I’m gamer, so I like to have goals. I like special and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m going to to increase the life span of every single person in this room by seven and half minutes. Literally, you will live seven and a half minutes longer than you would otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some of are looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because it out — I have math to prove that is possible. It won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain it later, just pay attention to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will my gift to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. Your is to figure out how you want to spend your extra seven and a half minutes. I think you should do something unusual with them, these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know what she wants us to do those minutes, she wants us to spend them playing games. Now this a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite a habit of encouraging people to more time playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, I did propose we should spend 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 hours, it’s a lot of time. It’s so much time, fact, that the number one unsolicited comment that I have heard from people over the world since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, are great and all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to wish you more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games are a of time that we will come to regret — that I hear literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a and I were in town for a game developers’ conference, turned around said — and I quote — “I hate games. of life. Imagine getting to the end of your and regretting all that time.”
Now, I want to 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 thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret time we spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns out there is actually scientific research on this question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take care of at the end of our lives, recently issued a report on the most expressed regrets that people say when they are literally on deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with you today — the top five regrets 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 be happier. Number four: I I’d had 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, no one ever told one of the 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 us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, this means, wish I’d spent more time with my family, with my kids when were growing up. Well, we know that playing games has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham University 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 touch with friends.” Hundreds of millions of people use social games like FarmVille or With Friends to stay in daily contact with real-life friends and family. A study from the University of Michigan showed that these games are 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 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 showed that online games outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 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 to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a way to our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we become. You can see that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper 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, more ambitious, more 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 question mark. We’re going come back to this one.
But in the meantime, you’re wondering, who is this game designer to be talking to us deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve never been on deathbed. But recently I did spend three months in bed, wanting die. Really wanting to die.
Now let me tell you story. It started two years ago, when I hit my head and got a concussion. The 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 to avoid that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, no video games, no or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and I think you see this is going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of it’s meant to be funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common traumatic brain injuries. It happens to one in three, and it happened to me. My started telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re never going get better.” It 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 I said to myself after 34 days — and I will forget 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 the psychology of games for more than a that when we play a game — and this is in scientific literature — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to reach to others for help. I wanted to bring these gamer traits 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 named — and tell her, “I’m playing a game to heal brain, and I want you to play with me.” This an easier way to ask for help.
She became my ally in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, together we identified and battled the bad guys. Now this was anything could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down the process, things like bright lights and crowded spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. This was I could do on even my worst day to feel just little bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like my dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed walking around the block just once.
Now the game that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. even with a game so simple, within just a days of starting to play, that fog of depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. lasted for more than a year, and it was the hardest year of my life far. But even when I still had the symptoms, even while I was still in pain, stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. I put up some blog posts and online, explaining how to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants be “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started from people all over the world who were adopting own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and they were “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from their messages and their videos the game was helping them in the same ways that it helped me. They talked about stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their friends family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even they were in pain, even though they were tackling the toughest challenge their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, what is going here? I mean, how could a game so trivial so powerfully in such serious, and in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, it hadn’t worked for me, there’s no way I would have believed it was possible. Well, it out there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after a traumatic event. that’s what was happening to us.
The game was us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. 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 are the top five that people 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. I know who really am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and 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 essentially the direct opposite of the top five regrets the dying. Now 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 growth? Or better yet, is there a way to get all the benefits post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit head in the first place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand phenomenon better, so I devoured the scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. are four kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, there are scientifically validated activities that you can do every 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 of strength are, but I’d rather experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all start building them up 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 first four SuperBetter quests. And I like you can do it. I have confidence 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 high as you for five 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 more stress and heal itself faster. We know from research that the number one thing you can do to boost your physical resilience is not sit still. That’s all it takes. Every single second that are not sitting still, you are actively improving the health of your heart, and your and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? I you to snap your 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 down from 100 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 mental resilience, which you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific research that willpower works like a muscle. It gets stronger the more exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, even one as absurd snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually a validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: of the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here are the options. If you’re inside, find a window and look of it. If you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or a quick YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your animal.]”
Do it on your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, and I’ll put them on screen. So, what do we want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s what 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, which means have the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like curiosity or love, which feel looking at baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s secret from the scientific literature for you. If you can manage to three positive emotions for every one negative emotion over course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and your to successfully tackle any problem 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 text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. Keep up. I love it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get more from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way to boost social resilience is gratitude. is even better.
Here’s one 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. means that all of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed to and want to help each other. This will linger during the break, take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully completed my mission give you seven and a half minutes of bonus life. Now I get share one more little bit of science with you. turns out that people who regularly boost these four of 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 emotion ratio, if you are sitting still for more than an hour at a time, if you are reaching to one person you care about every single day, you are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, you will live 10 longer than everyone else, and here’s where that math showed 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 scientific studies you can add 10 years of life by boosting four types of resilience. So every single year that you are boosting your four types resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of life or 46 more of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means single day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or single hour that you are boosting your four types resilience, like we just did 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 have special mission, your secret mission. How are you going to spend these minutes of life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and a half bonus minutes kind of like genie’s wishes. You can use your first wish to wish for a more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these seven a half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, that gets you physically active, or puts you in with someone you care about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going boost your resilience, so you’re going to earn more minutes.
And good news is, you can keep going like that. Every hour of the day, day of your 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 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)