I’m a gamer, so I like to goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m to try to increase the life span of every single in this room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, you will live and a half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because watched this talk.
Some of you are looking a little skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I math to prove that it is possible. It won’t much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That be my gift to you if I’m successful in mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. Your mission to figure out how you want to spend your extra seven and a minutes. And I think you should do something unusual them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, know what she wants us to do with those minutes, she wants us to spend them playing games. this is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made a habit of encouraging people to spend more time playing games. example, in my first TED Talk, I did propose that 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 time, in fact, that the number one unsolicited comment that I have heard from people all over the since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are great all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent more time playing Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games a waste of time that we will come to regret — that I hear it literally everywhere go. For example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, this cab driver, finding 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 that time.”
Now, I want to this problem seriously. I want games to be a force good in the world. I don’t want gamers to regret the time spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So have been thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, we regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, may surprise you, but it turns out there is some scientific research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people take care of us at the end of our lives, issued a report on the most frequently expressed regrets that say when they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to with you today — the top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: wish I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish had stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: wish I had let myself be happier. Number four: 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 others expected me.
Now, as far as I know, no one ever told of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing games,” but when I hear these top five regrets of the dying, I can’t but hear five deep human cravings that games actually us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, means, I wish I’d spent more time with my family, with my kids when were growing up. Well, we know that playing games together has family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported parents who spend more time playing video games with their kids have much real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use games like FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay daily contact with real-life friends and family. A recent from the University of Michigan showed that these games are powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with people in our social network that we would grow distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d let 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 pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a was enough to create dramatic boosts in mood and long-term increases happiness.
“I wish I’d had the courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars 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 document how a game with an idealized avatar changes how we think and act in real life, making more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led life true 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 to this one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this game designer to be 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 spend months in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now me tell 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 headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told that in order to heal my brain, I had to it. So I had to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. me that meant no reading, no writing, no video games, work or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. other words — and I think you see where this is going — no reason live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, but in all seriousness, ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens one in three, and it happened to me. My brain telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices so persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for my life, which is the that 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, why a game? I knew from the psychology of games for 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, we’re more likely to reach out to others for help. I wanted bring these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so created a role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became new secret identity, and the first thing I did a slayer was call my twin sister — I an identical twin sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to heal my brain, and I you to play with me.” This was an easier way to ask 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 anything that could my symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, like bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected and 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 like cuddling dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed walking around the block just once.
Now the game was simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But with a game so simple, within just a couple days starting to play, that fog of depression and anxiety away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t miracle cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted more than a year, and it was the hardest of my life by far. But even when I still had symptoms, even while I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the game me. I put up some blog posts and videos online, explaining how play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, not wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started from people all over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, their own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing 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 me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They about feeling better understood by their friends and family. And they even talked feeling happier, even though they were in pain, even though they were the toughest challenge of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking myself, what 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 way I would have believed was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some science here, too. Some people get and happier after a traumatic event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The game helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is something we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know that traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, can use it as a springboard to unleash our best and lead happier lives.
Here are the 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 closer to my friends 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 to on my goals and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, the top five traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct of the top five regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a event can unlock our ability to lead a life with fewer regrets.
But how it 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 hit your in the first place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, I devoured the scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four kinds of strength, or resilience, contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities that can do every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need trauma to do it.
I could tell you what these four types of are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d we all start building them up together right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll a quick game together. This is where you earn the seven a half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. you have to do is successfully complete the first 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 take steps, or make your hands into fists, raise them your head as high as you can for five seconds, go! All right, like the people doing both. You 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. know from the research that the number one thing you do to boost your physical resilience is to not still. That’s all it takes. Every single second that you are not sitting still, are actively improving the health of your heart, and lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? 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 down 100 interfere with your 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 +1 mental resilience, which means you have more mental focus, more discipline, and willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge giving up, even one as absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated way to boost 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 a quick YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it your 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 what we got. Baby 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 means have the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity 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 every 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 the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s hand for six seconds, or send a 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 you actually get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, great way to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is better.
Here’s one more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand six seconds dramatically raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, that’s the trust hormone. That means that all of who just shook hands are biochemically primed to like and want to help each other. will linger during the break, so take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, have successfully completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission give you seven and a half minutes of bonus life. Now I to share one more little bit of science with you. turns out that people who regularly boost these four of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 longer than everyone else. So this is true. If are regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if are never sitting still for more than an hour a time, if you are reaching out to one person you care every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, you will live 10 longer than everyone else, and here’s where that math I you earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy in 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 of life by boosting your four types of resilience. 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 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, you are 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes 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 these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. can use your first wish to wish for a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, you spend these seven and a half minutes today 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 your resilience, you’re going to earn more minutes.
And the good news is, can keep going like that. Every hour of the day, every day of your life, all way to your deathbed, which will now be 10 years later than it would have otherwise. And when get there, more than likely, you will not have any of those top regrets, because you will have built up the strength and resilience to lead a truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to play few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)