I’m a gamer, so I like to have goals. like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s my mission for this talk: I’m going to try to the life span of every single person in this room by and 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 skeptical. That’s okay, because 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 number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my gift to you if I’m in my mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. Your mission to figure out how you want to spend your extra seven and a half minutes. I think you should do something unusual with them, because these bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, I’m a game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, know what she wants us to do with those minutes, wants us to spend them playing games. Now this a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite habit of encouraging people to spend more time playing games. example, in my first TED Talk, I did propose that should spend 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the one unsolicited comment that I have heard from people all the world since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, but on your deathbed, you really going to wish you spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This is so pervasive — that games are a waste of time that we will come regret — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a and I were in town for a game developers’ conference, around and said — and I quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to the of your life and 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, time that I encouraged them to spend. So have been thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re our deathbeds, will we regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, it turns out there is actually some scientific research on question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take care us at the end of our lives, recently issued report on the most frequently expressed regrets that people when they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to with you today — the top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked hard. Number two: I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. three: I wish I had let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the to express my true self. And number five: I I’d lived a life true to my dreams, instead what others expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, no ever 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 help but hear five deep human cravings games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I wish hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, this means, wish I’d spent more time with my family, with my kids when they were growing up. Well, know that playing games together has tremendous family benefits. A study from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported that who spend more time playing video games with their kids have 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 With Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life friends and family. A recent study from the University Michigan showed that these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with in our social network that we would otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t playing together.
“I wish I’d let myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of the clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a day was to create dramatic boosts in mood and long-term increases happiness.
“I wish I’d had the courage to express my self.” Well, avatars are a way to express our selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. You can see that in this alter portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford has been doing research for five years now to how playing a game with an idealized avatar changes how we think act in 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 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 is this game designer be talking to us 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 months in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now me tell you that story. It started two years ago, when hit my head and got a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, after 30 days, I 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 had to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me meant no reading, no writing, no video games, no 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 be funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common traumatic brain injuries. It happens to one in three, it happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you to die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” It said, “The pain will never end.”
And these became so 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 going turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from researching the of games for more than a decade that when we play a game — and this is in scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out to for help. I wanted to bring these gamer traits to real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this my new secret identity, and the first thing I did as a slayer was call twin sister — I have an identical twin sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing game to heal my brain, and I want you to play with me.” This an easier way to ask for help.
She became my first ally in game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together we and battled the bad guys. Now this was anything that could 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 day to feel just little bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking around the block just once.
Now game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, the power-ups. But even with a game so simple, within just a couple days of to play, that fog of depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt like miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or the symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, and it was the hardest of my life by far. But even when I still had the symptoms, even while I was in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the surprised me. I put up some blog posts and videos online, explaining how to play. But everybody has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing people all over the world who were adopting their secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from their messages their videos that the game was helping them in the ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked feeling better understood by their friends and family. And they even talked feeling happier, even though they were in pain, even they were tackling the toughest challenge of their lives.
Now the time, I’m thinking to myself, what is going on here? mean, how could a game so trivial intervene so powerfully in such serious, in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s no way I would believed it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some science here, too. Some people stronger and happier after a traumatic 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 about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t 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 with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m afraid to do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my friends and family.” “I understand 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 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 a life with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do 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 place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the better, so I devoured the scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four kinds strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are validated activities that you can do every day to build up four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a trauma to do it.
I could tell you what four types of strength are, but I’d rather you them firsthand. I’d rather we all start building them together right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is you earn the seven and a half minutes of bonus life that I you earlier. All you have to do is successfully complete first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can it. I have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? is your first quest. Here we go. Pick one: 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 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 heal itself faster. We know from the that the number one thing you can do to boost physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. single second that you are not sitting still, you are actively improving the of your heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? want you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people counting down 100 interfere with your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first I’ve ever 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 from the scientific research that willpower actually works like 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 your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s determined this for you, but here are the two options. you’re inside, find a window and look out of it. If you’re outside, a window and look in. Or do a quick YouTube or image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it on your phones, or just shout some baby animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do we want see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. dolphin and baby llamas. Everybody 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 to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, we feel looking at baby animals, when you need most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific literature for you. If can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative emotion over course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve health and your ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my SuperBetter trick, so keep it up.
All right, pick one, quest: Shake someone’s hand for six seconds, or send someone a 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 means you actually get more strength your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way to social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more secret for you: someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises the level oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means that all of you who just shook are biochemically primed to like and want to help other. This will linger during the break, so take of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission give you seven and a half minutes of bonus life. Now I to share one more little bit of science with you. It turns out people who regularly boost these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and — live 10 years longer than everyone else. So this true. If you are regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you never sitting still for more than an hour at a time, you are reaching out to one person you care 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 in U.S. and the U.K. is 78.1 years, but we know from more than 1,000 peer-reviewed studies that you can add 10 years of life by boosting your four types resilience. So every single year that you are boosting your types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more minutes life, which means every single day, you are earning 184 of life, or every single hour that you are your four types of resilience, like we just did together, you are 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half are all 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 suggestion. These seven and a half bonus minutes are kind like genie’s wishes. You can use your first wish to wish for a million wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these and a half minutes today doing something that makes happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts in touch 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 the good news is, you can going like that. Every hour of the day, every of your life, all the way to your deathbed, which now be 10 years later than it would have otherwise. when you get there, more than likely, you will have any of those top five regrets, because you have built up the strength and resilience to lead a life truer to your dreams. with 10 extra years, you might even have enough to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)