I’m gamer, so I like to have goals. I like missions and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission this talk: I’m going to try to increase the life of every single person in this room by seven a 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 little bit skeptical. That’s okay, check it out — I have math to prove that it is possible. won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay attention to the number at bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my gift to you if I’m successful in mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. Your mission to figure 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 thinking to yourself, I know what she wants us to do with those minutes, she us to spend them playing games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have quite a habit of encouraging people to spend more time playing games. example, in my first TED Talk, I did propose that we should spend 21 billion a week, as a planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 hours, it’s a lot of time. It’s so much time, fact, that the number one unsolicited comment that I heard from people all over the world 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 time Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — games are a waste of time that we will come to regret — I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: a few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and were in town for a game developers’ conference, turned around and — and I quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine to the end of your life and regretting all time.”
Now, I want to take this problem seriously. I want to be a force for good in the world. I don’t gamers to regret the time they spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So I have thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re our deathbeds, will we regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, this surprise you, but it turns out there is actually some scientific research on this question. It’s true. workers, the people who take care of us at end of our lives, recently issued a report on the most frequently expressed that people say when they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s I want to share with you today — the top five of the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish I stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I had let be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage express my true self. And 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, no one told one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” when I hear these top five regrets of the dying, I can’t but hear five deep human 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 kids when they were growing up. Well, we know that games together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported parents who spend more time playing video games with kids have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social games FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life friends family. A recent study from the University of Michigan showed that these are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with people our social network that we would otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t games together.
“I wish I’d let myself be happier.” Well, here can’t help but think of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted East Carolina University that showed that online games can pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes online game play a day was enough to create dramatic boosts mood 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 that in alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. Stanford University has been doing research for five years now document how playing a game with an idealized avatar changes how we think and act real life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, more to our goals.
“I wish I’d led a life true to dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are doing 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 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 three months in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting die.
Now let me tell you that story. It started years ago, when I hit my head and got a concussion. The didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I was left with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, loss, mental 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 that meant no reading, no writing, no video games, work or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In words — and I think you see where this is — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with brain injuries. It happens to one in three, and it happened to me. My started telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re never going get better.” It said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices became persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately for my life, which is the time that I to myself after 34 days — and I will never forget this moment — said, “I am either going to kill myself or I’m to turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from researching psychology of games for more than a decade that we play a game — and this is in scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re likely to reach out to others for help. I wanted to these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I a role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now became my new secret identity, and the first thing did as a slayer was call my twin sister — I an identical twin sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m a game to heal my brain, and I want you to with me.” This was an easier way to ask for help.
She became first ally in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and we identified and battled the bad guys. Now this was 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. This was anything I do on even my worst day to feel just a little bit good, just a little bit productive. like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or getting of 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 a game so simple, within just a couple days of starting play, that fog of depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. lasted for more than a year, and it was the hardest year of my life far. But even when I still had the symptoms, even while was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what next with the game surprised me. I put up some posts and videos online, explaining how to play. But everybody has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people all over the world who were adopting their own identity, recruiting their own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it 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. talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their friends 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, what is on here? I mean, how could a game so trivial intervene so in such serious, and in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s no I would have believed it was possible. Well, it turns there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after a traumatic event. And that’s was happening to us.
The game was helping us what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually hear about. We usually about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know that traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use as a springboard to unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are the five things that people with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not to do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I really am now.” “I have new sense of meaning and purpose in my life.” “I’m better able to on my goals and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? should, because the top five traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the 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 with fewer regrets.
But how it work? How do you get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is a way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic without the trauma, without having to hit your head in the first place? would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured the scientific literature, 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 can do every 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 of strength are, I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all start them up together right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll play a game together. This is where you earn the seven and half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. you have to do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And feel like you can do it. I have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This your first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, or make hands into fists, raise them over your head as as you 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 physical resilience, which that your body can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. We from the research that the number one thing you can do to your physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. single second that you are not sitting still, you are actively 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 down from 100 interfere with 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 worth +1 mental resilience, which means you more mental 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 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 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 your phones, or just out some baby animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see 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 the ability to 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 literature you. If you can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative emotion over the of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically your health and your ability to successfully tackle any you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s hand for seconds, or send someone a quick thank you by text, email, or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I love it! right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means actually get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way to social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six dramatically raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the hormone. That means that all of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed to and want to help each other. This will linger during break, so take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my to give 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 who regularly these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 longer than everyone else. So this is true. If are regularly achieving the 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 about every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals boost your willpower, you will live 10 years longer than everyone else, and here’s where that I showed you earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy the U.S. and the U.K. is 78.1 years, but we 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 life 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more minutes life, which means every single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or every hour that you are boosting your four types of resilience, we just did together, you are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, seven and a half minutes are all yours. You earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still have your mission, your secret mission. How are you going to spend these of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven a half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. You can your first wish to wish for a million more wishes. clever, right? So, if you spend these seven and a minutes today doing something that makes you happy, or gets you physically active, or puts you in touch with 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 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 will not have of those top five regrets, because you will have 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)