I’m a gamer, so I like have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m going to try to increase the span of every single person in this room by and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven a 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, check it out — I have math to prove that it is possible. won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my gift you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you have secret mission too. Your mission is to figure out how you want to spend your extra seven a half minutes. And I think 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 what she wants us to do with those minutes, wants us to spend them playing games. Now this a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite a habit of people to spend more time playing games. For example, in first TED Talk, I did propose that we should spend 21 billion a week, as a planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 hours, it’s a lot of time. It’s so much time, fact, that the number one unsolicited comment that I have heard people all over the world since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, are great and all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to wish you more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games are waste of time that we will come to regret — that hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a few ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and I were town for a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — and I quote — “I hate games. of life. Imagine getting to the end of your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I to take this problem seriously. I want games to be force 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 thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re on deathbeds, will we regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, this surprise you, but it turns out there is actually some scientific on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people take care of us at the end of our lives, recently a report on the most frequently expressed regrets that people when they are literally on 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 hard. Number two: I wish I had stayed in with my friends. Number three: I wish I had let myself happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to express true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life true to dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, as far as know, no one ever told one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d more time playing video games,” but when I hear these top regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear five deep cravings that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. many people, this means, I wish I’d spent more with my family, with my kids when they were growing up. Well, know that playing games together has tremendous family benefits. A recent from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported that parents who spend more time playing video games their kids have much stronger 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 With Friends stay in daily contact with real-life friends and family. A recent study from University of Michigan showed that these games are incredibly relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with people in our social network that we would otherwise distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d let myself happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of the groundbreaking clinical recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a day was enough to dramatic boosts in mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d had courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars are way to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version who we might become. You can see that in this ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing research five years now to document how playing a game with an avatar changes how we think and act in real life, us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led a life to my dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are doing 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 game 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 you that story. It 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 like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told me that order to heal my brain, I had to rest it. So I had to everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant reading, no writing, no video games, no work or email, no running, no alcohol, caffeine. In other words — and I think you see where this going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to one in three, and it happened to me. brain started telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” said, “You’re never going to get better.” It said, “The pain will end.”
And these voices became so persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately for my life, which is the time that I said to myself after 34 — and I will never forget this moment — said, “I am either going to kill myself or I’m to turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? I from researching the psychology of games for more than decade that when we play a game — and this is in the scientific literature — we tackle challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to out to others for help. I wanted to bring gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I created role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now became my new secret identity, and the first thing I did as slayer was call my twin sister — I have an twin sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to my brain, and I want you to play with me.” This an easier way to ask for help.
She became my first ally in the game, my Kiyash joined next, and together we identified and battled bad guys. Now this was anything that could trigger my symptoms and therefore down the healing process, things like bright lights and spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. This was I could do on even my worst day to feel just little bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking around the block just once.
Now game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit 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 went away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. lasted for more than a year, and it was the year of my life by far. But even when I still the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened with the game surprised me. I put up some blog posts videos online, explaining how to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed the SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people all over the world were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, they were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from their and their videos that the game was helping them in the same ways it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their friends family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even though they were in pain, even though they tackling the toughest challenge of their lives.
Now at 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 it hadn’t for me, there’s no way I would have believed was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after a event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The was helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which not something we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists 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 things that people with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not to do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my and family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and purpose in my life.” “I’m better to focus on my goals and dreams.”
Now, does this familiar? It should, because the top five traits of post-traumatic are essentially the direct opposite of the top five of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability to a life with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get from to growth? Or better yet, is there a way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic without the trauma, without having to hit your head in the first place? That be good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, there are scientifically validated activities that you can do every day to build these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a trauma to it.
I could tell you what these four types of strength are, I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all start them up together right now. Here’s what we’re going do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where earn the seven and a half minutes of bonus life that promised you earlier. All you have to do is successfully complete the four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can it. I have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, or make your hands fists, raise them over your head as high as can for five seconds, go! All right, I like 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. We know the research that the number one thing you can do to your physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. Every single second you are not sitting still, you are actively improving the health of your heart, and your and 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 your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the time 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 from the scientific research that willpower works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, even one as absurd snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by is actually a scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. number three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s determined this for you, but here are the two options. If you’re inside, find a window look out of it. If you’re outside, find a and look in. Or do a quick YouTube or image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it 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 see what we got. Baby dolphin and llamas. Everybody look. Got 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 have the ability provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel looking at animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a secret from the literature for you. If you can manage to experience three emotions for every one negative emotion over the course of an hour, day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And this is 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. Keep up. I love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means you get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way to 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 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 my mission to give you seven a half 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 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 sitting still for more than an hour at a time, you are reaching out to one person you care every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals boost your willpower, you will live 10 years longer than everyone else, and here’s where math I showed you earlier comes in.
So, the average life 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 types of resilience. So every single year that you are your four types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of life or 46 more of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or every single 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 and half minutes are all yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You have your special mission, your secret mission. How are going to spend these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. seven and a half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. You can use first wish to wish for a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you these seven and a half minutes today doing something makes you happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts in touch with someone you care about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to your resilience, so you’re going to earn more minutes.
And good news is, you can keep going like that. hour of the day, every day of your life, all way to your deathbed, which will now be 10 years later than it would otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, you will not any of those top 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 even have enough time to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)