I’m a gamer, so I to have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s special mission for this talk: I’m going to try to the life span of every single person in this by seven and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a half minutes than you would have otherwise, just because you watched talk.
Some of you are looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, check it out — I have math to prove that is possible. It won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my gift to you if I’m in my mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. Your mission is to figure how you want to spend your extra seven and a minutes. And I think you should do something unusual with them, because these are minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know she wants us to do with those minutes, she wants to spend them playing games. Now this is a reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite a habit of 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 comment that have heard from people all over the world since I that talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, but your deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent more playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games are waste of time that we will come to regret — I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, story: Just a few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that friend and I were in town for a game developers’ conference, turned and said — and 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 playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So have been thinking about this question a lot lately. we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, this surprise you, but it turns out there is actually some scientific research this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take care us at the end of our lives, recently issued a on the most frequently expressed regrets that people say they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what I to share with you today — the top five regrets of dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I I had stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: wish I had let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to express true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life true to my dreams, instead of what expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, no ever told one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d more time playing video games,” but when I hear top five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear five deep human cravings that games help 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, my kids when they were growing up. Well, we know that playing games has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young School of Family Life reported that parents who spend more time playing games with their kids have much stronger real-life relationships them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” Hundreds millions of people use social games like FarmVille or With Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life and family. A recent study from the University of Michigan that these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay with 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 the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a day was enough to dramatic 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 who we might become. You can see that in this ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has doing research for five years now to document how a game with an idealized avatar changes how we think act in real life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to goals.
“I wish I’d led a 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 be talking to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently I spend three months 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 30 days, I was left with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, fog. My doctor told me that in order to heal brain, I had to rest it. So I had to avoid everything that triggered symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, no video games, no or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other — and I think you see where this is going — reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, but in all seriousness, ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to one three, and it happened to me. My brain started 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 my life, which is the time I said to myself after 34 days — and I never forget this moment — I said, “I am going to kill myself or I’m going to turn this into a game.”
Now, a game? I knew from researching the psychology of games more than a decade that when we play a game — and this in the scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re likely to reach out to others for help. I wanted to these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became new secret identity, and the first thing I did as a was call my twin sister — I have an identical twin named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to heal brain, and I want you to play with me.” was an easier way to ask for help.
She 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 slow down the healing process, things bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. was anything I could do on even my worst day feel just a little bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like my dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of and 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. But with a game so simple, within just a couple of 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. lasted for more than a year, and it was the year 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 with the game surprised me. I put up some blog posts videos online, explaining how to play. But not everybody has concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people all over the world who were adopting own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and they were “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell their messages and their videos that the game was helping them in the same ways that helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. talked about feeling better understood by their friends and family. And they even talked about happier, even though they were in pain, even though they were tackling the toughest challenge of lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, what going on here? I mean, how could a game so trivial intervene powerfully 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 was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some science here, too. Some get stronger and happier after a traumatic event. And that’s was happening to us.
The game was helping us what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually hear about. We hear about post-traumatic stress 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 and happier lives.
Here are the top five things that with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid to what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my friends family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning purpose in my life.” “I’m better able to focus on goals and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because the top five traits of post-traumatic growth are the direct opposite of the top five regrets of the dying. Now is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our 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 the benefits post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit your head the first place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, so I the scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and are scientifically validated activities that you can do every day build up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t a trauma to do it.
I could tell you what these four types of strength are, I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we start building them up together right now. Here’s what we’re to do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where earn the seven and a half minutes of bonus life that I you earlier. All you have to do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel you can 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, them over your head as high as you can for five seconds, go! All right, I 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 heal itself faster. We know from the research that the number one thing you can do boost your physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. Every single 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, or count backwards 100 by 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 the time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the research that willpower actually works like a 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 a validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s really this for you, but here 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 do a quick or Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do we to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what 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 means you the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity love, which we feel looking at baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a from the scientific literature for you. If you can to experience three positive emotions for every one negative emotion 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 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 you actually get 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 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 are primed to like and want to help each other. This will linger during the break, so advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed mission to give you seven and a half minutes of life. Now I get to share one more little of science with you. It turns out that people who regularly these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and — live 10 years longer than everyone else. So this true. If you are regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you never sitting still for more than an hour at time, if you are reaching out to one person you about every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals boost your willpower, you will live 10 years longer than everyone else, and here’s that math I showed you earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy 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 of life by boosting your four types of resilience. So single year that you are boosting your 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 single day, you earning 184 minutes of life, or every single hour that you are your four types of resilience, like 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. still have your special mission, your secret mission. How you going to spend these minutes 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, if you spend seven and a half minutes today doing something that makes happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts in touch with someone you care about, or 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 the day, day of your life, all the way to your deathbed, which will now 10 years later than it would have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, will not have any of those top five regrets, you will have built up the strength and resilience to lead a life to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to play a more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)