I’m a gamer, so I to have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s special mission for this talk: I’m going to try increase the life span of every single person in room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because watched this talk.
Some of you are looking a little skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I math to prove that it is possible. It won’t make sense now. I’ll explain 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. Your mission is figure out how you want to spend your extra and a half minutes. And I think you should do unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might be thinking yourself, I know what she wants us to do with those minutes, she us to spend them playing games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have quite a habit of encouraging people to spend more playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, I did propose that we should spend 21 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 one unsolicited that I have heard from people all over the world since I gave that talk, this: Jane, games are great and all, but on your deathbed, are you really going wish you spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so — that games are a waste of time that we will come to regret — I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, this driver, upon 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 end of your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I want to take this seriously. I want games to be a force for in the world. I don’t want gamers to regret 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 regret the we spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, it turns out there is actually some scientific research this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take of us at the end of our lives, recently a report on the most frequently expressed regrets that people say 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: I wish hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish I stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had courage to express my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life true my dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, one ever told one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d more time playing video games,” but when I hear these top five 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 so hard. For many people, this means, I I’d spent more time with my family, with my kids when they were growing up. Well, we that playing games together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Young University School of Family Life reported that parents who spend more time playing video with their kids have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed touch with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social games like FarmVille or 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 network 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 showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a was enough to create dramatic boosts in mood and long-term in happiness.
“I wish I’d had the courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a way 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 his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing research for five years to document how playing a game with an idealized changes 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 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 one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who this game designer to be talking to us about regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently I spend three months in bed, wanting to die. Really to die.
Now let me tell you 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, I was left symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My told me that in order to heal my brain, I had rest it. So I had to avoid everything that my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, no games, no work or email, no running, no alcohol, caffeine. In other words — and I think you 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 traumatic brain injuries. It happens to one in three, and it happened 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 these voices became so and so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for my life, is the time that I said to 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, a game? I knew from researching the psychology of games more than a decade that when we play a game — and is in the scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to reach to others for help. I wanted to bring these traits to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery game called the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, and the first thing I did as a slayer call my twin sister — I have an identical twin sister named — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to my 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, husband Kiyash joined next, and together we identified and battled the bad guys. Now this 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 do on even my worst day to feel just a bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking around 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, within just couple days of starting to play, that fog of depression anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than year, and it was the hardest year of my life far. But even when I still had the symptoms, even while I still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. I up some blog posts and videos online, explaining how to play. not everybody has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from all over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, their own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from messages and their videos that the game was helping them in the ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about better understood by their friends and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, though they were in pain, even though they were tackling the 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 some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s no way I have believed it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after a traumatic event. And that’s what happening to us.
The game was helping us experience scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash our best qualities and lead lives.
Here are the top five things that people post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not to do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my friends and family.” “I myself better. I know who I really am now.” “I have a sense of meaning and purpose in my life.” “I’m able to focus on my goals and dreams.”
Now, this sound familiar? It should, because the top five traits post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of the five regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability to lead life with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get from to growth? Or better yet, is there a way get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit your head in the place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand phenomenon better, so I 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 are scientifically validated activities that you do every day to build up these four kinds resilience, and you don’t need a trauma to do it.
I could tell you what four types of strength are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all building 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? This is your quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise over your head as high as you can for seconds, go! All right, I 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 withstand more and heal 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 second that you are not sitting still, you are actively improving the health 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 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people counting down from 100 interfere your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know the scientific research that willpower actually works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. So a tiny challenge without giving up, even one as absurd as your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: Because the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here are the options. If you’re inside, find a window and look of it. If you’re outside, find a window and in. Or do a quick YouTube or Google image 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, do we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. Baby dolphin and llamas. Everybody 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 is 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 secret from the scientific literature for you. If you can manage experience three positive emotions for every one negative emotion over course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and your to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And this 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 for six seconds, or send someone quick thank you by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get 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 more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six dramatically raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That that all of you who just shook hands are primed to like and want to help each other. This will linger during break, so take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed your four quests, let’s 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 who regularly boost these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional social — live 10 years longer than everyone else. So this is true. If are regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if are never sitting still for more than an hour at a time, if you are out to one 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, the average life expectancy 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 10 years of life by boosting your four types resilience. So every single year that you are boosting four types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of life or 46 days of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or single hour that 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 minutes are all yours. totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still have your special mission, your secret mission. are you going to spend these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and 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, puts you in touch with someone you care about, even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, so you’re going to earn minutes.
And the good 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 would have otherwise. when you get there, more than likely, you will not have any of those five regrets, because you will have built up the strength and resilience to lead life truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have enough to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)