I’m a gamer, so I like to have goals. I special missions and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m to try to increase the life span of every single person in room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a half minutes than you would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some of are looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I math to prove that it 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. 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 want 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 have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might be thinking yourself, I know what she wants us to do those minutes, she wants us to spend them playing games. this is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite 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, video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the one unsolicited comment that I have heard from people all over the world since gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are great all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to wish you more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — games are a waste of time that we will 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 a game developers’ conference, turned and said — and I quote — “I hate games. Waste life. Imagine getting to the end of your life and regretting all time.”
Now, I want to take this problem seriously. want games to be a force for good in the world. I don’t want gamers to regret the they spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So have been thinking about this question a lot lately. we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret 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 take 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 their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with you today — top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I wish hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish I had stayed in touch with friends. Number three: I wish I had let myself be happier. Number four: I I’d had the courage to express my true self. number five: I wish I’d lived a life true my dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, far as I know, no one ever told one the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” but when I hear these five regrets of the dying, I 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 spent more time with my family, with my when they were growing up. Well, we know that games together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported that parents who spend more playing video games with their kids have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch my friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social games FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay in daily contact real-life friends and family. A recent study from the University of Michigan showed these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help stay connected with people in our social network that would otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t playing together.
“I wish I’d let myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina 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 courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars are way to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized of who we might become. You can see that in this alter ego portrait by Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford has been doing research for five years now to document how playing a game with an idealized 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 to my dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are games 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 be to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve worked in a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But I did spend three months in bed, wanting to die. wanting to die.
Now let me tell you that story. started two years ago, when I hit my head and got concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, was left with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor me that in order to heal my brain, I had to rest it. So I had avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that no reading, no writing, no video games, no work or email, no running, alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I think see where this is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s to be funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens one in three, and it happened to me. My started telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re never going get better.” It said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices became so and so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for my life, which is the time I said to myself after 34 days — and will never forget this moment — I said, “I am either going to myself or I’m going to turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? knew from researching the psychology of games for more a decade that when we play a game — this is in the scientific literature — we tackle tough with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more to reach out to others for help. I wanted to bring these gamer to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, and the thing I did as a slayer was call my twin sister — I have identical twin sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing game to heal my brain, and I want you to play me.” This was an easier way to ask for help.
She became my ally in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together we identified and battled bad guys. Now this was anything that could trigger symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, things like bright and crowded spaces. We 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, or getting out bed and walking around the block just once.
Now the game was that simple: a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. even with a game so simple, within just a couple of starting to play, that fog of depression and anxiety away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or the symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, and it was the year of my life by far. But even when I still had the symptoms, even I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. put up some blog posts and videos online, explaining how to play. But not everybody a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to be “the slayer,” I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from their messages and their that the game was helping them in the same ways that helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood their friends and family. And they even talked about happier, even though they were in pain, even though were tackling the toughest challenge of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, what going on here? I 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 I would have believed was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger and after a traumatic event. And that’s what was happening us.
The game was helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we 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 best qualities lead happier lives.
Here are the top five things people with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid to do makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my friends family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I really am now.” “I have a new sense of and purpose in my life.” “I’m better able to focus on my goals and dreams.”
Now, does this familiar? It should, because the top five traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of top five regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability to lead a with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get from to growth? Or better yet, is there a way to get the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having hit your head in the first place? That would good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, so I 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 you can every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t a trauma to do it.
I could tell you what these four types of strength are, but I’d you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all start building them together right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll play a quick game together. is where you earn the seven and a half minutes of life that I promised you earlier. All you have to do is successfully the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. Here go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, make your hands into fists, raise them over your as high as you can for five seconds, go! All right, I like the people both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. is worth +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can withstand more and heal itself faster. We know from the research that the number 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, you 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 from 100 by 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 that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. know from the scientific research that willpower actually works like a muscle. It stronger the more you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge giving up, even one as absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated way to boost willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: 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 and look in. Or do a quick YouTube or Google search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it on phones, or just shout out some baby animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, what we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s what we got. Baby dolphin and baby llamas. Everybody look. that? Okay, one more. Baby elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re for that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, what we’re just feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, which you have the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions curiosity or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, when you need most.
Here’s a secret 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 improve your health and your ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And this is the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, keep it up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s hand for seconds, or send someone a quick thank you by text, email, Facebook Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I love it! right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get more strength from your friends, neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises the level of oxytocin your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means all of you who just shook hands are biochemically to like and want to help each other. This will linger during the break, so take advantage of networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed your quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission to 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 this is true. If you are regularly the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never sitting still for more than an at a time, if you are reaching out to one person you care every single day, if 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 know from more 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 years of life by boosting your four of resilience. So every single year that you are boosting your types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means every day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or every hour that you are boosting your four types of resilience, like we did together, you are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those and a half minutes are all yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You have your special mission, your secret mission. How are you going to spend these minutes bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and a bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. You can use your first wish wish for a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these seven and a half today doing something that makes you happy, or that gets physically active, or puts you in touch with someone you care about, or just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, you’re going to earn more minutes.
And the good news is, you can going like 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 would otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, you will have any of those top five regrets, because you will have up the strength and resilience to lead a life truer to dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have enough to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)