I’m a gamer, so like to have goals. I like special missions and objectives. So here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m going to to increase the life span of every single person in this room seven and a half minutes. Literally, you will live and a half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, because you watched this talk.
Some of you are a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I have math to prove that it possible. It won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain all later, just pay attention to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. will be my gift to you if I’m successful my mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. mission is to figure out how you want to your extra seven and a half minutes. And I you should do something unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might thinking to yourself, I know what 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 encouraging people to spend more playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, I did that we should spend 21 billion hours a week, a planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a of time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the number one unsolicited comment that I have from people all over the world since I gave talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, but your deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent more time Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games are a waste time that we will come to regret — that hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that friend and I were in town for a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — and quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to the end of your life and all that time.”
Now, I want to take this seriously. I want games to be a force for good in world. I don’t want gamers to regret the time they playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So I been thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret the time spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns there is actually some scientific research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who care of us at the end of our lives, recently issued a report on the most frequently regrets that people say when they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s I want to share with you today — the top regrets of the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish I stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I had let myself happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to express my true self. number five: I wish I’d lived a life true my dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, far as I know, no one ever told one the 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 deep human that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I I hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, this means, I I’d spent more time with my family, with my kids when they were up. Well, we know that playing games together has family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School Family Life reported that parents who spend more time video games with their kids have much stronger real-life with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of use social games like FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay daily contact with real-life friends and family. A recent study the University of Michigan showed that these games are incredibly relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with people in our social that we would otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d 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 wish I’d had the courage express my true self.” Well, avatars are a way express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. You see that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing for five years now to document how playing a with an idealized avatar changes how we think and act in real life, us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I I’d led a life true to my dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are games this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left a Super Mario question mark. We’re going to come back this one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this game designer to 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 spend months in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now let me you that story. It started two years ago, when I hit my head got a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I was left with like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told me that in order to my brain, I had to rest it. So I had avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant reading, no writing, no video games, no work or email, no running, alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I think you where this is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of it’s meant to be funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic injuries. It happens to one in three, and it to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re never to get better.” It said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices became so persistent and so that I started to legitimately fear for my life, which the time that I said to myself after 34 days — I will never forget this moment — I said, “I am either going to kill 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 game — and this in the scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, 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 a role-playing game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became new secret identity, and the first thing I did as a slayer was call my twin sister — have an identical twin sister named Kelly — and her, “I’m playing a game to heal my brain, I want you to play with me.” This was an way to ask for help.
She became my first in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together we identified and battled the guys. Now this was anything that could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, like bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected activated power-ups. This was anything I could do on my worst day to feel just a little bit good, just a bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, getting out of bed and walking around the block just once.
Now game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate power-ups. But even with a game so simple, within just 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 for more than a year, and it was the hardest year of 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 surprised me. I put up some blog posts and videos online, explaining how to play. not everybody has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants be “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, started hearing from people all over the world who were adopting their secret identity, recruiting 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 their videos that the game was helping them in the ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling 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, though 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 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. people get stronger and happier after a traumatic event. that’s what was happening to us.
The game was us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, can use it as a springboard to unleash our qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are the top things that people with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid to do makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my friends and family.” “I understand better. I know who I really am now.” “I have a 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, because the top traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of the top five of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a traumatic event unlock our ability to lead a life with fewer regrets.
But how does work? How do you get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is there a way get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having hit your head in the first place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the better, so I devoured the scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities you can do every day to 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 are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all start building them up right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where you the seven and a half minutes of bonus life I promised you earlier. All you have to do successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. I confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. we go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise them over 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 faster. We know from the research that the number one thing you can to boost your physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. Every single second that are not sitting still, you are actively improving the health of heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for next quest? I want you to snap your fingers 50 times, or count backwards from 100 by seven, this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t the people counting down from 100 interfere with your to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which means you have more focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower actually like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. So tackling tiny challenge without giving up, even one as absurd as your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually a validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. number three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s really this for you, but here are the two options. you’re inside, find a window and look out of it. If you’re outside, find a window and in. Or do a quick YouTube or Google image search “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it on your phones, or just shout out baby animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s what we got. Baby dolphin and baby llamas. Everybody look. that? Okay, one more. Baby 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 or love, which we feel looking at animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a secret the scientific literature for you. If you can manage 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 tackle any problem you’re facing. this 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 hand for six seconds, send someone a quick thank you by text, email, Facebook Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get more from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way to social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for seconds dramatically raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means that of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed to like and to help each other. This will linger during the break, so take of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission to give you seven and half minutes of bonus life. Now I get to share one more little of science with you. It turns out that people who regularly boost these types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — 10 years longer than everyone else. So this is true. If are regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never still for more than an hour at a time, you are reaching out to one person you care every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals boost your willpower, you will live 10 years longer everyone else, and here’s where that math I showed earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy in U.S. and the U.K. is 78.1 years, but we know more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can 10 years of life by boosting your four types resilience. So every single year that you are boosting your four types of resilience, you’re actually .128 more years of life or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, means every single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or every single hour that you boosting your four types of resilience, like we just did together, you are 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and half minutes are 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 these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven a half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. You can your 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, puts you in touch with someone you care about, or even just tackling a challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, so you’re going to more minutes.
And the good news is, you can keep going like that. Every hour of day, every day of your life, all the way to your deathbed, which will now be 10 later than it would have otherwise. And when you there, more than likely, you will not have any those top five regrets, because you will have built the strength and resilience to lead a life truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you even have enough time to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)