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 seven a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a half longer than you would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some of you are a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I have math prove that it is possible. It won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, pay attention to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. will be my gift to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you a secret mission too. Your mission is to figure out how you to spend your extra seven and a half minutes. And I think you do something 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 wants us to do with those minutes, she wants us spend them playing games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I made quite a habit 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 video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a of time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the one unsolicited comment that I have heard from people over the world since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are and all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent more playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games a waste of time that we will come to regret — I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a few ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and I were in town for a developers’ conference, turned around and said — and I — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to the end of your life regretting all that time.”
Now, I want to take problem seriously. I want games to be a force good in the world. I don’t want gamers to regret time they spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. I have been thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we the time we spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but turns out there is actually some scientific research on question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take care of at the end of our lives, recently issued a 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 top regrets 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 let myself be happier. Number four: I I’d had the courage to express my true self. And number five: I wish I’d a life true to my dreams, instead of what others expected me.
Now, as far as I know, no one ever told one the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time video games,” but when I hear these top five regrets of dying, I can’t help but hear five deep human cravings games actually 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 my family, with my when they were growing up. Well, we know that playing games has tremendous family benefits. A recent 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 touch with my friends.” Hundreds millions of people use social games like FarmVille or Words With Friends stay in daily contact with real-life friends and family. recent study from the University of Michigan showed that games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us connected with people in our social network that we would otherwise distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d let myself happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of the clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed online games can 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 courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version who we might become. You can see that in alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with avatar. And Stanford University has been doing research for five years now document how playing a game with an idealized avatar how we think and act in real life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, committed 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, so I’ve left a Super Mario mark. We’re going to come back to this one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this designer to be talking to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently I did spend months in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now let me tell you story. It started two years ago, when I hit my and got a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I was left with symptoms 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 triggered my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, no video games, no or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I think you see where is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s to be funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to one in three, and happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you to die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices became persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear my life, which is the time that I said to myself after 34 days — and will never forget this moment — I said, “I am either going to kill myself or I’m to turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? I from researching the psychology of games for more than decade that when we play a game — and this is the scientific 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 to real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery game called Jane Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, and the first 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 my 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 anything that could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down the process, things like bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected activated power-ups. This was anything I could do on even my worst to feel just a little bit good, just a bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or 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 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 cognitive symptoms. That lasted for than a year, and it was the hardest year of my life by far. But even 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 to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, started hearing from people all over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges 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 game was helping them in the same ways that it me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their friends family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even though they were in pain, though they were tackling the toughest challenge of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m to myself, what is going on here? I mean, could a game 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 would have believed it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after a traumatic event. that’s what was happening to us.
The game was helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which not something we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash 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 to friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and purpose in life.” “I’m better able to 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? seems that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability to lead a life with fewer regrets.
But does it work? How do you get from trauma 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 of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there scientifically validated activities that you can do every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, you don’t need a trauma to do it.
I could tell you what these four types of 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 do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where earn the seven and a half minutes of bonus that I promised you earlier. All you have to is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. I have in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. Here we go. one: Stand up and take three steps, or make your hands fists, raise them over your head as high as you can for five seconds, go! All right, I the people doing both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can withstand more stress and itself faster. We know from the research that the number one thing you can do boost your physical resilience 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, your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? I 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 down from 100 interfere with your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which means you have more mental focus, discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower actually like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. So tackling a challenge without giving up, even one as absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 or counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually a validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined for you, but here are the two options. If you’re inside, find a window and look of it. If you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or do a quick YouTube Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do on your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, and I’ll put them the screen. So, what do we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. Baby dolphin 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 just feeling there plus-one emotional resilience, which means you have the ability to provoke powerful, emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel looking baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a from the scientific literature for you. If you can to experience three positive emotions for every one negative over the course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health your ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And is called the 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 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! All right, everybody, that +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: someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s 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 advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you successfully completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission give you seven and a half minutes of bonus life. Now I get share one more little bit of science with you. It turns that people who regularly boost these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional social — live 10 years longer than everyone else. So this is true. If you regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you never sitting still for more than an hour at a time, if you are out to one person you care about every single day, you are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, you live 10 years longer than everyone else, and here’s where that math showed you earlier comes in.
So, the average life in the U.S. and the U.K. is 78.1 years, but we from more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 of life by boosting your four types of resilience. So every single year that you are boosting your types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more 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 did together, you are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a minutes are all yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. still have your special mission, your secret mission. How are you going to spend minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and a bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. You can use first wish 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 active, or puts you in touch with someone you 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 is, you can keep going like that. Every hour of the day, every day your life, all the way to your 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 a truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, might even have enough time to play a few games.
Thank you.
(Applause)