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