I’m a gamer, so I to have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s special mission for this talk: I’m going to try to the life span of every single person in this by seven and a half minutes. Literally, you will live seven a half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because you this talk.
Some of you are looking a little skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — I have to prove that it is possible. It won’t make much now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay attention the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be gift to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you a secret mission too. Your mission is to figure out how you want to your extra seven and a half minutes. And I think should do something unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. 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 spend them playing games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given that have made quite a habit of encouraging people to more time playing games. For example, in my first Talk, I did propose that we should spend 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, playing games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot of time. It’s so time, in fact, that the number one unsolicited comment I have heard from people all over the world since 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 is so pervasive — that games are a waste time that we will come to regret — that 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 town 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 that time.”
Now, want to take this problem seriously. I want games to be a force for in the world. I don’t want gamers to regret the time they spent playing, time 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 we spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, it turns out there is actually some scientific research on this question. It’s true. workers, the people who take care of us at end of our lives, recently issued a report on most frequently expressed regrets that people say when they 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 touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d the courage to express my true self. And number five: wish I’d lived a life true to my dreams, instead what others expected of me.
Now, as far as I know, one ever told one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” when I hear these top five regrets of the dying, I can’t help but hear five human cravings that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I wish hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, this means, I I’d spent more time with my family, with my kids they were growing up. Well, we know that playing together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young School of Family Life reported that parents who spend more time playing 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 With Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life and family. A recent study from the University of Michigan showed these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected people 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 clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes of game play a day was enough to create dramatic boosts in mood and long-term increases happiness.
“I wish I’d had the courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a way 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 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 life true to my dreams, and not what others 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 back to one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this game designer to be talking to us deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently I did spend three months in bed, wanting 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. concussion didn’t heal properly, and after 30 days, I left with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, fog. My doctor told me that in order to heal my brain, I had rest it. So I had to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. me that meant no reading, no writing, no video games, no or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In words — and I think you see where this is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of it’s meant to be funny, but in all seriousness, ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It to one in three, and it happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you want die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices became so persistent and persuasive that I started to 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 going to kill myself or I’m going to turn into a game.”
Now, why a game? I knew researching the psychology of games for more than a decade that when we play a game — and is in the scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out to others for help. wanted to bring these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so created a role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became new secret identity, and the first thing I did as a slayer was my twin sister — I have an identical twin sister named Kelly — and her, “I’m playing a game to heal my brain, I want you to play with me.” This was an easier way to for help.
She became my first ally in the game, my husband joined next, and together we identified and battled the 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 collected and power-ups. This was anything I could do on even worst day to feel just a little bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like my dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of 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. But even with a game simple, within just a couple days of starting to play, fog of depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt like miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted more than a year, and it was the hardest of my life by far. But even when I still had the symptoms, even I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. put up some blog posts and videos online, explaining how to play. But everybody has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, started hearing from people all over the world who adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and 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 the game helping them in the same ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, though they were in pain, even though they were tackling the toughest challenge of lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, what going on here? I mean, how could a game so trivial intervene so in such serious, and in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s way I would have believed it was possible. Well, turns out 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, is not something we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us to indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to our best qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are the top five things people with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid do 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 purpose my life.” “I’m better able to focus on my and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because the top five traits post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite of the top regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a traumatic event unlock our ability to lead a life with fewer regrets.
But how does work? How do you get from trauma to growth? 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 would good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured the literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four kinds strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities that you do every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a trauma to it.
I could tell you what these four types strength are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all building them up together right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll a quick game together. This is where you earn the seven and a half of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you have to do is successfully the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand and take three steps, or make your hands into fists, them over your head as high as you can five seconds, go! All right, I like the people both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. is worth +1 physical resilience, which means that your can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. We know the research that the number one thing you can do to boost physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. single second that you are not sitting still, you are improving the health of your heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready 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 the people counting down from 100 interfere with your counting 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which means you have mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without up, even one as absurd as snapping your fingers 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven is a scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: Because of room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here are the options. If you’re inside, find a window and look out it. If you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or do a quick YouTube Google image 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 do we to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. Baby and baby llamas. Everybody look. Got that? Okay, one more. elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re clapping for that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, what we’re just feeling there plus-one emotional resilience, which means you have the ability to powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which we feel looking baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a from the scientific literature for you. If you can manage to experience three positive emotions for one negative emotion over the course of an hour, a day, a week, dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully tackle any you’re facing. And this is called the three-to-one positive ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep it up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s hand six seconds, or send someone a quick thank you by text, email, or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep it up. love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which you actually get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great to boost social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises the level oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. means that all of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed to like and to help each other. This will linger during the break, so take advantage of the opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed your four quests, let’s if I’ve successfully completed my mission to give you seven a half minutes of bonus life. Now I get to one more little bit of science with you. It turns out that people regularly boost these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional social — live 10 years longer than everyone else. 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 at a time, if are reaching out to one person you care about every single day, if you tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, you will live 10 years than everyone else, and here’s where that math I showed you earlier in.
So, the average life expectancy in 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 single year you are boosting your four types of resilience, you’re earning .128 more years of life or 46 more of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means every day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or every single hour that you are 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 totally them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still have special mission, your secret mission. How are you going to spend minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven a half bonus minutes are kind of like genie’s wishes. can use your first wish to wish for a million wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these seven and half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, or that gets you physically active, puts you in touch with someone you care about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re to boost 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 the way 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 top regrets, because you will have built up the strength 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)