I’m a gamer, so like to have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m going to try to increase life span of every single person in this room seven and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a half minutes longer you would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some you are looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, check it out — I have math to prove that it is possible. It won’t make 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 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 bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might be to yourself, I know what she wants us to do with those minutes, she wants us to them playing games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made a habit of encouraging people to spend more time games. For example, in my first TED Talk, I did that we should spend 21 billion hours a week, as 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 people all over the world I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, but on deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games a waste of time that we will come to — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and were in town for a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — and I quote — “I games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to the end of your life and regretting all time.”
Now, I want to take this problem seriously. want games to be a force for good in the world. I don’t gamers to regret the time they spent playing, time that encouraged them to spend. So I have been thinking about 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 question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take care of us at the of our lives, recently issued a report on the most frequently expressed that people say when they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with today — the 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 be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life true my dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, no one told one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” but when hear these top five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear five deep human that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t so hard. For many people, this means, I wish I’d spent time with my family, with my kids when they growing up. Well, we know that playing games together has tremendous family benefits. A recent from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported that parents spend more time playing video games with their kids much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social games 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 games are 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 myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical and depression. Just 30 minutes of online game play a day was enough to create dramatic boosts in and long-term increases in 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 of who we 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 more courageous, ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led a life true to my dreams, not what others expected of me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m not sure, I’ve left a Super Mario question 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 deathbed regrets? it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently I spend three months in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting die.
Now let me tell 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 symptoms like headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told me that in order to my brain, I had to rest it. So I had avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, writing, no video games, no work or email, no running, alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I think you see this is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, but all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. 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 never end.”
And these voices became persistent and so persuasive that I started to legitimately for my life, which is the time that I to myself after 34 days — and I will forget this moment — I said, “I am either going to myself or I’m going to turn this into a game.”
Now, why game? I knew from researching the psychology of games for more than a decade that when play a game — and this is in the scientific — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more 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 called Jane Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, the first thing I did as a slayer was call twin sister — I have an identical twin sister Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to heal my brain, I want you to play with me.” This was an easier way ask for help.
She became my first ally in game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together we identified and the bad guys. Now this was anything that could trigger my 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 to feel just a 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 the was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate power-ups. But even with a game so simple, within a couple days 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 more than a year, and it was the hardest year of my life by far. But even I still had the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. put up some blog posts and videos online, explaining how 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 over the world were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and they getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from their messages and their videos that game was helping them in the same ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their friends and family. And they even about feeling happier, even though they were in pain, even though they tackling the toughest challenge of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, what is going here? I mean, how could a game so trivial intervene so powerfully in such serious, and in some life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s way I would have believed it was possible. Well, it out there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger and 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 usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know that a traumatic 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 what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. know who I really am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and in my life.” “I’m better able to focus on goals and 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 the dying. Now this interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability to lead a with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get from trauma to growth? better yet, is there a way to get all the of post-traumatic growth 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 the scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and are scientifically validated activities that you can do every to build up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a to do it.
I could tell you what these four types strength are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all start building them up together 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 first SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. I have in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. 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, like the people doing both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 physical resilience, which means your body can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. know from the research that the number one thing you can do boost your physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s it takes. Every single second that you are not sitting still, you are actively improving the of your heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody for your next quest? I want you to snap fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards from 100 seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people counting from 100 interfere with your counting 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 resilience, which means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. know from the scientific research that willpower actually works like muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, one as absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards from 100 seven is actually a scientifically validated way to boost willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: of the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here are the two options. If you’re inside, a window and look out of it. If you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or do a YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, and I’ll put on the screen. So, what do we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. Baby dolphin and baby llamas. look. Got that? Okay, one more. Baby elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re clapping that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, what we’re just there is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you have the ability to provoke powerful, emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, you need them most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific literature for you. If can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative emotion the course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep it up.
All right, pick one, quest: Shake someone’s hand for six seconds, or send someone a quick thank by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. I love it! right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get more from 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 raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That that all of you who just shook hands are 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 completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully my mission to give you seven and a half of bonus life. Now I get 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 longer than everyone else. this is true. If you are regularly achieving the three-to-one positive ratio, if you are never sitting still for more an hour at a time, if you are reaching out to one person care about every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals to 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 the U.S. and the U.K. is 78.1 years, but we know more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 years of by boosting your four types of resilience. So every year that you are boosting your four types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of life or 46 days of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, means every single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or every single hour 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 a minutes are all yours. You totally 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 suggestion. These 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 spend these seven and a half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, or that you physically active, or puts you in touch with someone you about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, so you’re to earn more minutes.
And the good news is, you keep going like that. Every hour of the day, day of your life, all the way to your deathbed, will now be 10 years later than it would have otherwise. And when get there, more than likely, you will not have any those top five regrets, because you will have built the strength and resilience to lead a life truer your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to play a few games.
Thank you.
(Applause)