I’m a gamer, so I like have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s my mission for this talk: I’m going to try to increase life span of every single person in this room by seven and a minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a half minutes longer you would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some of are looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it — I have math to prove that it is possible. It won’t make 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 mission too. Your is to figure out how you want to spend your extra seven and a half minutes. And I you should do something unusual with them, because these bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know what she us to do with those minutes, she wants us spend them playing games. Now this is a totally assumption, given that I have made quite a habit encouraging people to spend more time playing games. For example, 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 number one unsolicited comment that I have heard from people all over the world since I gave talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, but on deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent more time Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games are waste of time 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 for a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — and quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine to the end of your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I want 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 a lot lately. When we’re our deathbeds, will we regret the time we spent games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns out is actually some scientific research on this question. It’s true. workers, the people who 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 today — the top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish had stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I had let be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to express my self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a true to 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 spent more time video games,” but when I hear these top five of the dying, I can’t help but hear five deep human that games actually help 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, with my kids they were growing up. Well, we know that playing games together has tremendous family benefits. A study from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported parents who spend more time playing video games with their have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d in 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 friends and family. A recent study from the University Michigan showed that these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected people in our social network that we would otherwise distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I I’d let myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help think of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina that showed 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 mood long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d had the to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a way express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. You see that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And University has been doing research for five years now to document how playing a game with idealized avatar changes how we think and act in life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to goals.
“I wish I’d led a life true to dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are games this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left a Super Mario question mark. We’re going to come to this one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this game designer to talking to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently I did spend months in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now me tell you that story. It started two years ago, when hit my head and got a concussion. The concussion didn’t properly, and after 30 days, I was left with symptoms like headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told that in order to heal my brain, I had to it. So I had to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant reading, no writing, no video games, no work or email, no running, alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I think you see where this going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to one three, and it happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you want 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 fear my life, which is the time that I said to myself after 34 days — and I will forget this moment — I said, “I am either to kill myself or I’m going to turn this a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from researching psychology of games for more than a decade that when play a game — and this is in the scientific literature — tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more to reach out to others for help. I wanted to these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my secret identity, and the first thing I did as slayer was call my twin sister — I have an identical sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing game to heal my brain, and I want you to play with me.” was an easier way to ask for help.
She my first ally in the game, my husband Kiyash next, and together we identified and battled the bad guys. this was anything that could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down healing process, things like bright lights and crowded spaces. We also 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 of bed and around the block just once.
Now the game was that simple: a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate power-ups. But even with a game so simple, within just a couple days of starting play, that fog of depression and anxiety went away. just vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t miracle cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. lasted for more than a year, and it was hardest year of my life by far. But even when I still had the symptoms, even I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now happened next with the game surprised me. I put up some blog and videos online, explaining how to play. But not everybody has concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing people all over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and they getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and chronic pain, and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it for terminal like ALS. And I could tell from their messages and their videos the game was helping them in the same ways that it helped me. They talked feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by 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, in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s no I would have believed it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after a traumatic event. And that’s was happening to us.
The game was helping us experience scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it a springboard 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 afraid to do what makes me happy.” “I feel to my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I who I really am 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 five traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of the top five regrets of dying. Now 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 a way get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, 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, there are scientifically validated activities that you can do every to build up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a to do it.
I could tell you what these types of 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 do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is you earn the seven and a half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you to do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. I feel like 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, make your hands into fists, raise them over your head as as you can for five seconds, go! All right, I like the doing both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 physical resilience, which that your body can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. We know from the research that number one thing you can do to boost your physical resilience is to not still. That’s all it takes. Every single second that you not sitting still, you are actively improving the health of 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 counting down from 100 interfere with your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. 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 from scientific research that willpower actually works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, even one as absurd as snapping your fingers 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven actually a scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.
So job. Quest number three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but are the two options. If you’re inside, find a window look out of it. If you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or a quick YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do on your 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 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 like curiosity love, which we feel looking at baby animals, when need them most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific literature for you. you can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative emotion over the course an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully any problem you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s hand six seconds, or send someone a quick thank you 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 actually get more 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 one secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises the of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means that of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed to like and to help each other. This will linger during the break, so take advantage of networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed your four quests, let’s if I’ve successfully completed my mission to give you and a half minutes of bonus life. Now I to share one more little bit of science with you. It turns out people who regularly boost these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and — live 10 years longer than everyone else. So this is true. If you regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never sitting still for than an hour at a time, if you are reaching to one person you care about every single day, if are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, you will 10 years longer than everyone else, and here’s where that I showed you earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy the 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 life by boosting your types of resilience. So every single year that you are boosting your four of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more of life, which means every single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or single hour that you are boosting your four types of resilience, like we 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 have your special mission, your secret mission. How are you going to spend 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 first wish to wish for a million more wishes. clever, right? So, if you spend these seven and a minutes today doing something that makes you happy, or gets you physically active, or 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 earn more minutes.
And the good news is, you can keep going like that. hour of the day, every day of your life, all the way to your deathbed, which now be 10 years later than it would have otherwise. when you get there, more than likely, you will have any of those top five regrets, because you will have built the strength and resilience to lead a life truer to your dreams. with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)