I’m a gamer, I like to have goals. I like special missions secret objectives. So here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m to try to increase the life span of every single in this room by seven and a 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 skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I have math to prove it is possible. It won’t make much sense now. I’ll it all later, just pay attention to the number 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. mission is to figure out how you want to spend your seven and a half minutes. And I think you should do unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, I’m a game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know what she wants us to with those minutes, she wants us to spend them playing games. Now this a totally 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 spend 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, playing games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot of time. It’s so time, in fact, that the number one unsolicited comment that I have heard from people all over the since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are great all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent 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 go. For example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, this cab driver, finding out that a friend and I were in town for game developers’ conference, turned around and said — and I — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to the end your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I want to take this 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 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 is actually some scientific research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who care of 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 I want to share with you today — the five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked hard. Number two: I wish I had stayed in touch with friends. Number three: I wish I had let myself happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived life true to my dreams, instead of what others 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,” but when I these top five regrets of the dying, I can’t but hear five deep human cravings that games actually us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, this means, 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 of Family Life reported that parents who spend more playing video games with their kids have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social like FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life and family. A recent study from the University of Michigan showed that these games are powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with people in our social that we would otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed that online games outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes 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 express true self.” Well, avatars are a way to express our true selves, most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. You see that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has doing research for five years now to document how a game with an idealized avatar changes how we think and act in real life, us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led a life true to dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m not sure, I’ve left a Super Mario question 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 us 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 die. Really wanting to die.
Now let me tell you that story. It started two ago, when I hit my head and got a concussion. The didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I was with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told that in order 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, but in all seriousness, suicidal is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to in three, and it happened to me. My brain telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re never to get better.” It said, “The pain will never end.”
And these became so persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear my life, which is the time that I said myself after 34 days — and I will never forget this — I said, “I am either going to kill myself I’m going to turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? I from researching the psychology of games for more than a decade that when play a game — and this is in the literature — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out to for help. I wanted to bring these gamer traits my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my secret identity, and the first thing I did as a was call my twin sister — I have an identical twin named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing a to heal my brain, and I want you to with me.” This was an easier way to ask for help.
She became my first ally in game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together we identified battled the bad guys. Now this was anything that could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow the healing process, things like bright lights and crowded spaces. We collected and activated power-ups. This was anything I could do on my worst day to feel just a little bit good, just little bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking the block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate power-ups. But even with a game so simple, within a couple days of starting to play, that fog of and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, and was the hardest year of my life by far. But even I still had the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the game me. I put up some blog posts and videos online, explaining 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 they were getting “super better,” facing like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. people were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And could tell from their messages and their videos that the game helping them in the same ways that it helped me. talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling understood by their friends and family. And they even about feeling happier, even 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 is going on here? 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 way would have believed it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some science here, too. Some get stronger and happier after a traumatic event. And that’s was happening to us.
The game was helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic disorder. But scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, can use it 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 have changed.” “I’m not afraid to do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer my 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 able to focus on my goals and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? should, because the top five traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of the top regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, traumatic event can unlock our ability to lead a with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get from trauma growth? Or better yet, is there a way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic without the trauma, without having to hit your head in the first place? That be good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, so devoured the scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there scientifically validated activities that you can do every day to up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need trauma to do it.
I could tell you what these four of strength are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all start them up together right now. Here’s what we’re going do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is 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 like you can do 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 over your head as high as you can for five seconds, go! All right, like the people doing both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. is worth +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can more stress and heal 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. single second that you are not sitting still, you are actively improving the health of your heart, and lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? want you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or backwards from 100 by seven, like 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 first time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which means you more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the research that willpower actually works like a muscle. It gets the more you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, one as absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 or counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined this you, but here are the two options. If you’re inside, find window and look out of it. If you’re outside, find a and look in. Or do a quick YouTube or image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, and I’ll them on the screen. So, what 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, one more. 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 have ability to provoke 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 for you. If you can manage to experience positive emotions for every one negative emotion over the course of an hour, day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And this is 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 for 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 strength from friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way to boost social resilience is gratitude. is even better.
Here’s one more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for seconds dramatically raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, that’s the trust hormone. That means that all of you who just shook hands biochemically primed to like and want to help each other. This will during the break, so take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, have successfully completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully 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 who regularly boost these four of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 longer than everyone else. So this is true. If you are achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never still for more than an hour at a time, you are reaching out to one person you care about single day, if you are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, will 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, we know from more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 years life by 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, 67,298 more minutes of life, which means every single day, you 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 a half are all yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still have your special mission, your mission. How are you going to spend these minutes bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and a half minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. You can use your 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 a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, you’re going to earn more minutes.
And the good news is, can keep going like that. Every hour of the day, every day of your life, the way to your deathbed, which will now be 10 years later it would have otherwise. And when you get there, than likely, you will not have any of those top five regrets, because you will have built up strength and resilience to lead a life truer to your dreams. with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to play few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)