I’m a gamer, so 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 life span every single person in this room by seven and half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, 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 it is possible. It won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain all later, just pay attention to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That be my gift to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, have a secret mission too. Your mission is to figure out how want to spend your extra seven and a half minutes. I think you should do something unusual with them, because these bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you be 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, that I have made quite a habit of encouraging people to spend more playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, I did that we should 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, that the number one comment that I have heard from people all over the since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, but on deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent more time playing Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games are a waste of time we will come to regret — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out 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 the of your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I want to this problem seriously. I want games to be a force for in the world. I don’t want gamers to regret the time they playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So have been thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret the we spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns out there actually some scientific research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take care of at the end of our lives, recently issued a report on the most frequently expressed regrets that say when they are literally on their 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 let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the to express my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life true my dreams, instead of what 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 when I these top five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear five deep human cravings that actually help us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t so hard. For many people, this means, I wish I’d spent time with my family, with my kids when they were growing up. Well, we know that playing games has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham University School of Family Life reported that parents who spend more time playing video with their kids have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of people social games like FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay in contact with real-life friends and family. A recent study from the University of showed that these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with people in social network that we would otherwise grow distant from, we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d let be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently at East Carolina University that showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes of online 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 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 five years now to document how playing a game with an idealized changes how we think and act in real life, making more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led a life true my dreams, and not what others expected of me.” games doing this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left 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? And it’s true, I’ve worked in a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently I spend three months in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now me tell you that story. It started two years ago, I hit my head and got a concussion. The didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I was left with symptoms nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My told me that in order to heal my brain, I to rest it. So I had to avoid everything that my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, no games, no work or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. other words — and I think you see where this is — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, but in seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to in three, and it happened to me. My brain started me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re never going get better.” It said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices 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 moment — I said, “I either going to kill myself or I’m going to turn into a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from the psychology of games for more than a decade when we play a game — and this is the scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more to reach out to others for help. I wanted to these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my secret identity, and the first thing I did as a slayer was call my twin — I have an identical twin sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m a game to heal my brain, and I want you play with me.” This was an easier way to ask for help.
She my first ally in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and we identified 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. We also and activated power-ups. This was anything I could do even my worst day to feel just a little good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking around block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate power-ups. But even with a game so simple, within just a days of starting to play, that fog of depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than year, and it was the hardest year of my life by far. even when I still had the symptoms, even while I was in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next the game surprised me. I put up some blog and videos online, explaining how to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, not everyone to be “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, started hearing from people all over the world who were adopting their secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges like and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. I could tell from their messages and their videos that the was helping them in the same ways that it helped me. talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by friends and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even though they were in pain, even though were tackling the toughest challenge of their lives.
Now at time, I’m thinking to myself, what is going on here? I mean, 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 a traumatic event. that’s what was happening to us.
The game was helping us experience scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually hear about. usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now 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 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 goals dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because the five traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of the top five of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability to lead life with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get from trauma to growth? Or yet, is there a way to get all the of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit your head in first place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured the literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four kinds strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated that you can do every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t a trauma to do it.
I could tell you these four types of strength are, but I’d rather you them firsthand. I’d rather 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 seven and a half minutes of bonus life that promised you earlier. All you have to do is successfully complete the first SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, make your hands into fists, raise them over your head as high as you can five seconds, go! All right, I like the people doing both. are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can more stress and heal itself faster. We know from the research the number one thing you can do to boost your physical resilience to not sit still. That’s all it takes. Every single that you are not sitting still, you are actively improving health of your heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for next quest? I want you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards 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 to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which means you have more focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know from 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 times or backwards from 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated way to 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. 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 “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it on your phones, or shout out some baby animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do we want see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. Baby and 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 there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you have the to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, we feel looking 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 an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my SuperBetter trick, so keep it up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s for six seconds, or send someone a quick thank you by text, email, Facebook Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means you get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises the level 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 to help each other. This will linger during the break, take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission to give you 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 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 ratio, if you are never sitting still for more than hour at a time, if you are reaching out to one person you care every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals to boost willpower, you will live 10 years longer than everyone else, here’s where 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 more than 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 four 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 day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or every single that you are boosting your four types of resilience, like we just together, you are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven a 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 going to spend 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 a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these seven and a minutes today doing something that makes you happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts you touch with someone you care about, or even just tackling a challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, so you’re going to earn minutes.
And the good news is, you can keep going that. Every hour of the day, every day of your life, all the way your deathbed, which will now be 10 years later than it would have otherwise. And when get there, more than likely, you will not have of 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 time play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)