I’m a gamer, so like 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 this talk.
Some you are looking 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 all later, just 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 too. Your mission is to figure out how you to spend your extra seven and a half minutes. And I think should do something unusual with them, because these are minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, I’m a game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, know what she wants us to do with those minutes, wants us to spend them playing games. Now this is totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite a of encouraging people to spend more time playing games. example, in my first TED Talk, I did propose that we should spend 21 hours a week, as a planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s lot of time. It’s so much time, in fact, the number one unsolicited comment that I have heard from all over the world since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are and all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to wish spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea so pervasive — that games are a waste of time that will come to regret — that I hear it everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and I were town for a game developers’ conference, turned around and — and I quote — “I hate games. Waste life. Imagine getting to the end of your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I want to this problem seriously. I want games to be a for good in the world. I don’t want gamers to regret the time they spent playing, time that encouraged them to spend. So I have been thinking about this a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we the time we spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but turns out there is actually some scientific research on question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take of us at the end of our lives, recently a report on the most frequently expressed regrets that people say when they are on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with you today — top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish I had in touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I 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 true to my dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, far as I know, no one ever told one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d more time playing video games,” but when I hear these five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear deep human cravings that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t worked hard. For many people, this means, I wish I’d spent more time with family, with my kids when they were growing up. Well, we know that playing together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young School of Family Life reported that parents who spend more playing video games with their kids have much stronger real-life with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social games like FarmVille or Words With Friends stay in daily contact with real-life friends and family. A study from the University of Michigan showed that these games are incredibly 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 but think of the groundbreaking clinical recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical and depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a day enough to create dramatic boosts in mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I I’d had the courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a way to express our selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. You can that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing research for years now to document how playing a game with an idealized avatar changes we think and act in real life, making us more courageous, ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led a life to my dreams, and not what others expected of me.” games doing this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left a Super Mario question mark. We’re going to back to this one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this game designer to be talking us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve never on 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, after 30 days, I was left with symptoms like headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told that in order to heal my brain, I had to rest it. So had to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For that meant no reading, no writing, no video games, no or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and think you see where this is going — no reason live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, but in seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. happens to one in three, and it happened to me. My brain telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re going to get better.” It said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices became persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for my life, which is time that I said to myself after 34 days — and will never forget this moment — I said, “I either going to kill myself or I’m going to turn this a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from the psychology of games for more than a decade that when play a game — and this is in the scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges with creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to reach to others for help. I wanted to bring these gamer traits my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became new secret identity, and the first thing I did a slayer was call my twin sister — I have an identical twin sister named Kelly — and her, “I’m playing a game to heal my brain, and want you to play with me.” This was an easier to ask for help.
She became my first ally in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and we identified and battled the bad guys. Now this anything that could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow the healing process, things like bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected activated power-ups. This was anything I could do on even my worst day 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, your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even with a game simple, within just a couple days of starting to play, that fog of depression anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. it wasn’t a 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 had the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with game surprised me. I put up some blog posts and videos online, how to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from all over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And could tell from their messages and their videos that the game was helping them in the same that it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their friends and family. they even talked about feeling happier, even though they were in pain, even though 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 intervene 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 have believed it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier a traumatic event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The game was helping experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which 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, we can use it a springboard to unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are the top things that people with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities changed.” “I’m not afraid to do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my and 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 my 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 fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get from trauma growth? Or better yet, is there a way to all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to your head in the first place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand 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 scientifically validated activities you can do every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a 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 all start building them up together now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where earn the seven and a half minutes of bonus life that promised you earlier. All you have to do is successfully the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can it. I have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise them over your head as high you can for five seconds, go! All right, I the people doing both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. is worth +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can withstand more stress heal itself faster. We know from the research that number one thing you can do to boost your resilience is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. Every single second that you 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 snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards from 100 by seven, this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people counting down from 100 interfere 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 resilience, which means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. know from the scientific research that willpower actually works like a muscle. It gets stronger the you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, one as absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 or counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated way boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here are two options. If you’re inside, find a window and look of it. If you’re outside, find a window and in. Or do a quick YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it on phones, or 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 baby llamas. Everybody look. Got that? Okay, one more. Baby elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re clapping that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, what we’re just feeling there plus-one emotional resilience, which means you have the ability provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, when you them most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific literature for you. If you can manage to experience three emotions for every one negative emotion over the course of 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 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 you by text, email, or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I love it! All right, everybody, is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get more from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, great way to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically 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 like and want to help each other. This will linger the break, so take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you successfully completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission give you seven and a half minutes of bonus life. Now I get to one more little bit of science with you. It turns out that people who regularly boost 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 ratio, if you are never sitting still for more than hour at a time, if you are reaching out to person you care about every single day, if you are tackling tiny to boost your willpower, you will live 10 years than everyone else, and here’s where that math I showed earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy in the U.S. and the U.K. 78.1 years, but we know from more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific that you can add 10 years of life by boosting your four types resilience. So every single year that you are boosting your types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of life or 46 more days life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means every single day, are earning 184 minutes of life, or every single hour you are 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 have your special mission, your secret mission. How are you to spend 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 use your first wish to wish a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these seven a half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, or gets you 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, can keep going like that. Every hour of the day, every of your life, all the way to your deathbed, which now be 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, because will have built up the strength and resilience to a life truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even enough time to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)