I’m a gamer, I 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 by seven and a half minutes. Literally, you will seven and a half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, because you watched this talk.
Some of you are looking a little skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I have math to 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. will be my gift to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, have a secret mission too. Your mission is to figure how you want to spend your extra seven and a half minutes. And I think you should do unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to 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. Now this is totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite a habit of encouraging people to spend time 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 billion hours, it’s lot of time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the number one unsolicited comment that 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 to wish spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games a waste of time that we will come to regret — that I it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and I in town for a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — and quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to the end your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I want to take this seriously. I want games to be a force for good in the world. I don’t gamers to regret the time they spent playing, time I encouraged them to spend. So I have been thinking about this a 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 scientific on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take care of us at the of our lives, recently issued a report on the frequently expressed regrets that people say when they are on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with you today — the five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t so hard. Number two: I wish I had stayed in touch my friends. Number three: I wish I had let be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to express my true self. number five: I wish I’d lived a life true to my dreams, instead of 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 games,” but 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 so hard. For people, this means, I wish I’d spent more time with my family, 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 much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social games like FarmVille or Words Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life friends family. A recent study from the University of Michigan showed that these are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with people in our social network that we 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 groundbreaking clinical trials conducted at East Carolina University that showed that online can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a was enough to create dramatic boosts in mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d the courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized 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 doing research for five years now to document how a game with an idealized avatar changes how we think 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, not what others expected of me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve a Super Mario question mark. We’re going to come to this 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 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 head got a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and 30 days, I was left with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. doctor told me that in order to heal my brain, had to rest it. So I had to avoid everything triggered my 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 see where this is going — no reason live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, but in seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It 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 so persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for my life, which is time that 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? I from researching the psychology of games for more than a decade that when we play a — and this is in the scientific literature — tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out others for help. I wanted to bring these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I created role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this my new secret identity, and the first thing I did as a slayer was my twin sister — I have an identical twin sister named Kelly — and her, “I’m playing a game to heal my brain, I want you to play with me.” This was an way to ask for help.
She became my first ally the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together identified and battled the bad guys. Now this was 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 worst day to feel just a little bit good, just a bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of and walking around the block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even a game so simple, within just a couple days starting to play, that fog of depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, and 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 game me. I 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,” so renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people all over the world who were their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and chronic pain, depression Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could from their messages and their videos that the game was them in the same ways that it helped me. They talked about stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their friends and family. And they even about feeling happier, even though they were in pain, even though they were tackling the challenge of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, what is going on here? mean, how could a game so trivial intervene so powerfully such serious, and in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if hadn’t worked for me, there’s no way I would believed it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after a event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The game was us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know that traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a to unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are the top five that people with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not to do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I 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 opposite of the top five regrets of the dying. this is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our to lead a life with fewer regrets.
But how it work? How do you get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is there way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without 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 scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, there are scientifically validated activities that you can do day to build up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need trauma 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 start building 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 and a half minutes of bonus life that I promised earlier. All you have to do is successfully complete the first SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. I have confidence in you.
So, ready? This is your first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, or your hands into fists, raise them over your head as high as you can 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 stress and itself faster. We know from the research that the one thing you can do to boost your physical is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. Every second that you are not sitting still, you are improving the health of your heart, and your lungs brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? I want you to your fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards from 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people counting down from 100 interfere with your counting 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s +1 mental resilience, which means you have more mental focus, discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific that willpower actually works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you it. So tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, even one absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards from 100 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 this for you, but here are the two options. If you’re inside, find a and look out of it. If you’re outside, find window and look in. Or do a quick YouTube Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, and I’ll them on the screen. So, what do we want see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what got. Baby dolphin and 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 is plus-one resilience, which means you have the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, 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 positive emotions for every negative emotion over the course of an hour, a day, week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability to tackle any problem you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep it up.
All right, pick one, quest: Shake someone’s hand for six seconds, or send a quick thank you by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep up. I love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get more from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, great way to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch 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 of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed like and 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 mission to give you seven and a half minutes of life. Now I get to share one more little bit of science with you. It out that people who regularly boost these four types of — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 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 more than an hour at a time, if you are out to one person you care about every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals to boost willpower, you will live 10 years longer than everyone else, and here’s where that math I you earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy in the U.S. and U.K. is 78.1 years, but we know from more 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 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, means every single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, every single hour that you are boosting your four types of resilience, we just did together, you are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, seven and a half minutes are all yours. You earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still have your mission, your secret mission. How are you going to these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and a half bonus 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 these seven and a half minutes today doing something that you happy, or that gets you physically active, or you in touch with someone you care about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re to boost your resilience, so you’re going to earn more minutes.
And good news 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 than it would have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, will not have any of those top five regrets, because you have built up the strength and resilience to lead a life truer to dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have time to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)