I’m a gamer, so I like have goals. I like 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 single person this room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, you live seven and a half minutes longer than you would otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some of you are looking little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I have math prove that 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 will be gift to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, have a secret mission too. Your mission is to out how you want to spend your extra seven a half minutes. And I think you should do unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know what she us to do with those minutes, she wants us to spend them playing games. Now is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite a habit encouraging people to spend more time playing games. For example, in my 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 lot time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the number one unsolicited that I have heard from people all over the world since I gave talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, on your deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so — that games are a waste of time that we will come regret — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, story: Just a few weeks ago, this cab driver, finding out that a friend and I were in town a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — and I quote — “I games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to the end your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I to take this problem seriously. I want games to a force for good in the world. I don’t gamers to regret the time they spent playing, time that I encouraged to spend. So I have been thinking about this question a lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret the time we playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns out there actually some scientific research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, people who take care of us at the end of our lives, recently a report on the most frequently expressed regrets that people say they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to with you today — the top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish I had in touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I had let myself happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life true to my dreams, of what others expected 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 regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear five deep human that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I wish hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, this means, wish I’d spent more time with my family, with my kids when they growing up. Well, we know that playing games together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham University School of Family Life reported that parents who spend more time playing video games with kids have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed touch with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social games FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay in daily with real-life friends and family. A recent study from University of Michigan showed that these games are incredibly relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with people in our network that we would otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t playing together.
“I wish I’d let myself be happier.” Well, here can’t help but think of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that 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 and long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d had the courage to my true self.” Well, avatars are a way to express our true selves, most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. You see that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has been research for five years now to document how playing a game with an idealized avatar changes how think and act in real life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to goals.
“I wish I’d led a life true to dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are games this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left a Super Mario question mark. We’re to come back to this one.
But in the meantime, you’re wondering, who is this game designer to be talking us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently I did spend three in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now let me tell that story. It started two years ago, when I my head and got a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I left with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, fog. My doctor told me that in order to my brain, I had to rest it. So I to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me meant no reading, no writing, no video games, no or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I think you see this is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common traumatic brain injuries. It happens to one in three, and it happened to me. brain started telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re going to get better.” It said, “The pain will never end.”
And voices became so persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately for my life, which is the time that I said myself after 34 days — and I will never this moment — I said, “I am either going kill myself or I’m going to turn this into game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from researching the of games for more than a decade that when we play game — and this is in the scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges with creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out others for help. I wanted to bring these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so created a role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became new secret identity, and the 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 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, my husband joined next, and together 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. 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 cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, getting out of bed and walking around the block once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt a identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even a game so simple, within just a couple days of starting to play, that fog of depression anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt like miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, and it was the hardest year of my by far. But 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 posts videos online, explaining how to play. But not everybody has concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to be “the slayer,” I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people all over the who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and they getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and chronic pain, depression Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. I could tell from their messages and their videos that the game was helping them the same ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their friends and family. And they even talked feeling happier, even though they were in pain, even though they were tackling the toughest of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, 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? mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s no way would have believed it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some 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 hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash our best and lead happier lives.
Here are the top five things that people with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities changed.” “I’m not afraid to do what makes me happy.” “I feel to my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. know who I really am now.” “I have a new sense meaning and purpose in my life.” “I’m better able to on my goals and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because top five traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite the top five regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It that somehow, a traumatic 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 the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, having to hit your head in the first place? would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities that you can every 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 strength are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d we all start building them up together right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll play quick game together. This is where you earn the seven and a minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you have to do is successfully the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like can do it. I have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up take three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise over your head as high as you can for five seconds, go! All right, like the people doing both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 physical resilience, means that your body can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. We know from the research that number one thing you can do to boost your physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s it takes. Every single second that you are not sitting still, you are actively improving the of your heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your quest? I want you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, count backwards from 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let people counting down from 100 interfere with your counting 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which means you more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We from the scientific research that willpower actually works like a muscle. It gets the more you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, even one as absurd as your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven is a scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: of the room, fate’s really determined this for you, here are the two options. If you’re inside, find a and look out of it. If you’re outside, find a and look in. Or do a quick YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do on your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, do we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see we got. Baby 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 just there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you have ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we looking at baby animals, when 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 over the course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s favorite 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 text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I love it! right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get more from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a way to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is 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 break, so take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you successfully completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission to you seven and a half minutes of bonus life. Now I get share one more little bit of science with you. It turns out that people regularly boost these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional social — live 10 years longer than everyone else. this is true. If you are regularly achieving the three-to-one emotion ratio, if you are never sitting still for more than an hour a time, if you are reaching out to one person care about every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals boost your willpower, you will live 10 years longer everyone else, and here’s where that math I showed you earlier comes in.
So, the average life 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 by boosting your four types of resilience. So every single year that you are boosting your types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of life 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, 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 a half minutes are yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still have your mission, your secret mission. How are you going to spend these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s suggestion. These seven and a half bonus 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 and a half minutes today doing something that makes happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts in touch with someone 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 good is, you can keep going like that. Every hour of the day, day 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 have built up the strength and resilience to lead a truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even enough time to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)