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 going try to increase the life span of every single person in room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a half minutes longer you would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some of you are looking little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I have math to prove that it is possible. won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay attention to the number at bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That 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 minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, I’m a game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know what she us to do with those minutes, she wants us to spend them playing games. Now this is totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite a habit of encouraging people to spend time 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 number one unsolicited comment that I have heard from people all over the world since I gave talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, on your deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so — that games are a waste of time that we come to regret — that I hear it literally I go. For example, true story: Just a few ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a friend I were in town for a game developers’ conference, around and said — and I quote — “I games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to the end of your life and regretting that 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 they spent playing, time that I encouraged them spend. So I have been thinking about this question a lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret the time we spent 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 take care of us the end of our lives, recently issued a report on most frequently expressed regrets that people say when they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what I to share with you today — the top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I wish hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish I had stayed in touch my friends. Number three: I wish I had let be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to express my true self. And number five: wish I’d lived a life true to my dreams, instead of what expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, no ever told one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent time playing video games,” but when I hear these five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but five deep human cravings that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, wish I hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, means, I wish I’d spent more time with my family, with kids when they were growing up. Well, we know that playing games together has tremendous family benefits. A study from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported that who spend more time 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 or Words With Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life and family. A recent 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 that we 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 trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed that online games can pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes online game play a day was enough to create boosts in mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I I’d had the courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars a way to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who 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 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 this yet? I’m 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 game designer to be talking to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never in a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently did spend three months in bed, wanting to die. Really to die.
Now let me tell you that story. It started years ago, when I hit my head and got a concussion. concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I left with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My told me that in order to heal my brain, I had rest it. So I had to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, writing, no video games, no work or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — I think you see where this is going — reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to one in three, it happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you to die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” It said, “The pain never end.”
And these voices became so persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately for my life, which is the time that I to myself after 34 days — and I will never forget this — I said, “I am either going to kill myself or I’m going to this into a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew researching the psychology of games for more than a that when we play a game — and this is in the scientific — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more to reach out to others for help. I wanted bring these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I a role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this my new secret identity, and the first thing I did a slayer was call my twin sister — I have an identical twin sister named — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to my brain, and I want you to play with me.” This an easier way to ask for help.
She became my first ally in game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together we identified battled the bad guys. Now this was anything that could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow the healing process, things like bright lights and crowded spaces. also collected and activated power-ups. This was anything I could do even my worst day to feel just a little bit good, just a little productive. Things like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or out of bed and walking around the block just once.
Now the game was that simple: a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even a game so simple, within just a couple days of starting to play, that fog depression 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 it the hardest year of my life by far. But even when I still had symptoms, even while I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now happened next with the 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 be “the slayer,” I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started from people all over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, their own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from their messages their videos that the game was helping them in the same ways that it me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood their friends and family. And they even talked about happier, even though they were in pain, even though they were tackling the toughest of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, what is on here? I mean, how could a game so trivial intervene so powerfully in serious, and in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s no way would have believed it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after traumatic event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The game was helping us experience scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to our best 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 do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I really now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and purpose in life.” “I’m better able to focus on my goals and dreams.”
Now, does sound 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 get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is there way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit head in the first place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, I devoured the scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four kinds of strength, or resilience, that to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities that you can every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, you don’t need a trauma to do it.
I tell you what these four types of strength are, but I’d rather you them firsthand. I’d rather we all start building them up together now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll play quick game together. This is where you earn the and a half minutes of bonus life that I promised earlier. All you have to do is successfully complete the first SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. I have confidence you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. Here we go. one: Stand up and take three steps, or make your hands fists, raise them over your head as high as can for five seconds, go! All right, I like people doing both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That worth +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can more stress and heal itself faster. We know from the research that the number one thing you do to boost your physical resilience is to not still. That’s all it takes. Every single second that you not sitting still, you are actively improving the health of heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your quest? I want you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, count backwards from 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people counting down from 100 interfere 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 mental resilience, means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific that willpower actually works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. So a tiny challenge without giving up, even one as absurd as snapping your fingers 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven actually a scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: Because of 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. you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or do a YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do on 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 we got. Baby 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, what we’re just feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, means you have the ability to provoke powerful, positive like curiosity or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, when need them most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific literature for you. you can manage to experience three positive emotions for one negative emotion over the course of an hour, day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and your to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one emotion ratio. It’s my 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! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which you actually get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, community. Now, a great way to boost social resilience is gratitude. is even better.
Here’s one more secret for you: someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises the level oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. means that all of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed like and want to help each other. This will during the break, so take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, have successfully completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed mission to give you seven and a half minutes bonus life. Now I get to share one more little bit of with you. It turns out that people who regularly these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional social — live 10 years longer than everyone else. So is true. If you are regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, you are never sitting still for more than an hour at a time, if you are reaching to one person you care about every single day, if you are tackling goals to boost your willpower, you will live 10 years longer than everyone else, and here’s where 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 more 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 years of by boosting your four types of resilience. So every single that you are boosting your four types of resilience, you’re earning .128 more years of life or 46 more of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means 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 a half minutes are all yours. You earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still your special mission, your secret mission. How are you going to these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and a half bonus are kind of like genie’s wishes. You can use your first wish to wish for a more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these seven and half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, or gets you physically active, or puts you in touch someone you care about, or even just tackling a challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, so you’re going earn more minutes.
And the good news is, you can keep going like that. Every of the day, every day of your life, all the way your deathbed, which will now be 10 years later than it have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, you will have any of those top five regrets, because you will have built up the strength and to lead a life truer to your dreams. And 10 extra years, you might even have enough time play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)