I’m a gamer, I like to have goals. I like special missions and objectives. So 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, will live seven and a half minutes longer than you would otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some of are looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because it out — I have math to prove that it is possible. It won’t make much now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay attention the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will my gift to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you a secret mission too. Your mission is to figure out you want to spend your extra seven and a half minutes. 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 game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know what she wants us to with those minutes, she wants us to spend them playing games. Now is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite a of encouraging people to spend more time playing games. For example, my first TED Talk, I did propose that we should spend 21 billion hours a week, as planet, playing 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 gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are great all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to wish spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is pervasive — that games are a waste of time that we will come regret — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, this driver, upon finding out that a friend and I were in for a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — I quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to the end of your and regretting 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 regret the time spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So I been thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, this may you, but it turns out there is actually some scientific research on this question. It’s true. workers, the people who take care of us at the end our lives, recently issued a report on the most frequently expressed that people say when they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s 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 friends. Number three: I wish I had let myself happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to express my self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life to my dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, as far I know, no one ever told one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time video games,” but when I hear these top five regrets the dying, I can’t help but hear five deep 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 more time with my family, with my kids when were growing up. Well, we know that playing games together has tremendous benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported that parents who spend time playing video games with their kids have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social games like or Words With Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life friends and family. recent study from the University of Michigan showed that these games are 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 myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. 30 minutes of online game play a day was enough to create dramatic in mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d had the courage to express true self.” Well, avatars are a way to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized of who we might become. You can see that this alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. Stanford University has been doing research for five years now to how playing a game with an idealized avatar changes how we think and in real life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led a true 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 to come back to this one.
But in the meantime, you’re wondering, who is this game designer to be to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve been on my deathbed. But recently I did spend three in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now me tell you that story. It started two years ago, when I hit head and got a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I was left with symptoms nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor me that in order to heal my brain, I had to it. So I had to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant reading, no writing, no video games, no work or email, no running, alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I think you see this is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of it’s meant to be funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to one in three, and it happened me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you want die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” It said, “The pain never end.”
And these voices became so persistent and so persuasive that I to legitimately fear for my life, which is the time I said to myself after 34 days — and will never forget this moment — I said, “I am either going to kill myself or I’m to turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? I from researching the psychology of games for more than a decade that we play a game — and this is in the literature — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more to reach out to others for help. I wanted to these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I a role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became new secret identity, and the first thing I did as a slayer was call my sister — I have an identical twin sister named Kelly — tell her, “I’m playing a game to heal my brain, I want you to play with me.” This was an easier way to ask help.
She became my first ally in the game, my husband joined next, and together we identified and battled the bad guys. Now was anything that could trigger my symptoms and therefore down the healing process, things like bright lights and spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. This was anything I could on even my worst day to feel just a bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking around the block once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even with game so simple, within just a couple days of to play, that fog of depression and anxiety went away. just vanished. It 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 with the game surprised me. I put up some blog posts videos online, explaining how to play. But not everybody 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 secret identity, their own allies, and they were getting “super better,” challenges like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. people were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I tell from their messages and their videos that the game was them in the same ways that it helped me. They talked feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even though were in pain, even though they were tackling the toughest challenge of lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, what is going on here? mean, how could a game so trivial intervene so 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 have believed it was possible. Well, it turns there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger and after a traumatic event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The was helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which not something we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic disorder. But scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us suffer 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 do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I know I really am 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? It should, because the top traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of the top five regrets of dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability to a life with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get from to growth? Or better yet, is there a way to get all the 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 I learned. are four kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and are scientifically validated activities that you can do every to build up these four kinds of resilience, and don’t need a trauma to do it.
I could tell you what these four types strength are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather all start building them up together right now. Here’s what we’re going do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where you earn the seven and a minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you have do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. I confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise them your head as high as you can for five seconds, go! All right, I like the people doing both. You overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 physical resilience, which means that body can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. We know from the research that the one thing you can do to boost your physical 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 and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? I want you to 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 from 100 interfere with your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s first time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower actually works like muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. So tackling tiny challenge without giving up, even one as absurd as snapping your exactly 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually scientifically validated 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 the two options. If you’re inside, find a window look out of it. If you’re outside, find a and look in. Or do a quick YouTube or Google search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it on your phones, or just 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 what 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, we’re just feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, which you have the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s 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, a day, week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully tackle any you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep it up.
All right, pick one, last quest: someone’s hand 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. love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get more strength your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way to boost social is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises the level of oxytocin in bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means that all of who just shook hands are biochemically primed to like want to help each other. This will linger during the break, so take advantage of 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 minutes of bonus life. Now I get to share one more little bit of science with you. turns out that people who regularly boost these four types of — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 years longer than everyone else. So this is true. you are regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never sitting still for than an hour at a time, if you are reaching out one person you care about every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals boost your willpower, you will live 10 years longer everyone else, and here’s where that math I showed earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy in the U.S. the U.K. is 78.1 years, but we know from more 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 years of by boosting your four types of resilience. So every single year that you are boosting four types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means every day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or every single hour that you are boosting four types of resilience, like we just did together, are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes are all yours. totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You have your special mission, your secret mission. How are you going to spend these 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 first wish wish for a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, you spend these seven and a half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, that gets you physically active, or puts you in touch with someone you about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, so you’re to earn more minutes.
And the good news is, 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 years than it would have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, you 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 to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)