I’m a gamer, so I like to have goals. I special missions and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m to try to increase the life span of every person in this room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, will live seven and a half minutes longer than you 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 pay attention the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you 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 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 wants us to do with those minutes, she wants to spend them playing games. Now this is a totally assumption, given that I have made quite a habit of people to spend more time playing games. For example, my first TED Talk, I did propose that we should spend 21 billion hours a week, as 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 world 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 Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games are a of time that we will come to regret — that I hear it literally I go. For example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, this driver, upon finding out that a friend and I were in town a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — I quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to the of your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, want to take this problem seriously. I want games to a force for good in the world. I don’t want gamers to regret the 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, will we regret the time 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 care of us at end of our lives, recently issued a report on the most frequently expressed that people say when they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to with you today — the top five regrets of dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. two: I wish I had stayed in touch with friends. Number three: I wish I had let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d the courage to express my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life true to dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, as as I know, no one ever told one of hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing games,” but when I hear these top five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear deep human cravings that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, wish I hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, this means, wish I’d spent more time with my family, with my kids when were growing up. Well, we know that playing games together tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University of Family Life reported that parents 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 people use social games like FarmVille or Words Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life friends and family. A study from the University of Michigan showed that these are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay with people in our social network that we would otherwise grow distant from, we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d let myself happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of the clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical 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 courage to express my self.” Well, avatars are a way to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of we might become. You can see that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing research for five years now to document how playing a with an idealized avatar changes how we think and act real life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led a true to my dreams, and not what others expected me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left a Super 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 talking to about deathbed 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 in bed, wanting to die. wanting to die.
Now let me tell you that story. It started two ago, when I hit my head and got a concussion. concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I was left with symptoms like headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor me that in order to heal my brain, I to rest it. So I had to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant reading, no writing, no video games, no work or email, no running, alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I think see where this is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of it’s meant to be funny, but in all seriousness, ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to in three, and it happened to me. My brain telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re never going to 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 I will never forget this — I said, “I am either going to kill myself or I’m to turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? knew from researching the psychology of games for more than decade that when we play a game — and this in the scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges 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 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 did as a slayer was call my twin sister — I an identical twin sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing a to heal my brain, and I want you to with me.” This was an easier way to ask help.
She became my first ally in the game, husband Kiyash joined next, and together we identified and battled the bad guys. Now was anything that could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, things like bright lights crowded spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. This was anything I could on even my worst day to feel just a bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like my dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of and walking around the block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even a game so simple, within just a couple days starting to play, that fog of depression and anxiety went away. It vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, 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 with the game surprised me. put up some blog posts and videos online, explaining how to play. But not everybody a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to be “the slayer,” I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people all over the world who adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could from their messages and their videos that the game was helping them in same ways that it helped me. They talked about stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, though they were in pain, even though they were the toughest 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, and in some 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 a 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 usually hear about. We usually hear post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know that a event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash 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 closer to friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I really am now.” “I have a sense of meaning and purpose in my life.” “I’m able to focus on my goals and dreams.”
Now, does sound familiar? It should, because the top five traits post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of the top five regrets of the dying. Now is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our to lead a life with fewer regrets.
But how does work? How do you get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, there a way to get 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 the phenomenon better, so I the scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four kinds of strength, resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities that you can do day to build up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a trauma do it.
I could tell you what these four types of strength are, but I’d rather 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 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. I feel like you can do it. I have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This your first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, or your hands into fists, raise them over your head as high as you for five seconds, go! All right, I like the people doing both. 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. know from the research that the number one thing can do to boost your physical resilience is to sit still. That’s all it takes. Every single second that you are sitting still, you are actively improving the health of your heart, and your and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? I you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards from 100 seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let people counting down from 100 interfere with your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower actually works like a muscle. gets stronger the more you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without up, even one as absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: of the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here the two options. If you’re inside, find a window and look out of it. you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or do a quick YouTube or Google search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it on your phones, or shout out some baby animals, and I’ll put them on screen. So, what do we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. dolphin and baby llamas. Everybody look. Got that? Okay, more. Baby elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re clapping for that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, what we’re feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you have the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a secret the scientific literature for you. If you can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative over the course of an 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 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 up. I love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way to boost social is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six dramatically raises the level 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. This will linger during the break, take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission to give you seven and half minutes of bonus life. Now I get to share one more little bit of science you. It turns out that people who regularly boost these four types of — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 longer than everyone else. So this is true. If you are regularly achieving three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never sitting still for more than an 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, and here’s where that I showed 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 than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you add 10 years of life by boosting your four types of resilience. So every single year that you boosting your four types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more minutes life, which means every single day, you are earning 184 of life, or every single hour that you are boosting your four 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 still have your special mission, secret mission. How are you going to spend these minutes bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. You use your first wish to wish for a million wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these seven and a half minutes today something that makes you happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts you in touch with you care about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost resilience, so you’re going to earn more minutes.
And the news is, you can keep going like that. Every hour of the day, every day of life, all the way to your deathbed, which will now 10 years later than it would have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, you not have any of those top five regrets, because you will have built up the and resilience to lead a life truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, might even have enough time to play a few games.
Thank you.
(Applause)