I’m gamer, so I like to have goals. I like missions and 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 a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a half minutes longer you would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some of you are looking little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I have math to that it 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 be my 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 think should do something unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you be thinking to yourself, I know what she wants us to do with those minutes, she us to spend them playing games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, that I have made quite a habit of encouraging people to spend more time games. For example, in my first TED Talk, I propose that we should spend 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot of time. It’s so much time, in fact, the number one unsolicited comment that I have heard from people over the world since I 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 come to 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 town a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — and I — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to the of your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, want to take this problem seriously. I want games to 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 have thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret the time we playing games?
Now, this may surprise 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 at the end of our lives, issued a report on the most frequently expressed regrets that people say when they literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with today — the top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked hard. Number two: I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: I I had let myself be happier. Number four: I 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 others 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,” when I hear these top five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear 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 with my family, with my kids when they were up. Well, we know that playing games together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported that who spend more time playing video games with their have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed 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 from the 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 I can’t but think of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted East Carolina University that showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a day was enough to create boosts 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 heroic, idealized version of who we might become. You can that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with avatar. And Stanford University has been doing research for five years 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 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 a Super Mario question mark. We’re going to come back to this one.
But the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this game designer to be talking to us 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 let me tell you that story. It started two ago, when I hit my head and got a concussion. concussion 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 had to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me meant no reading, no writing, no video games, no or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I think you see where 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 to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you to die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” It said, “The pain will 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 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 more than a decade that when we play a — and this is in the scientific literature — tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out to for help. I wanted to bring these gamer traits to real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery game Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, and the first thing I did as slayer was call my twin sister — I have an identical twin sister Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to heal my brain, and want you to play with me.” This was an easier way to for help.
She became my first ally in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, 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 crowded spaces. also collected and activated power-ups. This was anything I could do on even my worst day to just a little bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking around block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even with a game so simple, just a couple days of starting to play, that of depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, and it was the year of my life by far. But even when I still had the symptoms, while I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what next with the game surprised me. I put up some posts and videos online, explaining how to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, not wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I hearing from 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 for diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from their and their videos that the game was helping them in same ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their friends and family. And even talked about feeling 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 going on here? I mean, how could a game so trivial intervene so powerfully in such serious, and some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t worked me, there’s no way I would have believed it possible. Well, it turns out there’s some science here, too. Some people stronger and happier after a traumatic event. And that’s what happening to us.
The game was helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, 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 springboard to unleash our best qualities lead happier lives.
Here are the top five things that people post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid to what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I know I really am now.” “I have a new sense meaning and purpose in my life.” “I’m better able focus on my goals and dreams.”
Now, does this familiar? It should, because the top five traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the opposite of the top five regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability 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 benefits 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 devoured the scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four kinds 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 do it.
I could tell you what these four types of strength are, but I’d rather you them firsthand. I’d rather we all start building them together right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll play a quick together. This is where you earn the seven and half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you have to is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you do it. I have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, or make your hands into fists, them over your head as high as you can for five seconds, go! right, I like the people doing both. You are overachievers. good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 physical resilience, which means that your can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. We know from the 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 improving health of your heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? I want to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people counting down 100 interfere with your 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 resilience, which means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more 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 to boost willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: Because the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here are the 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 animal.]”
Do it on your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do we want see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. dolphin and baby llamas. Everybody look. Got that? Okay, more. Baby elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re clapping for that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, what we’re feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you have ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel looking baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a secret from scientific literature for you. If you can manage to three positive emotions for every one negative emotion over course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability to tackle any problem you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s for six seconds, or send someone a quick thank you by text, email, Facebook Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I 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 boost social resilience gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand six seconds dramatically raises the level of oxytocin in bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means that all of you who just shook hands biochemically primed to like and want to help each other. will linger during the break, so take advantage of the opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve completed my mission to give you seven and a minutes of bonus life. Now I get to share one more little bit of with you. It turns out that people who regularly boost four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and — live 10 years longer than everyone else. So is true. If you are regularly achieving the three-to-one emotion ratio, if you are never sitting still for more than an hour at a time, if are reaching out to one person you care about every single day, if you are tackling goals to boost your willpower, you will live 10 years longer than everyone else, 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 we know from more 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 years of life by boosting your four types resilience. So every single year that you are boosting your four of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of 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 single hour that you are boosting your four types resilience, like we just did together, you are earning 7.68245837 minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes are 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 minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and a half bonus are kind of like genie’s wishes. You can use first wish to wish for a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, you spend these seven and a half minutes today doing that makes you happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts in touch with someone you care about, or even tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, you’re going to earn more minutes.
And the good news is, you can keep going like that. hour of the day, every day of your life, all the to your deathbed, which will now be 10 years later it would have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, you will not 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 have enough time to play a more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)