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 try to the life span of every single person in this room seven and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a half minutes longer than would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some of you are looking a little skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I math to prove that it is possible. It won’t much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay attention to number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you a secret mission too. Your mission is to figure how you want to spend your extra seven and half minutes. And I think you should do something with them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know she wants us to do with those minutes, she wants us to spend them playing games. Now is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite a habit encouraging people to spend more time playing games. For example, in first TED Talk, I did propose that we should 21 billion 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 all over the world since I gave that talk, this: Jane, games are great and all, but on your deathbed, are you going to wish you spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that are a waste of time that we will come regret — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that friend and I were in town for a game developers’ conference, turned around and — and I 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 problem seriously. want games to be a force for good in the world. I don’t want gamers to regret the they spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So I have thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, this may you, but it turns out there is actually some research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the 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 literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with you today — the top five of the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked 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 express my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived life true to my dreams, instead of what others expected me.
Now, as far as I know, no one ever 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, I can’t help hear five deep human cravings that games actually help 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 tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young School of Family Life reported that parents who spend more time video games with their kids have much stronger real-life relationships 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 and family. A recent from the University of Michigan showed that these games incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected with in our social network that we would otherwise grow from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d let be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of the groundbreaking clinical recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed that online can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. 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 my self.” Well, avatars are a way to express our true selves, most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. You can that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a with his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing research five years now to document how playing a game with an idealized changes how we think and act in real life, making us more courageous, ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led a life to my dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are games doing yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left a Super Mario mark. We’re going to come back to this one.
But in meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this game designer to be talking to us about regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve never on my deathbed. But recently I did spend three months bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now let me tell you that story. It started two ago, when I hit my head and got a concussion. The didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I was left with like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor me that in order to heal my brain, I had to rest it. So I to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, no games, no work or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — I think you see where this is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s to be funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. happens to one in three, and it happened to me. My brain started me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices became so persistent and so that I started to legitimately fear for my life, is the time that I said to myself after 34 — and I will never forget this moment — I said, “I am either going kill myself or I’m going to turn this into a game.”
Now, why game? I knew from researching the psychology of games more than a decade that when we play a game — this is in the scientific literature — we tackle tough with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re 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 game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new identity, and the first thing I did as a slayer call my twin sister — I have an identical sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to heal my brain, I want you to play with me.” This was easier way to ask for help.
She became my first ally in game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together we identified battled the bad guys. Now this was anything that trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, things like bright lights and crowded spaces. We also and activated power-ups. This was anything I could do on even my worst day feel just a little bit good, just a little productive. Things like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or getting of bed and walking around the block just once.
Now the game was that simple: 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 anxiety went away. just vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t miracle cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more a year, and it was the hardest year of my life far. But even when I still had the symptoms, even I was still in 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 to be “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people all the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges like and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from their messages their videos that the game was helping them in the same that it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about better understood by their friends and family. And they even talked feeling 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 a game trivial intervene so powerfully in such serious, and in cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s no way I have believed it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some science here, too. Some get stronger and happier after a traumatic event. And that’s what was happening us.
The game was helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which not something we usually hear about. We usually hear post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as springboard to unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.
Here the top five things that people with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid to what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my friends family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning purpose in my life.” “I’m better able to focus on my goals and dreams.”
Now, this sound familiar? It should, because the top five traits of post-traumatic growth are the direct opposite of the top five regrets of the dying. Now is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability lead a life with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is there a way to get all the benefits post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit your in the first place? That would be good, right?
I to understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured the scientific literature, and here’s what learned. There are four kinds of strength, or resilience, that to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities that you can every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, you don’t need a trauma to do it.
I could tell you these four types of strength are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d we all start building them up together right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll play a game together. This is where you earn the seven a half minutes of bonus life that I promised earlier. All you have to do is successfully complete the four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. I confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up take three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise them over your head high as you can for five seconds, go! All right, I the people doing both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. is worth +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can more stress and heal itself faster. We know from the that the number 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 and brains.
Everybody for your next quest? I want you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or count 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 time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 resilience, which 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 as absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually a scientifically way to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest 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 and look out of it. If you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or do quick YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your animal.]”
Do it on your phones, or just shout out baby animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do we 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 clapping that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, what we’re just feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, means you have the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we looking at baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific for you. If you can manage to experience three emotions for every one negative emotion over the course an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your and your ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep it up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s hand for seconds, or send someone a quick thank you by text, email, or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I love it! All right, everybody, is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way to boost social resilience gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more secret for you: 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 who just shook hands are biochemically primed to like and to help each other. This will linger during the break, so take of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed your quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission to you seven and a half minutes of bonus life. Now I get to one more little bit of science with you. It out that people who regularly boost these four types resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 years longer than else. So this is true. If you are regularly the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never sitting still more than an hour at a time, if you are reaching out to one person you 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 U.S. and the U.K. is 78.1 years, but we know from more 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 years of by boosting your four types of resilience. So every single year you are boosting your four types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more of life or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 minutes of life, which means every single day, you earning 184 minutes of life, or every single hour that are boosting your four types of resilience, like we just did together, you are earning 7.68245837 minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes are all yours. You earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still your special mission, your secret mission. How are you to spend these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven a half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. You can use your first wish to for a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if spend these seven and a half minutes today doing something that makes happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts you in touch with you care about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost resilience, so you’re going to earn more 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 you get there, more than likely, you will not any of those top five regrets, because you will built up the strength and resilience to lead a life truer to your dreams. And with 10 years, you might even have enough time to play a few games.
Thank you.
(Applause)