I’m gamer, so I like to have goals. I like 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 person this room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, will live seven and a half minutes longer than would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some of you are a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I have math to that it is possible. It won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain it later, just pay attention to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my gift to if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. Your mission is 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 to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know what she wants us to do with those minutes, wants us to spend them playing games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, that I have made quite a habit of encouraging people to spend more time playing games. example, in my first TED Talk, I did propose that we spend 21 billion hours a week, as 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 comment that I have heard from people all over the since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are and all, but on your deathbed, are you really going wish you spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — games are a waste of time that we will come to regret — that I hear it literally I go. For example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and I were in town for a developers’ conference, turned around and said — and I quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine to the end of your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I want to take this seriously. I want games to be a force for good in the world. I don’t want gamers regret the time they spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So I have been about this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, we regret the 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, the people take care of us at the end of our lives, recently issued a report on the most expressed regrets that people say when they are literally on their deathbeds. that’s what I want to share with you today — top five regrets 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 express my self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life true to my dreams, of what others expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, no one ever told of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” but when I hear top five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but five deep human cravings 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 growing up. Well, we know that playing games together tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School of Family Life that parents who spend more time playing video games their kids have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” Hundreds millions of people use social 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 incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with people 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 of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed that online can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes online game play a day was enough to create dramatic boosts in mood and long-term in happiness.
“I wish I’d had the courage to my true self.” Well, avatars are a way to express our true selves, most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. can see that in this alter ego portrait by Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford has been doing research for five years now to document how a game with an idealized avatar changes how we and act in real life, making us more courageous, ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led a true to my dreams, and not what others expected me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m not sure, I’ve left a Super Mario question mark. We’re going come back 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 my deathbed. But recently I 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 hit my 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, mental fog. My told me that in order to heal my brain, I had to rest it. So I to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that no reading, no writing, no video games, no work or email, running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I think you see this is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, but in seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It to one in three, and it happened to me. brain 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 that I started to legitimately fear for my life, which is the time that I said to myself 34 days — and I will never forget this moment — said, “I am either going to kill myself or I’m going to turn this a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from researching the psychology of games for more than decade that when we play a game — and this is in the scientific literature — we tackle challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely reach out to others for help. I wanted to bring these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, I created a role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this my new secret identity, and the first thing I did as a slayer was my twin sister — I have an identical twin sister named Kelly — and her, “I’m playing a game to heal my brain, and I want to play with me.” This was an easier way to for help.
She became my first ally in the game, husband Kiyash joined next, and together we identified and the bad guys. Now this was anything that could trigger symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, things like bright lights and crowded spaces. We collected and activated power-ups. This was anything I could do on even worst day to feel just a little bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my 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 allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even 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 for more than a year, and was the hardest year of my life by far. But even I still had the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. I put some blog posts and videos online, explaining how to play. But not has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to be “the slayer,” I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people all over the world who were their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from their messages and their that the game was helping them in the same that it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about better understood by their friends and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even though they in pain, even though they were tackling the toughest of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, is going on here? I mean, how could a game trivial intervene so powerfully in such serious, and in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t 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 stronger happier after a traumatic event. And that’s what was to us.
The game was helping us experience what call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually hear about. We usually hear post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know that a traumatic doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as springboard to unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are the top five things that with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m afraid to do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I who I really am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and purpose my life.” “I’m better able to 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 of the top five regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability to lead a with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get trauma to growth? Or better yet, is there a way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic without the trauma, without having to hit your head in first place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to the phenomenon better, so I devoured the scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. are four kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are validated activities that you can do every day to up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t a trauma to do it.
I could tell you what these four of strength are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all start them up together right now. Here’s what we’re going do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where earn the seven and a half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you to do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I like you can do it. I have 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, them 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 +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can withstand stress and heal itself faster. We know from the research the number one thing you can do to boost 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 next quest? I want you to your fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards from 100 seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the counting 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 resilience, which means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower actually works like a muscle. It stronger the more you exercise it. So tackling a tiny without giving up, even 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 number three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s determined this for you, but here are the two options. If you’re inside, a window and look out of it. If you’re outside, find a and look in. Or do a quick YouTube or image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it on your phones, just shout out some baby animals, and I’ll put on the screen. So, what do we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. Baby dolphin and baby llamas. look. Got that? Okay, one more. Baby elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re for that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, what we’re feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you have the ability to provoke powerful, emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s secret from the scientific literature for you. If you can manage to experience three positive emotions every one negative emotion over the course of an hour, day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully tackle any you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, so it up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s hand six seconds, or send someone a quick thank you by text, email, 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, your neighbors, your family, community. Now, a great way to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch even better.
Here’s one more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. means that all of you who just shook hands are primed to like and want to help each other. This will linger during break, so take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed your quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission to give you seven and a half of bonus life. Now I get to share one little bit of science with you. It turns out people who regularly boost these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and — live 10 years longer than everyone else. So this is true. If you are regularly the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never sitting for more than an hour at 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, will live 10 years longer than everyone else, and here’s where math I showed you earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy in the U.S. the U.K. is 78.1 years, but we know from than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 of life by boosting your four types of resilience. So every 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 single day, you earning 184 minutes of life, or every single hour you are boosting your four types of resilience, like we did together, you are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those and a half minutes are all yours. You totally them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still have your mission, your secret mission. How are you going to these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. seven and a half bonus minutes are kind of genie’s wishes. You can use your first wish to wish for million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these seven and a half minutes today doing that makes you happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts you in 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 the good is, you can keep going like that. Every hour of the day, every day of your life, the way to your deathbed, which will now be 10 years than it would have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, you not have any of those top five regrets, because will have built up the strength and resilience to lead a life truer to dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have time to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)