I’m gamer, so I like to have goals. I like special and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m going to try increase the life span of every single person in this room seven and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven 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 math prove that it is possible. It won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, pay attention to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my gift you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you a secret mission too. Your mission is to figure out how want to spend your extra seven and a half minutes. 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 game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know what wants us to do with those minutes, she wants us to spend playing games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I made quite a habit of encouraging people to spend more playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, did propose that we should spend 21 billion hours week, as a planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot of time. It’s much time, in fact, that the number one unsolicited comment that have heard from people all over the world since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are and all, but on your deathbed, are you really to wish you spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — games are a waste of time that we will come regret — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a few ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and were in town for a game developers’ conference, turned around said — and I quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine to the end of your life and regretting all time.”
Now, I want to take this problem seriously. want games to be a force for good in world. I don’t want gamers to regret the time spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So I have thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns there is actually some scientific research on this question. It’s true. workers, the people who take care of us at end of our lives, recently issued a report on the most expressed regrets that people say when they are literally their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with today — the top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: wish I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I I had stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: I I had let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had courage to express my true self. And 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 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 were growing up. Well, we know playing games together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young School of Family Life reported that parents who spend more time video 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 Words With to stay in daily contact with real-life friends and family. A study from the University of Michigan showed that these games incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with people in our social network we would otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I I’d let myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help think of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a was enough to create dramatic boosts in mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d the courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized of who we might 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 game with 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 what others expected of me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve a Super Mario question mark. We’re going to come back this one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is game designer to be talking to us about deathbed regrets? it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve never on my deathbed. But recently I did spend three in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now let me tell you 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 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 my symptoms. me that meant no reading, no writing, no video games, no work or email, running, no 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 common with traumatic brain injuries. It 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 to myself after 34 days — and I will never forget this moment — said, “I am 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 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 recovery game called Jane Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, and the first thing I as a slayer was call my twin sister — I have an identical twin sister named — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to heal my brain, and I want to play with me.” This was an easier way ask for help.
She became my first ally in the game, my husband Kiyash next, and together we identified and battled the bad guys. Now this was that could trigger my symptoms and 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 to feel just a little bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking the block 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, within just a days of starting to play, that fog of depression and anxiety went away. just vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, and it the hardest year of my life by far. But even when I still had symptoms, even while I was still in pain, I suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. I up some blog posts and videos online, explaining how to play. not everybody has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, started hearing from people all over the world who were their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it for terminal diagnoses ALS. And I could tell from their messages and their videos that the was helping them in the same ways that it helped me. They talked about stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their friends family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even though they were in pain, even though they were the toughest challenge of their 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? mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s no I would have believed it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after a traumatic event. that’s what was happening to us.
The game was helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, is not something we usually hear about. We usually about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know that 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 five things that people with post-traumatic say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid to what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my and family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I really am now.” “I have new sense of meaning and purpose in my life.” “I’m better able to focus on goals and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, the top five traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially direct opposite of the top five regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, traumatic event can unlock our ability to lead a life with fewer regrets.
But how it work? How do you get from trauma to growth? Or yet, is there a way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic without the trauma, without having to hit your head in the 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 kinds strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and are scientifically 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 four types of strength are, but I’d rather you them firsthand. I’d rather we all 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 promised you earlier. All you to do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you do it. I have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This your first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up take three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise them over head as high as you can for five seconds, go! All right, I like the people both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That worth +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can withstand more stress and heal faster. We know from the research that the number one you can do to boost your physical resilience is to sit still. That’s all it takes. Every single second that you are not still, you are actively improving the health of your heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for next 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 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. know from the scientific research that willpower actually works like muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without 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 the room, fate’s really determined 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 look in. do a quick YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, and I’ll them on the screen. So, what do we want see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see 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 you have the ability provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we looking at baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a secret from the literature for you. If you can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative emotion over course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully any problem you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s hand for six seconds, or send someone a thank you by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, means you actually get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, great way to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is better.
Here’s one more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for seconds dramatically raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, that’s the trust hormone. That means that all of you just shook hands are biochemically primed to like and want help each other. This will linger during the break, so advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed your four quests, let’s if I’ve successfully completed my mission to give you seven and a minutes of bonus life. Now I get to share one more bit of science with you. It turns out that people who boost these four types of resilience — physical, mental, and social — 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 still for more than an hour at a time, you are reaching out to one person you care about every single day, if you are tiny goals to boost your willpower, you will live 10 years than everyone else, and here’s where that math I showed you earlier comes in.
So, the average life in the U.S. and the U.K. is 78.1 years, we know from more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you add 10 years of life by boosting your four types of resilience. 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 single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or every hour that you are boosting your four types of resilience, like we just did together, are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half 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 spend minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These and a half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. You can use first wish to wish for a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, you spend these seven and a half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, or that gets physically active, or puts you in touch with someone care about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going boost your resilience, so you’re going to earn more minutes.
And the good news is, you keep going like that. Every hour of the day, every of your life, all the way to your deathbed, which will now be 10 years later it would have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, will not have any of those top five regrets, because you will built up the strength and resilience to lead a life truer to your dreams. with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)