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 person in room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, you live seven and a half minutes longer than you would otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some of you looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I have math to that it is 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 figure out how you want to spend extra seven and a half minutes. And I think you should do something unusual them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, might be thinking to yourself, I know what she us to do with those minutes, she wants us to them playing games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given I have made quite a habit of encouraging people to spend more playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, did propose that we should spend 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, playing games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot of time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the number one comment that I have heard from people all over the world I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, but on deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent more time Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games a waste of time that we will come to — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, story: Just a few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon out that a friend and I were in town for game developers’ conference, turned around and said — and I quote — “I games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to the end of life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I want take this problem seriously. I want games to be force for good in the world. I don’t want gamers regret the time they spent playing, time that I encouraged to spend. So I have been thinking about this question lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we the time we spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns out there actually some scientific research on this question. It’s true. workers, the people who take care of us at the of our lives, recently issued a report on the most frequently regrets that people say when they are literally on deathbeds. And that’s what 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: 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 the courage express my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life to my 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 time playing video games,” but when I hear these five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear five human cravings that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I 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 together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Young 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 people use social like FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay in daily contact real-life friends and 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 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 the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina that showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a day was enough to create dramatic in mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d had the courage to my true self.” Well, avatars are a way to our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. can see that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a with his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing research for five years now to how playing a game with an idealized avatar changes how we and act in real life, making us more courageous, ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led a life true my dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are games doing yet? I’m not sure, so 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 is game designer to be talking to us about deathbed regrets? it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve been on my deathbed. But recently I did spend months in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now let me tell you that story. It started years ago, when I hit my head and got concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, was left with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, loss, mental fog. My doctor told me that in to heal my brain, I had to rest it. So I had to avoid everything 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 — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic 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 to get better.” said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices became so persistent so persuasive that I started 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 going to kill myself or I’m going to turn this into a game.”
Now, a game? I knew from researching the psychology of games more than a decade that when we play a — and this is in the scientific literature — we tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to out to others for help. I wanted to bring 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 thing I did as a slayer was call my twin sister — I have an identical twin sister Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to heal brain, and I want you to play with me.” was an easier way to ask for help.
She became my first ally in the game, husband Kiyash joined next, and 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. This was anything I could do even my worst day to feel just a little good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking the block just once.
Now the game was that simple: a secret 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 of depression anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than year, and it was the hardest year of my life by far. But when I 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 videos online, how to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so I the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and they getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and chronic pain, and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it for terminal diagnoses ALS. And I could tell from their messages and videos that the game was helping them in the ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling understood by their friends and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, though they were in pain, even though they were tackling the challenge of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, what going on here? I mean, how could a game 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 no I would have believed it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after a event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The was helping us experience what 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, can use it as a springboard to unleash our best 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 me happy.” “I closer to my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and purpose in my life.” “I’m better to focus on my goals and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? should, because the top five traits of post-traumatic growth essentially the direct opposite of the top five regrets of dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a traumatic can unlock our ability to lead a life with regrets.
But how does it work? How do you from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is there a way to get the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without to hit your head in the first place? That would be good, right?
I to understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured the literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four kinds strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and are scientifically validated activities that you can do every day to build up these four of resilience, and you don’t need a trauma to do it.
I tell you what these four types of strength are, but I’d 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 quick game together. This where you earn the seven and a half minutes of bonus life that promised you earlier. All you have to do is complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. I have confidence you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. Here go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, make your hands into fists, raise them over your head as high as you can for seconds, go! All right, I like the people doing both. are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 physical resilience, means that your body can withstand more stress and 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, 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 counting down from 100 interfere with counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 resilience, which means you have more mental focus, more discipline, and willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower actually works like a muscle. gets stronger the more you exercise it. So tackling a tiny without 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 willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: Because the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here are two options. If you’re inside, find a window and look out 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 your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do we want 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 feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, you need them most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific for you. If you can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative over 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 three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s for six 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! All right, everybody, is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way to boost social resilience gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That that all of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed to like want to help 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 successfully completed my to give you seven and a half minutes of life. Now I get to share one more little bit of with you. It turns out that people who regularly boost these types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — 10 years longer than everyone else. So this is true. If are regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you never sitting still for more than an hour at a time, if are reaching out to one person you care about every day, if you are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, you live 10 years longer than everyone else, and here’s where that math I showed you earlier in.
So, the average life expectancy in 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 years of life boosting your four types 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 minutes of life, which means every single day, you are 184 minutes of life, or every single hour that you are boosting your types of resilience, like we just did together, you are 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes all yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. still have your special mission, your secret mission. How you going to spend these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and a half bonus minutes kind of like genie’s wishes. You 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 in touch with someone you care about, or even tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, so you’re going earn more minutes.
And the good news is, you can keep going that. Every hour of the day, every day of your life, all way to your deathbed, which will now be 10 years than it would have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, will not have any of those top five regrets, because will have built up the strength and resilience to lead a life truer to your dreams. with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)