I’m a gamer, so I like to goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission for talk: I’m going to try to increase the life span every single person in this room by seven and half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a half minutes longer than would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some of you are looking a little skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I have math prove that it is possible. It won’t make much now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay attention to the 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 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 to have 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. 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 billion hours, it’s a lot time. It’s so much 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 are and all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent more time playing Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games a waste of time that we will come to regret — that I hear it everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a few ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and I in town for a game developers’ conference, turned around said — and I quote — “I hate games. Waste 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 for good in the world. don’t want gamers to regret the time they spent playing, that I encouraged them to spend. So I have been thinking about question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, we regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, this surprise you, but it turns out there is actually scientific research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who 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 want to share with you today — the top regrets of the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. three: I wish I had let myself be happier. Number four: wish I’d had the courage to express my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived life true to my dreams, instead of what others expected me.
Now, as far as I know, no one ever told one the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” but when I hear top five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear five deep human cravings games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. many people, this means, I wish I’d spent more time with my family, with my kids when they growing up. Well, we know that playing games together tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported that who spend more time playing video games with their kids have much stronger real-life relationships them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use games like FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life friends and family. A study from the University of Michigan showed that these are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with people in our network that we would otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t games together.
“I wish I’d let myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of the groundbreaking trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed that games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. 30 minutes of online game play a day was to create dramatic boosts in mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d had the courage express my true self.” Well, avatars are a way to express true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we become. You can see that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has doing research for five years now to document how playing a game 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 my dreams, and not what others of me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left a Super Mario mark. We’re going to come back to this one.
But 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 in a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. 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, when I hit my and got a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I was left with like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told me that order to heal my brain, I had to rest it. So I had to everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, no games, no 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 to funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to in three, and it happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you to die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices so persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for my life, which is time that I said to myself after 34 days — and I never forget this moment — I said, “I am going to kill myself or I’m going to turn this a 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 challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more to reach out to others for help. I wanted bring these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery game called the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, and the first thing did as a slayer was call my twin sister — I have identical twin sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to heal brain, and I want you to play with me.” This an easier way to ask for help.
She became my ally in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, together we identified and battled the bad guys. Now this was that could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, things like bright and crowded spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. was anything I could do on even my worst to feel just a little bit good, just a little productive. Things like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of and walking around the block just once.
Now the was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. even with a game so simple, within just a couple days of starting to play, that fog of and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for the or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, it was the hardest year of my life by far. But even when I had the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next the game surprised me. I put up some blog and videos online, explaining how to play. But not 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,” challenges like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And could tell from their messages and their videos that the game was helping them in the same ways it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked feeling better understood by their friends and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even 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 trivial intervene so powerfully such serious, and in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if hadn’t worked for me, there’s no way I would have believed was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some science here, too. Some people get and happier after a traumatic event. And that’s what happening to us.
The game was helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, is not something 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 to unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are the five things that people with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities changed.” “I’m not afraid to do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my friends and family.” “I myself better. I know who I really am now.” “I have a new of meaning and purpose in my life.” “I’m better able focus on my goals and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, the top five traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of the top five of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability to lead life with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How you get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is there a way get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without to hit your head in the first place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand 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 activities that you can do every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t a trauma to do it.
I could tell you what these four types of are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather all start building them up together right now. Here’s what we’re to do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where you the seven and a half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you to do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And feel like you can do it. I have confidence you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. we go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, or your hands into fists, raise them over your head as high you can for five seconds, go! All right, I like people doing both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That worth +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can withstand more and heal itself faster. We know from the research that the number thing you can do to boost your physical resilience is to sit still. That’s all it takes. Every 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 your fingers exactly 50 times, or 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 with counting to 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 know from the scientific research willpower actually works like a muscle. It gets stronger the 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 actually a scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.
So job. Quest number three. Pick one: Because of the 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 in. Or do a quick YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your animal.]”
Do it on your phones, or just shout out some animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, do we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s what 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, we’re just feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel at baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific for you. If you can manage to experience three emotions for every one negative emotion over the course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically your health and your ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s hand 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, great way to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch even better.
Here’s one more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand six seconds dramatically raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means all of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed to like and want to each other. This will linger during the break, so take advantage of networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve completed my mission to give you seven and a half of bonus life. Now I get to share one more bit of science with you. It turns out that people regularly boost these four types of resilience — physical, mental, and social — live 10 years longer than everyone else. this is true. If you are regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are sitting still for more than an hour at a time, if you are out to one person you care about every single day, you are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, you will live 10 longer than everyone else, and here’s where that math showed you earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy in U.S. and the U.K. is 78.1 years, but we know from than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 years of life by boosting your four of resilience. So every single year that you are your four types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 years of life or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means every day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or every single hour that you boosting your four types of resilience, like we 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. You still have your special mission, secret mission. How are you going to spend these minutes of life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and a half minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. You can use 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 you happy, or that gets physically active, or puts you in touch with someone you care about, 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 of the day, every day of your life, all the way your deathbed, which will now be 10 years later it 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 truer to your dreams. And with 10 years, you might even have enough time to play a few games.
Thank you.
(Applause)