I’m a gamer, so like to have goals. I like special missions and objectives. So here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m to try to increase the life span of every single person in this room by and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a half minutes longer than you have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some you are looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, check it out — I have math to prove that is possible. It won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain all later, just pay attention to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That be my gift to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you have a secret too. Your mission is to figure out how you want to spend your extra and a half minutes. And I think you should do something 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, know what she wants us to do with those minutes, she wants us spend them playing games. Now this is a totally assumption, given that I have made quite a habit of encouraging people spend more time playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, I did propose that should spend 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 hours, it’s a lot of time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the number unsolicited comment that I have heard from people all over the world since I gave talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, but on your deathbed, you really going to wish you spent more time playing Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games are a waste time that we will come to regret — that I hear it literally I go. For example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and I were in town for a developers’ conference, turned around and 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 this seriously. I want games to be a force for good the world. I don’t want gamers to regret the time they spent playing, time that I them to spend. So I have been thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re our deathbeds, will we regret the time we spent games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns out there is 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 a report on most frequently expressed regrets that people say when they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what want to share with you today — the top five of the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked hard. Number two: I wish I had stayed in with my friends. Number three: I wish I had myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to express my true self. And five: I wish I’d lived a life true to my dreams, of what others expected of me.
Now, as far as know, no one ever told one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d more time playing video games,” but when I hear these top regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear deep human cravings that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, wish I hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, means, I wish I’d spent more time with my family, with my when they were 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 time playing video games with their kids much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” Hundreds of millions people use social games like FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life and family. A recent study from the University of showed that these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. 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 myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of the groundbreaking clinical trials conducted at East Carolina University that showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical and depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play day was enough to create dramatic boosts in mood 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 who might 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 a game with an idealized avatar changes how we think and act real life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d a life true to my dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are doing this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left 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 talking to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve never on my deathbed. But recently I did spend three months in bed, wanting to die. Really 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, I was left with like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor me that in order to heal my brain, I to rest it. So I had to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant reading, no writing, no video 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 brain injuries. It happens to one in three, and happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re going to get better.” It said, “The pain will never end.”
And voices became so persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for my life, which the time that I said to myself after 34 — and I will never forget this moment — I said, “I am going to kill myself or I’m going to turn this into game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from researching the of games for more than a decade that when play a game — and this is in the scientific literature — we tackle tough with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re likely to reach out to others for help. I wanted to bring gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I created role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now became my new secret identity, and the first thing 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.” This was an easier to ask for help.
She became my first ally in the game, my husband joined next, and together we identified and battled the bad guys. Now this was anything could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down the process, things like bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected and power-ups. This was anything I could do on even my worst to feel just a little bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed walking around the block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, the power-ups. But even with a game so simple, just a couple days of starting to play, that fog of depression and went away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for than a year, and it was the hardest year of my life 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. not everybody 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 own 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 it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from messages and their videos that the game was helping them in the same that it helped me. They 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, though they were tackling the toughest challenge of their lives.
Now at 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? I mean, it hadn’t worked for me, there’s no way I would have believed it was possible. Well, it out there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger and 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 we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can it as a springboard to unleash our best qualities lead happier lives.
Here are the top five things that people post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid 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 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 are essentially the opposite of the top five regrets of the dying. Now 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 get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is a way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to your head in the first place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, so I the scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, there are scientifically validated activities that you can do day to build up these four kinds of resilience, and don’t need a trauma to do it.
I could tell what these four types of strength are, but I’d you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all start building them up together now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where earn the seven and a half minutes of bonus life that I promised earlier. All you have to do is successfully complete the first four quests. And I feel like you can do it. I confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise them your head as high as you can for five seconds, go! All right, I like people doing both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 resilience, which means that your body can withstand more stress heal itself faster. We know from the research that number one 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 ready for next quest? I want you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards from 100 seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people counting from 100 interfere with your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which means you have more mental focus, more discipline, and willpower. We know from the scientific research that actually works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. So a tiny challenge without giving up, even one as as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting from 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated way boost 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. you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or a quick YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your animal.]”
Do it on your phones, or just shout out baby animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, what we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what 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, what we’re just feeling there plus-one emotional resilience, which means you have the ability to 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 positive emotions every one negative emotion over the course of an hour, a day, week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And this is called three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, so it up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s hand for six seconds, or send a quick thank you by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which you actually get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the hormone. That means that all of you who just shook are biochemically primed to like and want to help each other. This linger during the break, so take advantage 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 get to share one more little bit of science with you. It turns that people who regularly boost these four types of resilience — physical, mental, and social — live 10 years longer than everyone else. So is true. If you are regularly achieving the three-to-one emotion ratio, if you are never sitting still for more than an at a time, if you are reaching out to person you care about every single day, if you are tackling goals to boost your willpower, you will live 10 years longer than else, and here’s where that math I showed you earlier comes in.
So, average life expectancy in the U.S. and the U.K. 78.1 years, but we know from more than 1,000 peer-reviewed studies that you can add 10 years of life boosting your four types of resilience. So every single that you are boosting your four types of resilience, you’re actually .128 more years of life or 46 more days of life, 67,298 more minutes of life, which means every single day, you are earning 184 minutes life, or every single hour that you are boosting your four of resilience, like we just did together, you are 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes are yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still have your mission, your secret mission. How are you going to spend these minutes bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. You can use your first to wish for a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, you spend these seven and a half minutes today something that makes you happy, or that gets you physically active, or you in touch with someone you care about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re to boost your resilience, so you’re going to earn minutes.
And the good news is, you can keep going that. Every hour of the day, every day of your life, all the way your deathbed, which will now be 10 years later than it have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, you not have any of those top five regrets, because you will have up the strength and resilience to lead a life truer to your dreams. with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to play a more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)