I’m a gamer, so I like to goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m going to to increase the life span of every single person in this room by seven a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a half minutes longer than you would otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some of you looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check out — I have math to prove that it possible. It won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay attention to the at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, have a secret mission too. Your mission is to figure out how you want to your extra seven and a half minutes. And I you should do something unusual with them, because these bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, I’m a game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know what she wants us to do with minutes, she wants us to spend them playing games. this is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have quite a habit of encouraging people to spend more playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, I did propose that we should 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, playing games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot of time. It’s so time, in fact, that the number one unsolicited comment that I have from people 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 wish spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is pervasive — that games are a waste of time that we will come regret — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: a few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out a friend and I 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 of life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I want take this problem seriously. I want games to be a force good in the world. I don’t want gamers to the time they spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. I have been thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret time we spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, it turns out there is actually some scientific research this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take care of us at the end of lives, recently issued a report on the most frequently 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: 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 courage to express my true self. And number five: I I’d lived a life true to my dreams, instead of what others of me.
Now, as far as I know, no one ever one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent time playing video games,” but when I hear these top five regrets of dying, I can’t help but hear five deep human that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. For people, this means, I wish I’d spent more time 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 Young University of Family Life reported that parents who spend more time playing video games with their kids have much real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use games like FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay in contact with real-life friends and family. A recent study from the of Michigan showed that these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us connected with people in our social network that we would otherwise grow from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d let myself be happier.” Well, I can’t help but think of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina that showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety depression. Just 30 minutes of online game 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 Robbie Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing research for years now to document how playing a game with an idealized avatar changes how we think and in real life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I I’d led a life true to my dreams, and not what expected of me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left a Mario question mark. We’re going to come back to this one.
But in the meantime, you’re wondering, who is this game designer to be to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve been on my deathbed. But recently I did spend three months bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now let me tell you story. It started two years ago, when I hit head and got a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and 30 days, I was left with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, fog. My doctor told me that in order to heal brain, I had to rest it. So I had to avoid everything triggered my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, no games, no work or email, no running, no alcohol, caffeine. In other words — and I think you see where this going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant be funny, but 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 me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re never to get better.” It said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices became so persistent and persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for my life, which is the that I said to myself after 34 days — and I never forget this moment — I said, “I am either going to kill myself or I’m to turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from researching psychology of games for more than a decade that when we play a game — this is in the scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out others for help. I wanted to bring these gamer to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery game called Jane the 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 her, “I’m playing a game to heal my brain, and I want you to play me.” This was an easier way to ask for help.
She my first ally in the game, my husband Kiyash next, and together we identified and battled the bad guys. Now this was anything 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 was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even with 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 miracle cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted more than a year, and it was the hardest year my life by far. But even when I still had the symptoms, even while was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the game me. I 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,” so I the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from all over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from their messages and their videos that the game helping them in the same ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their friends and family. they even talked about feeling happier, even though they were pain, even though they were tackling the toughest challenge their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, is going on here? I mean, how could a so trivial intervene so powerfully in such serious, and in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, it hadn’t worked for me, there’s no way I would have believed it was possible. Well, it out there’s some 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 what 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 doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to 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 and family.” “I understand myself better. I who I really am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and purpose my life.” “I’m better able to focus on my goals and dreams.”
Now, does this familiar? It should, because the top five traits of post-traumatic are essentially the direct opposite of the top five regrets of 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 to growth? 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 understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured the scientific literature, 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 can do every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, you don’t need a trauma to do it.
I tell you what these four types of strength are, I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all building them up together right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll play a quick together. This is where you earn the seven and a half minutes of life that I promised you earlier. All you have to do successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I 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 you can for 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 withstand more stress and itself faster. We know from the research that the number one thing you do to boost your physical resilience is to not still. That’s all it takes. Every single second that you not sitting still, you are actively improving the health of your heart, and your and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? I want you snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people counting down from 100 interfere 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, discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower actually works a muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, even one 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: of the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but are the two options. If you’re inside, find a window and out 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 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. Baby dolphin and 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 feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, you need them most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific literature for you. If you can to experience 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 to 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, quest: Shake someone’s hand for six seconds, or send someone a quick thank by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. it up. I love it! All right, everybody, that +1 social resilience, which means you actually get more strength from your friends, neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way to boost social resilience is gratitude. is 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 are biochemically primed to like and want to help other. This 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 give you seven and a half minutes of bonus life. Now get to share one more little bit of science with you. turns out that people who regularly boost these four of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — 10 years longer than everyone else. So this is true. If you are regularly the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never sitting for more than an hour at a time, if you reaching out to one person you care about every single day, you are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, you will live 10 years longer than else, and here’s where that math I showed you earlier in.
So, the average life 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 boosting your four types of resilience. So every single year that you are boosting your four types resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of life or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 minutes of 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 earning 7.68245837 more of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes are all yours. You earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still have your special mission, secret mission. How are you going to spend these of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven a half bonus minutes 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 half today doing something that makes you happy, or that gets you active, or puts you in touch with someone you about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, so you’re going to more minutes.
And the good news is, you can keep going like that. hour of the day, every day of your life, all way to 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 any of those top five regrets, because you have built up the strength and resilience to lead a life truer to your dreams. And 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to play few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)