I’m gamer, so I like to have goals. I like special missions and 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 by seven and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because you watched talk.
Some of you are looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check out — I have math to prove that it is possible. won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, pay attention to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will my gift to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. mission is to figure out how you want to your extra seven and a half minutes. And I you should do something unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might thinking to yourself, I know what she wants us to with those minutes, she wants us to spend them games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given I have made quite a habit of encouraging people spend more time playing games. For example, in my TED Talk, I did propose that we should spend 21 billion hours week, as a planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the number one unsolicited comment that 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 spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so — that games are a waste of time that will come to regret — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, this 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 getting to the end of your life and all that time.”
Now, I want to take this problem seriously. I want games to be a for good in the world. I don’t want gamers regret the time they spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So I have been about this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, we regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns out is actually some scientific research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, people who take care of us at the end of our lives, recently issued a report the most frequently expressed regrets that people say when they are on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share you today — the top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t so hard. Number two: I wish I had stayed touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I had let myself be happier. four: I wish I’d had the courage to express my self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life true to my dreams, instead of what others of me.
Now, as far as I know, no one ever one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent time playing video games,” but when I hear these top five regrets of the dying, can’t help but hear five deep human cravings that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I I hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, this means, I I’d spent more time with my family, with my kids they were growing up. Well, we know that playing together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported parents who spend more time playing video games with their kids have much real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” Hundreds 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 these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay with people in our social network that we 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 a day was to create dramatic boosts in mood and long-term increases happiness.
“I wish I’d had the courage to express true self.” Well, avatars are a way to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of we might become. You can see that in this ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University been doing research for five years now to document how playing a game with an idealized avatar changes we think and act in real 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 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 is this designer to be talking to us about deathbed regrets? it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve never been my deathbed. But recently I did spend three months bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now let me tell you that story. started two years ago, when I hit my head and got a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, after 30 days, I was left with symptoms like headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told me that in to heal my brain, I had to rest it. So had to avoid everything that 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 is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s to be funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with brain injuries. It happens to one in three, and it happened to me. My brain telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re 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 that I said to myself after 34 days — and I will forget this moment — I said, “I am either going to kill or I’m going to turn this into a game.”
Now, a game? I knew from researching the psychology of games for more a decade that when we play a game — and is in the scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out to others for help. I wanted to bring these traits to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery game Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, the first thing I did as a slayer was call my sister — I have an identical twin sister named — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to heal my brain, and I want you to play me.” This was an easier way to ask for help.
She became first ally in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together we and battled the bad guys. Now this was anything that could trigger my symptoms therefore slow down the healing process, things like bright lights crowded spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. This was anything I could do on my worst day to feel just a little bit good, a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, getting out of bed 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 of starting to play, that of depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished. felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That for more than a year, and it was the hardest year of my life by far. But when I still had the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, I suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. I put up some posts and videos online, explaining how to play. But everybody has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, started hearing from people all over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. people were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I tell from their messages and their videos that the game was helping them in the ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. talked about feeling better understood by 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 myself, what is going on here? I mean, how could game so trivial intervene so powerfully in 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 traumatic event. And that’s was happening to us.
The game was helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, is not something we usually hear about. We usually about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know that a event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash our qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are the top five things that people with post-traumatic say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid to do what me happy.” “I feel closer to my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I really now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and in my life.” “I’m better able to focus on my goals dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because the top five traits of post-traumatic growth are the direct opposite of the top five regrets of dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, traumatic event can unlock our ability to lead a life with fewer regrets.
But how does work? How do you get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is a way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, having to hit your head in the first place? That would be good, right?
I to understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured the literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four kinds strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities you can 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 them firsthand. I’d rather we all start building them up together right now. Here’s what we’re going do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where you earn the and a half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you have to do is complete 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. 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 the people 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. know from the research that the number one thing you can do to boost physical resilience 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 snap your fingers 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 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, means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific research that actually works like a muscle. It gets stronger the you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without up, even one as absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but are the two options. If you’re inside, find a and look out of it. If you’re outside, find a window look in. Or do a quick YouTube or Google search 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 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 feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, 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 emotion over course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health your ability to successfully 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, 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, good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I love it! All right, everybody, is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get more strength from your friends, neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way to social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more 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 that all of you who just shook hands biochemically primed to like and want to help each other. This will linger during the break, so 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 a minutes of bonus life. Now I get to share one more bit of science with you. It turns out that people who 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 out to 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 showed earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy in 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 boosting your four types of resilience. So every single year that are boosting your four types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of life 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, means every single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or every hour that you are boosting your four types of resilience, like we just together, you are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven a half minutes are all yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still have special mission, your secret mission. How are you going to spend these minutes 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 million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if spend these seven and a half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, or gets you physically active, or puts you in touch someone you care about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re to boost your resilience, so you’re going to earn minutes.
And the good news is, you can keep like that. Every hour of the day, every day your life, all the way to your deathbed, which now be 10 years later than it would have otherwise. And when you get there, more likely, you will not have any of those top five regrets, you will have built up the strength and resilience to a life truer to your dreams. And with 10 years, you might even have enough time to play few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)