I’m a gamer, so I to have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission for talk: I’m going to try to increase the life of every single person in this room by seven and half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a half 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 math to prove that it is possible. It won’t make much 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 I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. Your mission is to figure how you want to spend your extra seven and a 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 thinking to yourself, I know what she wants us do with those minutes, she wants us to spend playing games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have quite a habit of encouraging people to spend more time 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 the number unsolicited 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 to wish you spent time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games a waste of time that we will come to regret — that hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a weeks 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 getting to the end your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I to take this problem seriously. I want games to a force for good in the world. I don’t gamers to regret the time they 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, we regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, may surprise you, but it turns out there is actually some 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 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 the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish had stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: wish 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 to my dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, no one told one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing games,” but when I hear these top five regrets the dying, I can’t help but hear five deep human cravings games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I wish 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, know that playing games together has tremendous family benefits. A recent from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported that who spend more time playing video games with their have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d in touch with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of use social games like FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay in daily with real-life friends and family. A recent study from the University of Michigan showed that games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay with people in our social network that we would grow distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes of 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, are a way to express our true selves, our most heroic, version of who we might become. You can see that in alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing for five years now to document how playing a game with idealized avatar changes how we think and act in real life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led a true 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 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 bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now let me tell you that story. started two years ago, when I hit my head and got concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I was left with symptoms like headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told me in order to heal my brain, I had to rest it. So I had avoid everything that 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 where this is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, but all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic injuries. It happens to one in three, and it happened me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you want die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices became so persistent and so persuasive I started to legitimately fear for my life, which is the that I said to myself after 34 days — I will never forget this moment — I said, “I either going to kill myself or I’m going to this into a game.”
Now, why a game? I from researching the psychology of games for more than a decade when we play a game — and this is in scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, we’re more likely to reach out 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 became my new secret identity, and the first thing I did as a 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 was an easier to ask for help.
She became my first ally in game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together we identified and battled the bad guys. Now this anything that could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down the 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 little bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, getting out of bed and walking around the block just once.
Now game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. even with a game so simple, within just a couple days starting to play, that fog of depression and anxiety away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. it wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, and it was the hardest year of my by far. But even when I still had the symptoms, while I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now happened next with the game surprised me. I put some blog posts and videos online, explaining how to play. not everybody has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants 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 own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell their messages and their videos that the game was helping them in the same ways that helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked feeling better understood by their friends and family. And they even about feeling happier, even though they were in pain, even though they were tackling toughest challenge 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 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 it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after a traumatic event. And that’s what was happening us.
The game was helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, is not something we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic disorder. But scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are the 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 who really am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and purpose my life.” “I’m better able to focus on my and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because the top five traits of post-traumatic growth are the direct opposite 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 life fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get from trauma to growth? better yet, is there a way to get all the of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit your head the first place? That would be good, right?
I to understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured the scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities that you do every day to build 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 experience them firsthand. I’d we all start building them up together right now. Here’s we’re going to do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where you earn the and a half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. you have 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 is first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise over your head as high as you can for seconds, go! All right, I like the people doing both. are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That worth +1 physical resilience, which means that your body withstand more stress and heal itself faster. We know the research that the number one thing you can do to your physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s 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 for your 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 counting down from 100 interfere with your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which means have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific research willpower actually works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, even one absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven is a scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined this you, but here are the two options. If you’re inside, find a window 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, or just shout out some animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do we to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see we got. Baby dolphin and baby llamas. Everybody look. that? Okay, one more. Baby elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re for that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, what we’re just there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you have ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel at baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s secret from the scientific literature for you. If you can manage to three positive emotions for every one negative emotion over the course of hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability to tackle any problem you’re facing. And this is called three-to-one positive 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 quick 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, which means actually get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, 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 dramatically raises the of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. means that all of you who just shook hands biochemically primed to like and want to help each other. will linger during the break, so take advantage of the opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission to give seven and a half minutes of bonus life. Now I get to share one more little bit science with you. It turns out that people who regularly boost these four types of — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 years longer than else. So this 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 are reaching out to one person you care about every single day, you are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, you will 10 years longer than everyone else, and here’s where that math I you earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy in the U.S. the U.K. is 78.1 years, but we know from more 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 years life by boosting your four types of resilience. So every single year that you are boosting your types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of life or 46 days of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, every single 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 minutes all yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. still have your special mission, your secret mission. How are going to spend these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s suggestion. These seven and a half bonus minutes are of like genie’s wishes. You can use your first wish to wish for million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend 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 to 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 will now be 10 years later it would have otherwise. And when you get there, more likely, you will not have any of those top regrets, because you will have built up the strength and resilience to a life truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)