I’m a gamer, so I like 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 little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I have math to prove it is possible. It won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, pay attention to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my gift to you if I’m in my mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. Your mission is to out how you want to spend your extra seven and a minutes. And I think you should do something unusual with them, these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know she wants us to do with those minutes, she wants us to spend playing games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, that I have made quite a habit of encouraging people to spend more playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, I did that we should spend 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, video 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 great and all, but on your deathbed, are you really to wish you spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea so pervasive — that games are a waste of time we will come to regret — that I hear it everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon 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 end your 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 want gamers to regret the they spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So I been thinking about this question a lot 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 is actually some research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take care of us the end of our lives, recently issued a report the most frequently expressed regrets that people say when are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share you today — the top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. two: I 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 wish I’d a life true to my dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, as far as know, no one ever 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 hear five 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 when they were growing up. Well, we know that playing games together has family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University 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 in touch 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 the University of Michigan showed that these games are incredibly relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with people in our social network that would otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I I’d let myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently at East Carolina University that showed that online games can outperform for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play day was enough to create dramatic boosts in mood and long-term increases happiness.
“I wish I’d had the courage to express my self.” Well, avatars are a way to express our true selves, most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. You can see that in this alter ego by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has doing research for five years now to document how playing a game with an avatar 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 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 one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this game to be talking to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve never on 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 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 told me that in order to heal my brain, I to rest it. So I had to avoid everything triggered my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, no video games, work or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. other words — and I think you see where is 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. It happens one in three, and it happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you want die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” It said, “The pain never end.”
And these voices became so persistent and so persuasive that I to legitimately fear for my life, which is the that I said to myself after 34 days — and will never forget this moment — I said, “I am going to kill myself or I’m going to turn into a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from researching the psychology of games for than 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, we’re more likely to reach out to others for help. I wanted to bring these gamer to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my secret identity, and the first thing I did as slayer was call my twin sister — I have identical twin sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m a game to heal my brain, and I want you 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 battled the guys. Now this was anything that could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, things bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. was anything I could do on even my worst day to feel just a bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking around 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 with a game so simple, within just couple days of starting to play, that fog of depression anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That for more than a year, and it was the year of my life by far. But even when still had the symptoms, even while I was still pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with game surprised me. I put up some blog posts and online, explaining how to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I hearing from people all over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting 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 from their messages and their videos that the game was them in the same ways that it helped me. They talked feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their friends family. And 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, what is going on here? mean, how could a game so trivial intervene so powerfully in serious, and in some cases 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 out there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after a 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 hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a to unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are the top five things that people with post-traumatic say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid to do what makes happy.” “I feel closer to my friends and family.” “I myself better. I know who I really am now.” “I have new sense of meaning and purpose in my life.” “I’m better able 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 opposite of top five regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability to a life with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get trauma to growth? Or better yet, is there a way get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit your head in the place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, I devoured 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 do every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, and don’t need a trauma to do it.
I could you what these four types of strength are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather all start building them up together right now. Here’s we’re going to do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where you earn the seven a half minutes of bonus life that I promised earlier. All you have to do is successfully complete first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. I confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand and take three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise them your head as high as you can for five seconds, go! All right, I 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 the research that the number one thing you 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 heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for next quest? I want you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards 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 to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s first time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which means you have more focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower actually like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge giving up, even one as absurd as snapping your exactly 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven actually a scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.
So job. Quest number three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s determined this for you, but here are the two options. If you’re inside, find window and look out of it. If you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or a quick YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it on 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 what we got. Baby and baby llamas. Everybody look. Got that? Okay, one more. 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 the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions curiosity or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, when you need most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific literature for you. If you can to experience three positive emotions for every one negative emotion 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 the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite trick, so keep it up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s hand for six seconds, or someone a quick thank you by 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 more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. means that all of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed 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 and a half minutes of bonus life. Now I 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 — 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 more 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 your willpower, you will live 10 years longer than else, and here’s where that math I showed you earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy 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 of life by boosting your four types of resilience. So every single year that are boosting your four types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years life or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 minutes of life, which means every single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or single hour that you are boosting your four types of resilience, 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 your special mission, your secret mission. How are you going spend these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. seven and a half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. can use your first wish to wish for a million wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these seven and a half minutes today doing something makes you happy, or that gets you physically active, or you in touch with someone you care about, or just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, so you’re going 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 now 10 years later than it would have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, will not have any of those top five regrets, because you will built up the strength and resilience to lead a truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)