I’m gamer, so I like to have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m going to try to increase the life of every single person in this room by seven and half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because watched this talk.
Some of you are looking a bit 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 the number the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my gift to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, have a secret mission too. Your mission is to figure out how you want spend your extra seven and a half minutes. And think 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 thinking to yourself, I know she wants us to do with those minutes, she us to spend them playing games. Now this is totally reasonable assumption, given that 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, a planet, playing 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, this: Jane, games are great and all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to wish you more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games a waste of time that we will come to regret — I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and I were in town a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — and I — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to the end of your life regretting all that time.”
Now, I want to take 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 to spend. So I have been thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re our deathbeds, will we regret the time we spent games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns out there is actually some scientific on 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 expressed that people say when they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want share with you today — the top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: wish I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I I had stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: wish I had let myself be happier. Number four: wish I’d had the courage to express my true self. And number five: I I’d lived a life true to my dreams, instead of what expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, no one ever told one the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time video games,” but when I hear these top five of the dying, I can’t help but hear five deep cravings that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t so hard. For many people, this means, I wish I’d spent more time with my family, with my when they were growing up. Well, we know that playing games has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham University School of Family Life reported that parents who spend more time playing games with their kids have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d in touch with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of use social games like FarmVille or Words With Friends to in daily contact with real-life friends and family. A recent from the University of Michigan showed that these games are incredibly relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with people in our social that we would otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical and depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a day was enough to 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. You can that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University been doing research for five years now to document how playing a game with idealized avatar changes how we think and act in real life, making us more courageous, ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led a life true to my dreams, and not others expected of me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m not sure, I’ve left a Super Mario question mark. We’re going to back to this one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who this game designer to be talking to us about regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve never been on 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 two years ago, I hit my head and got a concussion. The didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I was 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 work or email, no running, alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I think you see where this going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s to 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. 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 voices became so persistent and so persuasive that I to legitimately fear for my life, which is the time that said to myself after 34 days — and I never forget this moment — I said, “I am either to kill myself or I’m going to turn this a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from the psychology of games for more than a decade that when we play game — and this is in the scientific literature — we tackle tough with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely reach out to others for help. I wanted to bring these traits to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery game called Jane Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, and the thing I did as a slayer was call my sister — I have an identical twin sister named — and tell 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 became my first ally in game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together we identified battled the bad guys. Now this was anything that could my symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, things like bright lights and spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. This was I could do on even my worst day to feel just little bit good, just a little bit productive. Things cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or getting out bed and walking around the block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt a identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even with a so simple, within just a couple days of starting to play, that fog depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt like miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted more than a year, and it was the hardest of my life by far. But even when I had the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, I suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. I put up some blog 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 people all over the who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and they were getting “super better,” challenges like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. people were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. I could tell from their messages and their videos that game was helping them in the same ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by friends and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even they were in pain, even though they were tackling the toughest challenge of 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 life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s way I would have believed it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after traumatic event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The game was us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash our best qualities lead happier lives.
Here are the top five things that people with post-traumatic growth say: “My have changed.” “I’m not afraid to do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my and family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I really am now.” “I have a new sense meaning and purpose in my life.” “I’m better able to focus on my goals and dreams.”
Now, does sound 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 this interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock ability to lead a life with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? do you get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is there a to get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit your in the first place? That 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 activities 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 you what these four types of strength are, but I’d 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 play a quick together. This is where you earn the seven and a half minutes bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you have do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. Here we go. one: Stand up and take three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise them over your head 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 know from the research that the number one you can do to boost your physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. single second that you are not sitting still, you actively improving the health of your heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody for your next 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 up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people counting down from 100 interfere your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s first time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s +1 mental resilience, which means you have more mental focus, discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific 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 as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting from 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: Because of room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here the two options. If you’re inside, find a window look out of it. If you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or do a YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do 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 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, emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel looking baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a from the scientific literature for you. If you can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one emotion over the course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve health and your ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And this is called three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter 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, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep up. I love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which you actually get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, community. Now, a great way to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is better.
Here’s one more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the hormone. That means that all of you who just hands are biochemically primed to like and want to help each other. This linger during the break, so take advantage of the opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed your four quests, let’s see I’ve successfully completed my mission to give you seven and a half minutes of life. Now I get to share one more little bit of science with you. It turns out that who regularly boost these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional social — live 10 years longer than everyone else. So this true. If you are regularly achieving the three-to-one positive ratio, if you are never sitting still for more than an 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 everyone else, and here’s where 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 10 years of life by boosting your four types of resilience. So every year that you are boosting your four types of resilience, you’re earning .128 more years of life or 46 more of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which every single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or single hour that you are boosting your four types of resilience, like just did together, you are earning 7.68245837 more minutes life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes are yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. still have your special mission, your secret mission. How are going to spend these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven a half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. can use your first wish to wish for a more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend seven and a half minutes today doing something that you happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts you in 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 good news is, you can keep going like that. Every hour the day, every day of your life, all the way your deathbed, which will now be 10 years later than would have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, you not have any of those top five regrets, because you have built up the strength and resilience to lead a life to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have enough to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)