I’m a gamer, I like to have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s special mission for this talk: I’m going to try increase the life 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 it is possible. It won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain all later, just pay attention to the number at bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my gift to if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. Your mission is to out how you want to spend your extra seven and a minutes. And I think you should do something unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, might be thinking to yourself, I know what she wants to do with 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 to spend more time playing games. For example, in my 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 a 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, is this: Jane, 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 to regret — that hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: a few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out a friend and I were in town 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 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 to regret the time they playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So I have been thinking about this a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret the time we playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns out there is actually some scientific research this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take care of at the end of our lives, recently issued a report the most frequently expressed regrets that people say when they are literally on deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with you — the top five regrets 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 myself happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to express my true self. And number five: I I’d lived a life true to my dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, as as I know, no one ever told one of hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” when I hear these top five regrets of the dying, can’t help but hear five deep human cravings that games help us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, means, I wish I’d spent more time with my family, with my when they were growing up. Well, we know that games together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young School of Family Life reported that parents who spend more time playing video with their kids have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social like FarmVille or Words With Friends to stay in daily with real-life friends and 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 would otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I I’d let myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed that online games outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes of online play a day was enough to create dramatic boosts mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d had courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a way express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who might become. You can see that in this alter portrait by Robbie Cooper of a gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has been research for five years now to document how playing a game with idealized avatar changes how we think and act in real life, making us courageous, more ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d a life true to my dreams, and not what expected of me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m 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 be talking to about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve never on my deathbed. But recently I did spend three in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now me tell you that story. It started two years ago, when I hit my head and got a concussion. concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I was with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, fog. My doctor told me that in order to heal brain, I had to rest it. So I had to everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, video games, no work or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In words — and I think you see where this is — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with brain injuries. It happens to one in three, and happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, want to die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” It said, “The will never end.”
And these voices became so persistent so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for my life, which is the time that I said myself after 34 days — and I will never this moment — I said, “I am either going kill myself or I’m going to turn this into game.”
Now, why a game? I knew from researching psychology of games for more than a decade that when we play a game — and this is 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 to bring these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery game called 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 Kelly — 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 the game, my husband joined next, and together we identified and battled the bad guys. Now this was anything that trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, like bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected and power-ups. This was anything I could do on even my day to feel just a little bit good, just little bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking around block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the guys, activate the power-ups. But even with a game so simple, within just a days of starting to play, that fog of depression anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for than a year, and it was the hardest year of my life by far. But even when I had the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the surprised me. I put up some blog posts and online, explaining how to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people all over the world who 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 diagnoses like ALS. And could tell from their messages and their videos that the game helping them in the same ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They about feeling better understood by their friends and family. And even talked 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 to myself, what is going on here? I mean, could a game so 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 would have believed it was possible. Well, it turns there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger happier after a traumatic event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The was helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually hear about. usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use as a springboard to unleash our best qualities and happier lives.
Here are the top five things that people with post-traumatic growth say: “My have changed.” “I’m not afraid to do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my and family.” “I understand myself better. I know who really am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and purpose my life.” “I’m better able to focus on my goals and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? 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 can unlock our ability to lead a life with fewer regrets.
But does it work? How do you get from trauma to growth? Or better yet, is a way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic without the trauma, without having to hit your head in first place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the better, so I devoured the scientific literature, and here’s I learned. There are four kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, there are scientifically validated activities that you can do every day to up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a trauma to it.
I could tell you what these four types of 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 do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where you the seven and a half minutes of bonus life I promised you earlier. All you have to do successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I like you can do 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 hands into fists, raise them over your head as as you can for five seconds, go! All right, I like the people both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can more stress and heal itself faster. We know from the research that the number one thing you do to boost your physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. Every second that 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 fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards from 100 by seven, 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 means you have more mental focus, discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific research willpower actually works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. So tackling tiny challenge without giving up, even one as absurd snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards from 100 seven is actually a scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. number three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here are two options. If you’re inside, find a window and 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, or just shout out baby animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, what we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. Baby dolphin baby llamas. Everybody look. Got that? Okay, one more. Baby elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re clapping that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, what we’re just feeling there plus-one emotional resilience, which means you have the ability provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, you need them most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific literature you. If you can manage to experience three positive emotions for one negative emotion over the course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health your ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. this is called 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, or someone a quick thank you by text, email, Facebook Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get more strength 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 hand for six seconds dramatically raises level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means all of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed to like and want to 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. turns out that people who regularly boost these four types resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 years than everyone else. So this is true. If you are regularly achieving the three-to-one emotion ratio, if you are never sitting still for more than an hour a time, if 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 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 than 1,000 peer-reviewed studies that you can add 10 years of life boosting your four types of resilience. So every single that you are boosting your four types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years life or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 minutes of life, which means every single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, every single hour that you are boosting your four types of resilience, like we just did together, are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes are all yours. totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still have your special mission, secret mission. How are you going to spend these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s suggestion. These seven and a half bonus minutes are of like genie’s wishes. You can use your first to wish for a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if spend these seven and a half minutes today doing something makes you happy, or that gets you physically active, puts you in touch with someone you care about, even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, you’re going to earn more minutes.
And the good is, you can keep going like that. Every hour of the day, every day of your life, the way to your deathbed, which will 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 up the strength and resilience to lead a life truer to your dreams. And 10 extra years, you might even have enough time play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)