I’m a gamer, so I like 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 would have otherwise, just you watched this talk.
Some of you are looking little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I have math to prove that it is possible. won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay attention to the number the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be 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 minutes. And I think you should do something unusual with them, because are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might 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, in my first TED Talk, did propose that we should spend 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, playing games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot of time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the one unsolicited comment that I have heard from people all over the world I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are great all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to wish you more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is pervasive — that games are a waste of time that will come to regret — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: a few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and I in town for a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — I quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to end of your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, want to take this problem seriously. I want games be a force for good in the world. I don’t want gamers to regret the time they spent playing, that I encouraged them to spend. So I have been thinking this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret time we spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns out is actually some scientific research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, people who take care of us at the end of lives, recently 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 you today — top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I wish hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish I had in touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d the courage to express my true self. And number five: I I’d lived a life true to my dreams, instead of others expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, no one ever told one of hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” but I hear these top five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear five 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 time with my family, with my kids when they were growing up. Well, know that playing games together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School Family Life reported that parents who spend more time playing video games with their kids much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social games like FarmVille or Words With Friends stay in daily contact with real-life friends and family. A recent study from the of Michigan showed that these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected people in our social network that we would otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t games together.
“I wish I’d let myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of the clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes of game play a day was enough to create dramatic boosts in mood long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d had the to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. can see that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. Stanford University has been doing research for five years now document how playing a game with an idealized avatar changes how think and act in real life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led a life true to my dreams, and what others expected of me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left Super Mario question mark. We’re going to come back to one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who this game designer to be talking to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently I did three months in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting die.
Now let me tell you that story. It started two years ago, I hit my head and got a concussion. The concussion didn’t properly, and after 30 days, I was left with symptoms nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My told me that in order to heal my brain, I had to it. So I had to avoid everything that triggered symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, no games, no 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, in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It to one in three, and it happened to me. My 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 voices so persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for life, which 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 myself or I’m going turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from researching the psychology games for more than a decade that when we a game — and this is in the scientific literature — we tackle 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 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 a game to heal my brain, and I want to play with me.” This was an easier way to ask for help.
She my first ally in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together we identified and battled bad guys. Now this was anything that could trigger my symptoms 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 day to just a little bit good, just a little bit productive. like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed walking around the block just once.
Now the game was that simple: a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. even with a game so simple, within just a couple days of starting play, that fog of depression and anxiety went away. 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 year my life by far. But even when I still the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. put up some blog posts and videos online, explaining to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people all the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges like and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it for terminal diagnoses ALS. And I could tell from their messages and videos that the game was helping them in the ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling understood by their friends 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 on here? I mean, how could a game so trivial intervene so powerfully in such serious, in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t for me, there’s no way I would have believed it was possible. Well, it out there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after a traumatic event. that’s what was happening to us.
The game was helping experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic disorder. But scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can it as a springboard to unleash our best qualities 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 friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I really am now.” “I have a new of meaning and purpose in my life.” “I’m better able focus on my goals and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because the five traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of top five regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability to a life with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How you get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, there a way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, having to hit your head in the first place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to the phenomenon 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 to build these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a trauma to do it.
I could tell what these four types of 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 to do. We’ll play quick game together. This is where you earn the seven and a half 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 first quest. Here go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise 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, means that your body can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. know from the research that the number one thing can do to boost your physical resilience is to sit still. That’s all it takes. Every single second that you not sitting still, you are actively improving the health of heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your quest? I want you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or backwards from 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people down from 100 interfere with your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which means have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific research that actually works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, even one absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually a validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: Because of room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here the two options. If you’re inside, find a window and look out of it. you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or do a quick 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 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 curiosity or love, which we feel at baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific literature you. If you can manage to experience three positive for every one negative emotion over the course of hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, keep it up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s for six seconds, or send someone a quick thank you text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. it up. I love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 resilience, which means you actually get more strength from your friends, neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the hormone. That means that all of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed to like and want help each other. This will linger during the break, so take advantage of networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed your quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission to give seven and a half minutes of bonus life. Now I get to one more little bit of science with you. It turns out that people regularly boost these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 years longer everyone else. So this is true. If you are regularly the 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 one person you care about every single day, if are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, you live 10 years 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 from more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you add 10 years of life by boosting your four of resilience. So every single year that you are boosting four types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more of life or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 minutes of life, which means every single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, every 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 all yours. totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You have your special mission, your secret mission. How are you to spend these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. seven and a half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. can use your first wish to wish for a million wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these seven a half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, that gets you physically active, or puts you in touch with someone you care about, even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to your resilience, so you’re going to earn more minutes.
And the news is, you can keep going like that. Every hour of day, every day of your life, all the way your deathbed, which will now be 10 years later 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 up the strength and resilience to lead a life to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might have enough time to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)