I’m a gamer, so I like to have goals. like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s my mission for this talk: I’m going to try to increase life span of every single person in this room by and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven a half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because watched this talk.
Some of you are looking a bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — have math to prove that it is possible. It won’t 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 you if I’m in 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 think you do something unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, know what she wants us to do with those minutes, she wants to spend them playing games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given I have made quite a habit of encouraging people to spend more playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, I did propose that we spend 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 hours, it’s a 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 great all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to you spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea so pervasive — that games are a waste of time that we come to regret — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and I were in town for a developers’ conference, turned around and said — and I quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. getting to the end of 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 want gamers regret the time they spent playing, time that I encouraged to spend. So I have been thinking about this question a lot lately. we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, may surprise you, but it turns out there is some scientific research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people take care of us at the end of our lives, issued a report on the most frequently expressed regrets that people say when they literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want share with you today — the top five regrets of dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish I had stayed touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I had let myself happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to my true self. And number five: I wish I’d a life true to my dreams, instead of what expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, one ever told one of the hospice workers, “I I’d spent more time playing video games,” but when I these top five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but five deep human cravings that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. many people, this 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 benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School of Family reported that parents who spend more time playing video games with kids have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” Hundreds of of people use social games like FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay in daily contact real-life friends and family. A recent study from the University of Michigan showed that these are 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 games together.
“I wish I’d let myself be happier.” Well, I can’t help but think of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted East Carolina University that showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a day was enough to create boosts in mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d had the to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a way to our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we become. You can see that in this alter ego by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And University has been doing research for five years now to document how playing a with an idealized avatar changes how we think and act in real life, us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led life true to my dreams, and not what others expected me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m not sure, I’ve left a Super Mario question mark. We’re going to come back to this one.
But in meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this game designer to be to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But I did spend three months in bed, wanting to die. Really to die.
Now let me tell you that story. It 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 to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me meant no reading, no writing, no video games, no work or email, running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and think you see where this is going — no to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. happens to one in three, and it happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you to die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices became so and so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for life, which is the time that I said to after 34 days — and I 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 researching the psychology of games for than a decade that when we play a game — this is in the scientific literature — we tackle tough with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out to for help. I wanted to bring these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I a role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my secret identity, and the first thing I did as a slayer was call my twin sister — have an identical twin sister named Kelly — and her, “I’m playing a game to heal my brain, and I you to play with me.” This was an easier way to ask help.
She became my first ally in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together we and battled the bad guys. Now this was anything that could my symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, things like bright lights and crowded spaces. also collected and activated power-ups. This was anything I could do on even my worst day to just a little bit good, just a little bit productive. like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or getting of bed and walking around the block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even with game so simple, within just a couple days of starting to play, that fog of depression and anxiety away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for the or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, and it was the hardest year of life by far. But even when I still had the symptoms, even I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now happened next with the game surprised me. I put up blog posts and videos online, explaining how to play. But not everybody has concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, they were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. people were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. I could tell from their messages and their videos the game was helping them in the same ways that it me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about better understood by their friends and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even they were in pain, even though they were tackling the challenge of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, what is going on here? mean, how could a game so trivial intervene so powerfully in such serious, in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s no I would have believed it was possible. Well, it turns there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after traumatic event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The game helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are the top five things people with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my friends family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I really 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 the top five of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of the top five regrets of the dying. this is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability to a life with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is there a way to get all 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, so I devoured scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are validated activities that you can do every day to build up these four of resilience, and you 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 rather we start building them up together right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll play a game together. This is where you earn the seven a half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you have do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. Here go. Pick one: Stand up and 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 people doing both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 physical resilience, which means that body can withstand more stress and heal itself 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 you are not sitting still, you are actively improving the health of heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? I you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or count from 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t the people counting down from 100 interfere with your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s first time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you 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 actually a validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. number three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined for you, but here are the two options. If you’re inside, find a window and look of it. If you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or do a quick or Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, and I’ll put them 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 for that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, what we’re just feeling there is plus-one resilience, which means you have the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions curiosity or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, when you need most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific literature for you. If can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative emotion over the course an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health your ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s for six seconds, or send someone a quick thank you text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. it up. I love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 resilience, which means you actually get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, community. Now, a 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 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 to like and want to help each other. will linger during the break, so take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my to give you seven and a half minutes of bonus life. Now I get to share one little 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 regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you 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 tiny to boost your willpower, you will live 10 years than everyone else, and here’s where that math I you earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy in U.S. and the U.K. is 78.1 years, but we 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 actually earning .128 more years life or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more of life, which means every single day, you 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 earning 7.68245837 minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes are all yours. totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still have special mission, your secret mission. How are you going spend these 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 your first to wish for a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if spend these seven and a half minutes today doing something that makes happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts you in touch with someone you care about, even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to your resilience, so you’re going to earn more minutes.
And good news is, you can keep going like that. hour 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 not have any those top five regrets, because you will have built up the strength and resilience lead a life truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have enough to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)