I’m gamer, so I like to have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s my mission for this talk: I’m going to try to increase the span of every single person in this room by and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because you watched talk.
Some of you are looking a little bit 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 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 with them, these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might be thinking yourself, I know what she wants us to do those minutes, she wants us to spend them playing games. Now this is totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite a habit encouraging people to spend more time playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, did propose that we should spend 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the one unsolicited comment that I have heard from people over the world since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are great all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to wish spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is pervasive — that games are a waste of time that we will to regret — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, story: Just a few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding that a friend and I were in town for a game developers’ conference, turned around and — and I quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to end of your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I want to take this problem seriously. I want 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, will we regret the time spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns out there is actually some scientific research this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take care of us at the of our lives, recently issued a report on the most expressed regrets that people say when they are literally on deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with you — the 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 had let 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, instead of others expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, no ever told one of 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 hear five deep human cravings that games actually help 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, with my when they were growing up. Well, we know that games together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Young University School of Family Life reported that parents who spend more time playing video games with their have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social games like FarmVille Words With Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life and family. A recent study from the University of Michigan showed these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help stay connected with people in our social network that we otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d let myself be happier.” Well, here can’t help but think of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently at East Carolina University that showed that online games can pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 of online game play a day was enough to create dramatic boosts in mood and long-term increases happiness.
“I wish I’d had the courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a way to our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. can see that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing research for five years to document how playing a game with an idealized avatar changes how we think and act in life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed our goals.
“I wish I’d led a life true my dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are games doing 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 designer to be talking to us about deathbed regrets? it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve been 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 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 triggered my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, video games, no work or email, no running, no alcohol, caffeine. In other words — and I think you see where is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of it’s meant to be funny, but in all seriousness, ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to one in three, and happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” said, “You’re never going to get better.” It said, “The pain will end.”
And these voices became so persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately for my life, which is the time that I said to myself after 34 — and I will never forget this moment — said, “I am either going to kill myself or I’m going turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from researching the psychology of games more than a decade that when we play a game — this is in the scientific literature — we tackle challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re 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 recovery game called the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, and the first I did as a slayer was call my twin — I have an identical twin sister named Kelly — tell 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, my husband joined next, and together we identified and battled the guys. Now this was anything that could trigger my symptoms therefore slow down the healing process, things like bright lights crowded spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. This was I could do on even my worst day to feel a little bit good, just a little bit productive. like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and around the block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even with a game so simple, within just couple days of starting to play, that fog of and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for the or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, and was the hardest year of my life by far. But when I still had the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the game me. I put up some blog posts and videos online, how to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started from people all over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell their messages and their videos that the game was helping them in the ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They about feeling better understood by their friends and family. they even talked about feeling happier, even though they were pain, even though they were tackling the toughest challenge their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, is going on 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 it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after a event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The game helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash our best qualities and lead lives.
Here are the top five things that people with post-traumatic growth say: “My have changed.” “I’m not afraid to do what makes me happy.” “I feel to my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I know I really am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and in my life.” “I’m better able to focus on my and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because 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 life with fewer regrets.
But does it 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 understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured the scientific literature, here’s what I learned. There are four kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities that you can do day to build up these four kinds of resilience, and don’t need a trauma to do it.
I could tell you these four types of strength are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d we all start building them up together right now. Here’s what we’re going do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where you earn seven and a half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All have to do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I like you can do it. I have confidence in you.
So, ready? This is your first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise them over your head as as you can for five seconds, go! All right, I like the people doing both. are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 physical resilience, which that your body can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. We know from the research that the 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 the health of your heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? I want to snap 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 people counting down from 100 interfere with 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 +1 mental resilience, which means you have more mental focus, discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower actually works like muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, even one absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated way 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. you’re inside, find a window and look out of it. you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or do a quick YouTube Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, do we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. 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 have the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, we feel looking at baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a secret from the literature for you. If you can manage to experience positive emotions for every one negative emotion over the course an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve health and your ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep it up.
All right, one, last quest: Shake someone’s hand for six seconds, or send someone a quick thank by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I love it! right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means actually get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a way to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the hormone. That means that all of you who just shook hands biochemically primed to like and want to help each other. This will during the break, so take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed mission to give you seven and a half minutes of bonus life. Now get to share one more little bit of science with you. It turns out that who regularly boost these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 years longer than else. So this is true. If you are regularly achieving three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never sitting still for than an hour at a time, if you are out to one person you care about every single day, you are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, 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 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 your four types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 years of life or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more of life, which means every single day, you are earning 184 minutes life, or every single hour that you are boosting your four types of resilience, like just did together, you are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes all yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still your special mission, your secret mission. How are you to spend these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. seven and a half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. You can use your wish to wish for a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if 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 to boost resilience, so you’re going to earn more minutes.
And the good news is, you can keep like that. Every hour of the day, every day of your life, all the way to deathbed, which will now be 10 years later than would have otherwise. And when you get there, more likely, you will not have any of those top five regrets, you will have built up the strength and resilience to lead a truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)