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