I’m a gamer, so I like to have goals. I special missions and secret objectives. So here’s my special for this talk: I’m going to try to increase life span of every single person in this room by seven and half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a half longer than you would have otherwise, just because you this talk.
Some of you are looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — have math to prove that it is possible. It won’t much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, just attention to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That be my gift to you if I’m successful in mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. Your mission is to figure out how want to spend your extra seven and a half minutes. And I think should do something unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know what she wants to do with those minutes, she wants us to spend them games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given I have made quite a habit of encouraging people to spend time playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, I did propose that we spend 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, playing games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot of time. It’s much time, in fact, that the number one unsolicited comment that I have heard people all over the world since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, are great and all, but on your deathbed, are really going to wish you spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so — that games are a waste of time that will come to regret — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: a few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that friend and I were in town for a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — and 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 world. I don’t want gamers to regret the time they spent playing, 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 scientific research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take of us at the end of our lives, recently issued report on the most frequently expressed regrets that people say when they literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with you today — the five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I wish hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish I stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d 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 of me.
Now, as far I know, no one ever told one of the workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” but when I hear these top regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear five deep human cravings that games 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 family, with my kids when they were growing up. Well, we know playing games together has tremendous family benefits. A recent 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 I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” Hundreds of of people use social games like FarmVille or Words With to stay in daily contact with real-life friends and family. A recent from the University of Michigan showed that these games incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with people in our social network we would otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d let be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. 30 minutes of online game play a day was enough to dramatic boosts in mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d had the to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of we might become. You can see that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing for five years now to document how playing a game with an idealized avatar changes how we and act in real life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led a life to my dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are games doing yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left a Super question mark. We’re going to come back to this one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who this game designer to be talking to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never in a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently I did spend three in 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 nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, loss, mental fog. My doctor told me that in order to my brain, I had to rest it. So I had to everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant reading, no writing, no video games, no work or email, running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I think see where this is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of it’s meant to be funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. happens to one in three, and it happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, 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 that I said to myself after 34 days — and I will never this moment — I said, “I am either going to kill myself or I’m to turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? knew from researching the psychology of games for more than decade that when we play a 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 to bring these traits to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, the first thing I did as a slayer was call twin sister — I have an identical twin sister named — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to heal brain, and I want you to play with me.” This was easier way to ask for help.
She became my ally in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together we identified battled the bad guys. Now this was anything that trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, like bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected activated 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 for 10 minutes, getting out of bed and walking around the block just once.
Now game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even a game so simple, within just a couple days of starting to play, that fog depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It 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 even when still had the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now happened next with the game surprised me. I put some blog posts and videos online, explaining how to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people all over the world were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and chronic pain, and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it for diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from their and their 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 better by their friends and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even though they were pain, even though they were tackling the toughest challenge of their lives.
Now the time, I’m thinking to myself, what is going on here? I mean, how could a so trivial intervene so powerfully in such serious, and in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? mean, if it hadn’t worked 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 happening to us.
The game was us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, can use it as a springboard to unleash our qualities 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 feel closer to friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I know who really am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning purpose in my life.” “I’m better able to focus on my goals dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because the top traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite the top five regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? seems that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our to lead a life with fewer regrets.
But how does work? How do you get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is there a to get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit your 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 learned. There are four kinds of strength, or resilience, 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 to do it.
I could tell you what these types of strength are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we start building 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 a half minutes of life that I promised you earlier. All you have to do successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel you can do it. I have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? is your first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand 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 both. You 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 one thing you can do to boost your physical is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. Every single second that are not sitting still, you are actively improving the health of your heart, and your lungs brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? I want you to snap fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards from 100 seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t the people counting down from 100 interfere with your to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which means have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know the scientific research that willpower actually works like a muscle. gets stronger the more you exercise it. So tackling tiny challenge without giving up, even one as absurd snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually a scientifically way to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined this for you, here are the two options. If you’re inside, find a window look out of it. If you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or do a quick or Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it on your phones, or just shout out 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 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 looking at baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a from the scientific literature for you. If you can manage to experience three positive emotions for every negative emotion over the course of an hour, a day, week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully any problem you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, keep it up.
All right, pick one, last quest: someone’s hand for six seconds, or send someone a quick you by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. it up. I love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 resilience, which means you actually get more strength 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 for six seconds raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s trust hormone. That means that all of you who shook hands are biochemically primed to like and want help each other. This will linger during the break, take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission give you seven and a half minutes of bonus life. I get to share one more little bit of with you. It turns out that people who regularly boost these four types of resilience — physical, mental, and social — live 10 years longer than everyone else. So this true. If you are regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, you are never sitting still for more than an hour a time, if you are reaching out to one person you care about every day, if you are tackling tiny goals to boost 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 know from more 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 of life by boosting your four types of resilience. So every single that you are boosting your four types of resilience, you’re 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 of life, or every single hour you are boosting your four types of resilience, like we just did together, are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and half minutes are all yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still your special mission, your 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 spend these seven and a half minutes today doing that makes you happy, or that gets you physically active, puts you in touch with someone you care about, or even just tackling tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, so you’re going to more minutes.
And the good news is, you can keep going like that. Every hour of day, every day of your life, all the way to deathbed, which will now be 10 years later than 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 life truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you even have enough time to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)