I’m gamer, so I like to have goals. I like special and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission for talk: I’m going to try to increase the life span of single person 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 you this talk.
Some of you are looking a little skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I have to prove 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 be my gift to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. mission is to figure out how you want to spend your extra seven a half 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 to yourself, I know what she wants us to do those minutes, she wants us to spend them playing games. this is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I made quite a habit of encouraging people to spend more time playing games. For example, in first TED Talk, I did propose that we should 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s lot of time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the number one comment that I have heard from people all over the world since I gave talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, on your deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games a waste of time that we will come to regret — that I it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and I were in town a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — and I quote — “I hate games. of life. Imagine getting to the end of your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I want take this problem seriously. I want games to be force for good in the world. I don’t want gamers to regret the they spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So I have been thinking about this a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret the time we playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it out there is actually some scientific research on this question. It’s true. workers, the people who take care of us at the end of our lives, recently issued report on the most frequently expressed regrets that people say when they are on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with you today — the top five of the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t so hard. Number two: I wish I had stayed touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life true my dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, as as I know, no one ever told one of the hospice workers, “I I’d spent more time playing video games,” but when 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, wish I hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, this means, wish I’d spent more time with my family, with kids when they were growing up. Well, we know that 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 kids have much stronger real-life with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” of millions of people use social games like FarmVille Words With Friends to 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 stay connected with people in our social network that we would grow distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I I’d let myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed that online games can pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes online game play a day was enough to create boosts in mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I I’d had the courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars a way to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we become. You can see that in this alter ego portrait by Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has been research for five years now to document how playing a 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 a life true to dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are doing this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left a Super Mario question mark. We’re going to come to this one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, is this game designer to be talking to us about regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently did spend three months in bed, wanting to die. Really to die.
Now let me 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 with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, fog. My doctor 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. In other words — and think you see where this is going — no reason live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, but in seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. happens to one in three, and it happened to me. My started telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re going to get better.” It said, “The pain will end.”
And these voices became so persistent and so persuasive that I started legitimately fear for my life, which is the time that I said to after 34 days — and I will never forget this moment — I said, “I either going to kill myself or I’m going to turn into a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from researching psychology of games for more than a decade that when we play a game — and this in the scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges with creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out to others for help. I to bring these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I created role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, and 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, 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, and we identified and battled the bad guys. Now this was anything that could trigger my symptoms and therefore down the healing process, things like bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. This anything I could do on even my worst day to feel just a little bit good, just little bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking around the just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even with a game so simple, just a couple days of starting to play, that fog of depression and anxiety away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. it wasn’t a 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 had the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened with the game surprised me. I put up some blog posts and online, explaining how to play. But not everybody has concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed the SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people all the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, they were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from messages and their videos that the game was helping them the same ways that it helped me. They talked about stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by friends and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even though they were in pain, even they were tackling the toughest challenge of their lives.
Now the time, I’m thinking to myself, what is going 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 for me, there’s way I would have believed it was possible. Well, it out there’s some science here, too. Some people get and happier after a traumatic event. And that’s what happening to us.
The game was helping us experience scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually hear about. usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to our best qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are the top five things people with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid to do what me happy.” “I feel closer to my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. 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 familiar? It should, because the top 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 lead a with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get from trauma to growth? Or yet, is there a way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth the trauma, without having to hit your head in the first place? 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 strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there scientifically validated activities that you can do every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, and don’t need a trauma to do it.
I could tell what these four types of strength are, but I’d you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all start building them 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 half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you have to do is successfully complete the four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can it. I have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. Here we go. one: Stand up and 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 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 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 the health your heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your quest? I want you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, count backwards from 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people counting down from 100 interfere with counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve seen that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which you 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, 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 three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined for you, but here are the two options. If you’re inside, find a and look out of it. If you’re outside, find window and look in. Or do a quick YouTube Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it on phones, or just shout 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 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, what we’re just feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, means you have the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions curiosity or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, when need them most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific literature for you. If can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative over the course of an hour, a day, a week, dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully 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, pick one, quest: Shake someone’s hand for six seconds, or send someone a quick you by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep up. I 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 way to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is better.
Here’s one more secret for you: Shaking someone’s for six seconds dramatically 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 like and want to help each other. This will linger during the break, take advantage of the 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 half minutes bonus life. Now I get to share one more little bit of science with you. It out that people who regularly boost these four types resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 longer than 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 an hour at a time, if you are reaching out to one person 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 than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 years of life by boosting four types of resilience. So every single year that you are boosting your four types of resilience, you’re earning .128 more years of life or 46 more days life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means every day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or single hour that you are boosting your four types of resilience, we just did together, you are earning 7.68245837 more of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes all yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still have special mission, your secret mission. How are you going to spend these minutes of life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and a half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. can use your first wish to wish for a million more wishes. clever, right? So, if you spend these seven and a half minutes today doing something makes you happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts you touch with someone you care about, or even just tackling tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, so you’re going to earn more minutes.
And good news is, you can keep going like that. hour of the day, every day of your life, all the way to your deathbed, which now be 10 years later than it would have otherwise. And when you get there, more likely, you will not have any of those top five regrets, because you will have built the strength and resilience to lead a life truer to dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)