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