I’m gamer, so I like to have goals. I like special and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m going to to increase the life span of every single person in this room by and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some you are looking 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 later, just pay attention to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be gift to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you have a mission too. Your mission is to figure out how you want spend your extra seven and a half minutes. And think you should do something unusual with them, because are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know what she wants to do with those minutes, she wants us to spend them games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite a habit encouraging people to spend more time playing games. For example, in my TED Talk, I did propose that we should spend 21 hours a week, as a planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s lot of time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the number unsolicited comment that I have heard from people all over the 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 time playing Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games are a waste of that we will come to regret — that I hear literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and I were in town a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — I quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine 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. don’t want gamers to regret the time they spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So have been thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, this surprise 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 report on the 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 I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I I had stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: I wish had let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to express my 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, no ever told one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” but I hear these top five regrets of the dying, can’t help but hear five deep human cravings that games help us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t worked hard. For many people, this means, I wish I’d spent more time with family, with my kids when they were growing up. Well, we know that playing games together tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported that parents spend 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.” of millions of people use social games like FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay daily contact with real-life friends and family. A recent from the University of Michigan showed that these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. help us stay connected with people in our social that we would otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I I’d let 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 dramatic boosts in and long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d had the courage to express true self.” Well, avatars are a way to express true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. You can that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing research five years now to document how playing a game with idealized avatar 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 to my dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m sure, so I’ve left a Super Mario question mark. We’re going come back to this one.
But in the meantime, you’re wondering, who is this game designer to be talking to about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently I did three months in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now let me tell you that story. started two years ago, when I hit my head got a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I was left with symptoms like headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor me that in order to heal my brain, I had rest it. So I had to avoid everything that triggered symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, video 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 meant to funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common 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.” It said, “The pain will end.”
And these voices became so persistent and so persuasive that started to legitimately fear for my life, which is the time that said to myself after 34 days — and I will never forget this moment — I said, “I either going to kill myself or I’m going to turn into a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from the psychology of games for more than a decade that when play a game — and this is in the 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 my real-life challenge, so I a role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, and first thing I did as a slayer was call my twin sister — have an identical twin sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to heal brain, and I want you to play with me.” This was 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 was that could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, things like bright and crowded spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. This anything I could do on even my worst day to feel a little bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or out of bed and walking around the block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, 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 went away. It vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, and was the hardest year of my life by far. But even when still had the symptoms, even while I was still pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the surprised me. I put up some blog posts and videos online, how to 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 own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and they getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And could tell from their messages and their videos that the game was them in the same ways that it helped me. They about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their friends family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even though were in pain, even though they were tackling the toughest challenge of lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, is going on here? I mean, how could 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 way I would have believed it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some science here, too. people get stronger and happier after a traumatic event. that’s what was happening to us.
The game was helping experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually hear about. We usually hear post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash our qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are the top things that 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 and family.” “I myself better. I know who I really am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning purpose in my life.” “I’m better able to focus on my and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because the five traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of the top five regrets the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a event can unlock our ability to lead a life with regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get trauma to growth? Or better yet, is there a way to get all the of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit your head in the first place? would be good, right?
I wanted 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 are scientifically validated activities that you can do every day to up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a to do it.
I could tell you what these four types strength are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all start building them up right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll play a quick together. This is where you earn the seven and half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All have to do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel you can do it. I have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, or make your into fists, raise them over your head as high you can for five seconds, go! All right, I like the people doing both. You are overachievers. good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 physical resilience, which means that body can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. We know from research that the number one thing you can do to boost your physical is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. single second that you are not sitting still, you are actively improving the health of heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your 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 people counting down from 100 interfere with your counting 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, means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower actually like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you it. So tackling 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 the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here are the options. If you’re inside, find a window and look out of it. If you’re outside, find a and look in. Or do a quick YouTube or Google image for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it on your phones, 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 and baby llamas. Everybody look. Got that? Okay, one more. elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re clapping for that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, we’re just feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means have the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a secret the scientific literature for you. If you can manage to experience three emotions for every one negative emotion over the course of an hour, a day, a week, dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully any problem you’re facing. And this 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 for six seconds, send someone a quick thank you by text, email, or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. it up. I love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 resilience, which means you actually get more strength from friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more secret for you: Shaking someone’s for six seconds dramatically raises the level of oxytocin in bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means that all of you who just shook hands are 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 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 out that people 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 achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never sitting still for more than an hour at time, if you are reaching out to one person you about every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals boost your willpower, you will live 10 years longer everyone else, and here’s where that math I showed you earlier comes in.
So, the life expectancy in the U.S. and the U.K. is 78.1 years, we know from more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies you can add 10 years of life by boosting your four of resilience. So every single year that you are boosting your four of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of life 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more minutes life, which means every single day, you are earning 184 of life, or every single hour that you are boosting your four types resilience, like we just did together, you are earning 7.68245837 more 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 mission. How are you going to spend these minutes bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and a half bonus minutes are kind of genie’s wishes. You can use your first wish to wish for a million more wishes. clever, right? So, if you spend these seven and half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts you touch with someone you care about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going boost your resilience, so you’re going to earn more minutes.
And the good news is, can keep going like that. Every hour of the day, every day of your life, the way to your deathbed, which will now be 10 years than it would have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, will not have any of those top five regrets, you will have built up the strength and resilience to lead a life truer your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to play few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)