I’m a gamer, I like to have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s special mission for this talk: I’m going to try to increase the life span every single person in this room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, you will seven and a half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just you watched this talk.
Some of you are 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 to the number 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 out how you want to spend your extra seven and half minutes. And I think you should do something unusual them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might be thinking yourself, I know what she wants us to do those minutes, she wants us to spend them playing games. Now this is a reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite a of encouraging people to spend more time playing games. For example, in first TED Talk, I did propose that we should spend 21 billion hours week, as a planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a of time. It’s so much time, in fact, that number one unsolicited comment that I have heard from all over the world since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, are great and 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 a waste of that we will come to regret — that I hear literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding that a friend and I were in town for a game developers’ conference, around and said — and I quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine getting the end of 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 to regret the time they spent playing, time that I them to spend. So I have been thinking about this question a lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret the time we spent games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns out there is some scientific research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take care us at the end of our lives, recently issued a report on the most frequently expressed regrets that say when they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with today — the top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish had stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I had let myself happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to express my true self. number five: I wish I’d lived a life true to dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, 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 but hear five human cravings that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t worked hard. For many people, this means, I wish I’d spent more time with my family, with kids when they were growing up. Well, we know that playing together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School of Family reported that parents who spend more time playing video with their kids have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social games like FarmVille or Words Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life friends and family. recent study from the University of Michigan showed that games are incredibly powerful 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 together.
“I wish I’d let myself be happier.” Well, I can’t help but think of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently at East Carolina University that showed that online games outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes online game play a day was enough to create dramatic boosts in and long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d had courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars are way to express our true selves, our most heroic, version of who we might become. You can see in this alter ego portrait 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 idealized changes how we think and act in real life, making more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I 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 come back this one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this game designer to be talking to 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 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, after 30 days, I was left with symptoms like headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told me that in order to heal brain, I had to rest it. So I had to avoid that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, no games, no work or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other — and I think you see where this is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of it’s meant to be funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to in three, and it happened to me. My brain started me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” It said, “The will never end.”
And these voices became so persistent and so persuasive that I to legitimately fear for my life, which is the time that I said to after 34 days — and I will never forget moment — I said, “I am either going to kill myself I’m going to turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from researching the psychology games for more than a decade that when we a game — and this is in the scientific literature — we tackle tough with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out to others help. I wanted to bring these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became new secret identity, and the first thing I did as slayer was call my twin sister — I have an identical twin sister named — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to heal my brain, and I you to play with me.” This was an easier to ask 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 bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected and power-ups. This was anything I could do on even my worst day to feel just little bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking around block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate power-ups. But even with a game so simple, within just a couple days of starting 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 for more than year, and it was the hardest year of my life far. But even when I still had the symptoms, even while I still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. put up some blog posts and videos online, explaining to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants be “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from all over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges like and chronic 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 the game was 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. And they talked about feeling happier, even though they were in pain, even they were tackling the toughest challenge of their lives.
Now at time, I’m thinking to myself, what is going on here? I mean, how a game so trivial intervene so powerfully in such serious, in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t for me, there’s no way I would have believed it was possible. Well, turns out there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger happier after a traumatic event. And that’s what was to us.
The game was helping us experience what call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it a springboard to unleash our best qualities and lead lives.
Here are the top five things that people post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid to do what makes me happy.” “I feel 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 dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because the top five traits of post-traumatic growth are the direct opposite of 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 fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get from to growth? Or better yet, is there 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 scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There four kinds 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 kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a trauma do it.
I could 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 is successfully complete the first four quests. And I feel like you can do it. have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, make your hands into fists, raise them over your head as high as can for five seconds, go! All right, I like the doing both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 resilience, which means that your body can withstand more stress heal itself faster. We know from the research that the number one thing you can to boost your physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s it takes. Every single second that you are not 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 your 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 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. Now that’s worth +1 resilience, which means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific research willpower actually works like a muscle. It gets stronger more you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, even one as absurd 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. number three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined this for you, here are the two options. If you’re inside, find a window and look out of it. you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or do a quick YouTube 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, what we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. Baby dolphin and baby llamas. look. Got that? Okay, one more. Baby elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re clapping 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 need them most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific literature for you. If can manage to experience three positive emotions for every negative emotion over the course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your and your ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my SuperBetter 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! All right, everybody, that +1 social resilience, which means you actually get more strength 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 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. will linger during the break, so take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission to give you seven and half minutes of bonus life. Now I get to one more little bit of science with you. It turns that people who regularly boost these four types of — 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 for more than an at a time, if you are reaching out to one person you care every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, 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. 78.1 years, but we know from more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific that you can add 10 years of life by 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 more of life, which means every single day, you are earning 184 minutes life, or every single hour that you are boosting four types 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 totally them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still have special mission, your secret mission. How are you going to spend these minutes of life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and a bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. You use your first wish to wish for a million wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these seven and a half minutes doing something that makes you happy, or that gets physically active, or puts you in touch with someone care about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going boost your resilience, so you’re going to earn more minutes.
And the good news is, you can keep going that. Every hour of the day, every day of life, all the way to your deathbed, which will now 10 years later than it would have otherwise. And you get there, more than likely, you will not any of those top five regrets, because you will have built 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)