I’m a gamer, I like to have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission this talk: I’m going to try to increase the life span of every single person this room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, you live seven and a half minutes longer than you have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some of you are looking little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — have math to prove that 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 secret mission too. Your mission is to figure out how want to spend your extra seven and a half minutes. And think 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 be thinking to yourself, I what she wants us to do with those minutes, she wants to spend them playing games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have quite a habit of encouraging people to spend more playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, did propose that we should spend 21 billion hours week, as a planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot of time. It’s much time, in fact, that the number one unsolicited comment that I have heard people all over the world since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are great all, but on your deathbed, are you really going wish you spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea so pervasive — that games are a waste of time that we will come to — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a weeks ago, this 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 getting to the end your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I want take this problem seriously. I want games to be force for good in the world. I don’t want to regret the time they spent playing, time that I encouraged them to spend. So have been thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we the time we spent playing games?
Now, this may you, but it turns out there 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 report on the most frequently expressed regrets that people when they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s I want to share with you today — the top five regrets of dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. two: I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. three: I wish I had let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the to express my true self. And number five: I I’d lived a life true to my dreams, instead what others expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, no one ever told one of hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” but when I hear these five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear five deep human cravings that games actually help fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, this means, I wish I’d spent time with my family, with my kids when they were growing up. Well, we know that playing together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School of Life reported that parents who spend more time playing video with their kids have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social games like or Words With Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life and family. A recent study 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 distant from, we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d let myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t but think of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at Carolina University 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 courage to express my self.” Well, avatars are a way to express our selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we become. You can see that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of a with his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing for five years now to document how playing a game with an idealized 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 others expected of me.” Are games doing yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left a Super question mark. We’re going to come back to this one.
But in the meantime, you’re wondering, who is this game designer to be talking to about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently did spend three months in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now let me tell you story. It started two years ago, when I hit my head and a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I was left symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told that in order to heal my brain, I had rest 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, 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 meant be funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic injuries. It happens to one in three, and it to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you want die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” It said, “The will never end.”
And these voices became so persistent and so persuasive that I started legitimately fear for my life, which is the time that said to myself after 34 days — and I never forget this moment — I said, “I am either going to kill myself I’m going to turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? I from researching the psychology of games for more than a that when we play a game — and this in the scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out to others help. I wanted to bring these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I created role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my secret identity, and the first thing I did as a slayer call my twin 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 an easier 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 could trigger my and therefore slow down the healing process, things like lights and crowded spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. This was anything I could do even my worst day to feel just a little bit good, just a little productive. Things like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, getting out of bed and walking around the block once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt a identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even with a game so simple, just a couple 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 for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than a year, and was the hardest year of my life by far. But even when still had the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened with the game surprised me. I put up some posts and videos online, explaining how to play. But not everybody a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And could tell from their messages and their videos that the game was them in the same ways that it helped me. They about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better by their friends and family. And they even talked feeling happier, even though they were in pain, even they were tackling the toughest challenge of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, is going on here? I mean, how could a game trivial intervene so powerfully in such serious, and in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s no way I would believed it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some science here, too. people get stronger and happier after a traumatic event. And that’s what happening to us.
The game was helping us experience scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic disorder. But scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, can use it as a springboard to unleash our best qualities lead happier lives.
Here are the top five things that with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid to do what makes happy.” “I feel closer to my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. know who I really am now.” “I have a new sense meaning and purpose in my life.” “I’m better able to 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 event can unlock our ability to lead life with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get from trauma to growth? Or yet, is there a way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth the trauma, without having to hit your head in the place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities that can do every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t a trauma to do 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 building up together right now. Here’s what we’re going to 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 is successfully complete the first SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. I have in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. Here go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, or your hands into fists, raise them over your head as high as you can for seconds, go! All right, I like the people doing both. are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That worth +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can withstand more and heal itself faster. We know from the research that the one thing you can do to boost your physical resilience is not sit still. That’s all it takes. Every single second that you are not sitting still, you 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, this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people down from 100 interfere with your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s first 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 exercise it. tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, even one absurd as 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. Quest three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s really 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 Google image for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it on your phones, or just 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 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 is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel at baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a secret the scientific literature for you. If you can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one emotion over the course of an hour, a day, week, you dramatically improve your health and 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 keep up.
All right, pick 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, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep up. I love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 resilience, which means you actually get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, family, your community. Now, a great way to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means all of you who just shook hands are biochemically to like and want to help each other. This will linger during the break, 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 little bit of with you. It turns out that people who regularly boost these types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — 10 years longer than everyone else. So this is true. If you are regularly the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never still for more than an hour at a time, if you reaching out to one person you care about every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals boost your willpower, you will live 10 years longer than everyone else, here’s where that math I showed you earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy in the U.S. 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 your four types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 years of life or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 minutes of life, which means every single day, you are earning 184 of life, or every single hour that you are your four types of resilience, like we just did together, you earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half are all yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. still 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 minutes are kind like genie’s wishes. You can use your first wish to wish for million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these and a half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, or that you physically active, or puts you in touch with someone you care about, or even just 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 life, all the way to your deathbed, which will now be 10 years later it would have otherwise. And when you get there, than likely, you will not have any of those five regrets, because 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 a more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)