave talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, but on your deathbed, are you really going wish you spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This is so pervasive — that games are a waste of time that we come to regret — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and I were in town a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — and I quote — “I hate games. of life. Imagine getting to the end of your life and all that time.”
Now, I want to take this problem seriously. I want to be a force for good in the world. I don’t want gamers to the time they spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So have been thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, we regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns there is actually some scientific research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who care of us at the end of our lives, recently a report on the most frequently expressed regrets that people say they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with you today — the five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t so hard. Number two: I wish I had stayed touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage express my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life to my dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, far as I know, no one ever told one of the workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” but I hear these top five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear five deep human cravings games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I wish hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, this means, I wish I’d spent more time with my family, my kids when they were growing up. Well, we know that playing games together has tremendous benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School of Life reported that parents who spend more time playing video games with their kids have stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” of millions of people use social games like FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay in daily with real-life friends and family. A recent study from the University of showed that these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. help us stay connected with people in our social network that we otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d let be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at Carolina University that showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a was enough to create dramatic boosts in mood and long-term in happiness.
“I wish I’d had the courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized of who we might become. You can see that in alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing for five years now to document how playing a game with an idealized avatar changes how we and act in real life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to goals.
“I wish I’d led a life true to dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are games this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left a Super question mark. We’re going to come back to this one.
But the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this game to be talking to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently I did spend three months bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now me tell you that story. It started two years ago, when I my head and got a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, was left with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told me in order to heal my brain, I had to it. So I had to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me meant no reading, no writing, no video games, no work email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I think you see where is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of it’s meant to be funny, but in all seriousness, ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It to one in three, and it happened to me. My brain telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re never going get better.” It said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices became so persistent and persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for my life, which is the time that I said to after 34 days — and I will never forget this moment — I said, “I am going to kill myself or I’m going to turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? knew from researching the psychology of games for more than a that when we play a game — and this is in the scientific literature — we tackle tough with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely reach out to others for help. I wanted to bring these gamer traits my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, and the first thing I as a slayer was call my twin sister — I have identical twin sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m a game to heal my brain, and I want to play with me.” This was an easier way to ask for help.
She became my first in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together we identified and battled bad guys. Now this was anything that could trigger my symptoms therefore slow down the healing process, things like bright lights crowded spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. This was anything I do on even my worst day to feel just a little good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking around block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even a game so simple, within just a couple days of to play, that fog of depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That for more than a year, and it was the hardest year my life by far. But even when I still had the symptoms, even while was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. I put some blog posts and videos online, explaining how to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people all over the world who were adopting their secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and they were getting “super better,” challenges like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could from their messages and their videos that the game helping them in the same ways that it helped me. talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by friends and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even though they were pain, even though they were tackling the toughest challenge of their lives.
Now at time, I’m thinking to myself, what is going on here? I mean, how could a game so trivial so powerfully in such serious, and in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s no way I would have believed it possible. Well, it turns out there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier a traumatic event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The was helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, is not something we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash our best qualities and happier lives.
Here are the top five things that with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid to do makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my friends family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and purpose in life.” “I’m better able to focus on my goals dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because the top five traits post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of the top regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? seems that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability to lead life with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is there a way to get all benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit your head the first place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the better, so I devoured the scientific literature, and here’s I learned. There are four kinds of strength, or resilience, that to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities that you can do day to build up these four kinds of resilience, you don’t need a trauma to do it.
I could tell you what these four types of are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we start building them up together right now. Here’s what we’re to do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where you earn the seven and a half of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you have to do is successfully complete first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can it. I have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? is your first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand and take three steps, or make your hands into fists, them over your head as high as you can five seconds, go! All right, I like the people both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. is worth +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can more stress and heal itself faster. We know from the research that the number one thing you can to boost your physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. single second that you are not sitting still, you actively improving the health of your heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? want you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or backwards from 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people counting down from 100 interfere with your to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 resilience, which means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know the scientific research that willpower actually works like a muscle. It gets stronger more you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, even as absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or backwards from 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated way to your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined for you, but here are the two options. If you’re inside, find a window and out of it. If you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or a quick YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it on your phones, or shout out some baby animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. dolphin and baby llamas. Everybody look. Got that? Okay, one more. elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re clapping for that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, we’re just feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, which you have the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions curiosity or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, you need them most.
Here’s a secret from the literature for you. If you can manage to experience positive emotions for every one negative emotion over the course of hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully tackle problem you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, keep it up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s for six seconds, or send someone a quick thank by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means actually get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, community. Now, a great way to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises the of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. means that all of you who just shook hands are primed to like and want to help each other. This linger during the break, so take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, have successfully completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed mission to give you seven and a half minutes bonus life. Now I get to share one more bit of science with you. It turns out that people who regularly boost these four types of — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 years longer everyone else. So this is true. If you are regularly the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never still for more than an hour at a time, if you are reaching out to one person care about every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals to your willpower, you will live 10 years longer than everyone else, and here’s where that I showed you earlier comes in.
So, the average life in the U.S. and the U.K. is 78.1 years, we know from more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that can add 10 years of life by boosting your four types resilience. So every single year that you are boosting your four types resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of life 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means every single day, you are 184 minutes of life, or every single hour that are boosting your four types of resilience, like we did together, you are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half are all yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You have your special mission, your secret mission. How are you going to spend these minutes bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and a half minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. You can use your first wish to wish for million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend seven and a half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, or that gets physically active, or puts you in touch with someone you care about, or even just tackling tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, so you’re going to earn more minutes.
And good news is, you can keep going like that. hour of the day, every day of your life, all the way to deathbed, which will now be 10 years later than it would have otherwise. And when get there, more than likely, you will not have any of those five regrets, because you will have built up the strength and resilience lead a life truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you even have enough time to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)