I’m gamer, so I like to have goals. I like special and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission for talk: I’m going to try to increase the life span of single person in this room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, will live seven and a half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just you watched this talk.
Some of you are looking little bit 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 explain it all later, just pay attention the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my 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 seven a half minutes. And I think you should do something with them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might 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 a habit of encouraging people to spend more time games. For example, in my first TED Talk, I propose that we should 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 heard from people all over the world since I that talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, but your deathbed, are 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 literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a few ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a friend I were in town for a game developers’ conference, turned around and — and I quote — “I hate games. Waste life. Imagine getting to the end of your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I to take this problem seriously. I want games to be a force for in 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 lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we the time we spent playing games?
Now, this may you, but it turns out there is actually some research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take care of us at end of our lives, recently issued a report on the most frequently expressed that people say 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: wish I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish had stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I had myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life true to my dreams, instead what others expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, no one ever told one of hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” when I hear these top five regrets of the dying, can’t help but hear five deep human cravings that games actually us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t worked hard. For many people, this means, I wish I’d more time with my family, with my kids when were growing up. Well, we know that playing games together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported that parents who more time playing video games with their kids have much stronger real-life relationships them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” Hundreds of of people use social games like FarmVille or Words With Friends stay in daily contact with real-life friends and family. A recent study from the of Michigan showed that these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They us stay connected with people in our social network that 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 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 enough to create boosts in mood and long-term increases in 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 University has been research for five years now to document how playing a game with an avatar changes how we think and act in real life, making more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I 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 meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this game designer to talking to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never 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 that story. It started two years ago, when I hit head and got a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, was left with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, fog. My doctor told me that in order to my brain, I had to rest it. So I to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, writing, no video games, no work or email, no running, no alcohol, caffeine. In other words — and I think you see where this is — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, but 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, 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 for my life, which is the time that I said to after 34 days — and I will never forget this moment — I said, “I either going to kill myself or I’m going to turn this a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from the psychology of games for more than a decade that when we play game — and this is in the scientific literature — tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to out to others for help. I wanted to bring these traits to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, and the first I did as a slayer was call my twin — I have an identical twin sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m a game to heal my brain, and I want to play with me.” This was an easier way to ask help.
She became my first ally in the game, my husband Kiyash next, and together we identified and battled the bad guys. Now was anything that could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow the healing process, things like bright lights and crowded spaces. also collected and activated power-ups. This was anything I could do on even worst day to feel just a little bit good, just a bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, getting out of bed and walking around the block just once.
Now the was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But with a game so simple, within just a couple days of starting to play, that of depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now 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 when I still had the symptoms, even while I was still pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with game surprised me. I put up some blog posts and videos online, explaining how play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I hearing from people all over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could from their messages and their videos that the game helping them in the same ways that it helped me. They about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better by their friends and family. And they even talked about happier, even though they were in pain, even though they were tackling the challenge of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking myself, what is going on here? I mean, how 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 was happening to us.
The game was helping us experience what scientists post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic disorder. But scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash our best 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 happy.” “I feel closer to my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I really now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and purpose in life.” “I’m better able to focus on my goals dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because the top five of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of the five regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, 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 all the of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit head in the first place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, so devoured the scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities that can do every day to build up these four kinds resilience, and you don’t need a trauma to do it.
I tell you what these four types of strength are, I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all start them up together right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll a quick game together. This is where you 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 feel like you can do it. I have confidence in you.
So, ready? This 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 as 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 more stress and heal itself faster. We know from research that the number one thing you can do to boost your 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 backwards from 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 time I’ve ever that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 resilience, which means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower actually works a muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. So a tiny challenge without giving up, even one as absurd snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.
So job. Quest number 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 out of it. If you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or do 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, do we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. Baby dolphin and baby llamas. look. Got that? Okay, one more. Baby elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re clapping that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, what we’re just feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you the ability 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. you can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one emotion over the course of an hour, a day, a week, you improve your health and your ability to successfully tackle any you’re facing. And this is called 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 by text, email, or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, means you actually get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, community. Now, a great way to boost social resilience gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more secret you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises the of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That that all of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed to like want to help each other. This will linger during 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 to give you seven and half minutes of bonus life. Now I get to one more little bit of science with you. It turns out that people who regularly boost these types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 longer than everyone else. So this is true. If are regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never sitting still for more an hour at 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 in U.S. and the U.K. is 78.1 years, but we know from than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 years of by boosting your four types of resilience. So every single year that are boosting your four types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 years of life or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which every single day, you are 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 half minutes are yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. still have your special mission, your secret mission. How are you to spend these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These and a half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. can use your first wish to wish for a more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these seven and a half minutes today doing something makes you happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts you in touch with someone 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 news is, you can keep going like that. Every hour of 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, will not have any of those top five regrets, because you will have built up the strength resilience to lead a life truer to your dreams. And with 10 years, you might even have enough time to play a more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)