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