I’m a gamer, so I like have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission for talk: I’m going to try to increase the life span of every person in this room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, you will seven and a half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, because you watched this talk.
Some of you are looking a little skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I have to prove that it is possible. It won’t make much now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay attention to number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be gift to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. Your mission to figure out how you want to spend your extra seven and a half minutes. And I you should do something unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might be to yourself, I know what she wants us to do with those minutes, she wants us spend them playing games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given I have made quite a habit of encouraging people spend more time 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 unsolicited that I have heard from people all over the since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are great all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent more playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games are waste of time that we will come to regret — that I it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, this cab driver, finding out that a friend and I were in town for game 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, want to take this problem seriously. I want games to be a force for good in world. I don’t want gamers to regret the time they spent playing, time I encouraged them to spend. So I have been thinking about this question lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret time we spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns out there is actually some research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people take care of us at the end of our lives, recently a report on the most frequently expressed regrets that people say when they are on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to with you today — the top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: wish I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish had stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to express my self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life to my dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, as as I know, no one ever told one of the workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” but when I hear these top five regrets of dying, I can’t help but hear five deep human cravings that games actually 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 my kids they were growing up. Well, we know that playing games together has family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported that who spend more time playing video games with their kids have stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” of millions of people use social games like FarmVille Words With Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life friends family. A recent study from the University of Michigan showed that games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay with people in our social network that we would otherwise distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed that online games can pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a day enough to create dramatic 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 express our selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. can see that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University been doing research for five years now to document playing a game with an idealized avatar changes how we think and act in life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed our goals.
“I wish I’d led a life true to my dreams, not what others expected of me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left Super 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 in a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But I did spend three months in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now me tell you that story. It started two years ago, when I hit my head and got a concussion. concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I was left with symptoms nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told me that in to heal my brain, I had to rest it. So I had to everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, writing, no video games, no work or email, no running, alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I 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, and it to me. My brain started telling 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 persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for my life, which is the that 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 going turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? I from researching the psychology of games for more than a that when we play a game — and this in the scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out to others for help. wanted to bring these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery game Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, and the thing I did as a slayer was call my twin sister — I have an twin sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m a game to heal my brain, and I want to play with me.” This was an easier way to for help.
She became my first ally in the game, husband Kiyash joined next, and together we identified and the bad guys. Now this was anything that could trigger symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, things like bright and crowded spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. This was anything I do on even my worst day to feel just a little good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking the block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even with a game so simple, within just a couple days of to play, that fog of depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. it wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for than a year, and it was the hardest year of life by far. But even when I still had symptoms, even while I was still in pain, I suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. I up some blog posts and videos online, explaining how to play. But not has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I hearing from people all over the world who were their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from their messages their videos that the game was helping them in same ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. talked about feeling better understood by their friends and family. And they even about feeling happier, even though they were in pain, though they were tackling the toughest challenge of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m to myself, what is going 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 it hadn’t for me, there’s no way I would have believed it possible. Well, it turns out there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after traumatic event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The was helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash best qualities and lead 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 know who I really now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and in 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 growth are essentially the direct of the top five regrets of the dying. Now is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a traumatic can unlock our ability to lead a life with fewer regrets.
But does it work? How do you get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is a way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without trauma, without having to hit your head in the first place? That would be good, right?
I to understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured the literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities you can do every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a to do it.
I could tell you what these four of strength are, but I’d rather you 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 a quick together. This is where you earn the seven and a half minutes of bonus life that I promised earlier. All you have to do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel you can do it. I have confidence in you.
So, ready? This is your first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise over your head as high as you can for seconds, go! All right, I like the people doing both. You overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can withstand stress and heal itself faster. We know from the research that the number one you can do to boost your physical resilience is to not 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 lungs and brains.
Everybody for your next quest? I want you to snap 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 your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve seen that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s +1 mental resilience, which means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We from the 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 counting backwards 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here are the 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 on your phones, or just shout out some animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, what we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s what we got. Baby dolphin and baby llamas. Everybody look. 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 have ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, when need them most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific for you. If you can manage to experience three emotions for every one negative emotion over the course of an hour, a day, 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 favorite trick, so keep it up.
All right, pick one, quest: Shake someone’s hand for six seconds, or send a quick thank you by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I love it! All right, everybody, is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get more 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 secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. means that all of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed to and want to help each other. This will linger during the break, so take advantage the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission to give you seven a half minutes of bonus life. Now I get to one more little bit of science with you. It turns out that people who regularly these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 years longer than 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 hour at a time, if you are reaching out to person you care about every single day, if you are tiny goals to boost your willpower, you will live 10 years longer than everyone else, and here’s that math I showed you earlier comes in.
So, average life expectancy in the U.S. and the U.K. is 78.1 years, we know from more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 of life by boosting your four types of resilience. every single year that you are boosting your four of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which every single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or every single hour you are boosting your four types of resilience, like just did together, you are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, seven and a half minutes are all yours. You totally 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 seven and a half minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. You can your first wish to wish for a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these seven a half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, or that you physically active, or puts you in touch with someone you care about, or even just a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, you’re going to earn more minutes.
And the good news is, you keep going like that. Every hour of the day, every day of your life, all the way your deathbed, which will now be 10 years later it would have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, you will not have any of 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 have enough time to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)