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