I’m gamer, so I like to have goals. I like missions and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m going try to increase the life span of every single person this room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, will live seven and a half minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because watched this talk.
Some of you are looking a bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — have math to prove that it is possible. It won’t much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay attention to number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my gift to if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you have a mission too. Your mission is to figure out how you want to spend extra seven and a half minutes. And I think should do something unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, know what she wants us to do with those minutes, she us to spend them playing games. Now this is totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite habit of encouraging people to spend more time playing games. example, in my first TED Talk, I did propose that should spend 21 billion hours a week, as a planet, video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the one unsolicited comment that I have heard from people all the world since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, 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 waste time that we will come to regret — that I it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just 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 — I quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to end of your life and regretting all that time.”
Now, I 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 spent playing, that I encouraged them to spend. So I have been thinking about this question a lot lately. we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret the time spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, but it turns 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 the frequently expressed regrets that people say when they are literally on deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with you today — top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t so hard. Number two: I wish I had stayed in touch with friends. Number three: I wish I had let myself be happier. four: I wish I’d had the courage to express my true self. number five: I wish I’d lived a life true to dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, as as I know, no one ever told one of the 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 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 games has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University School of 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 of millions people use social games like FarmVille or Words With to stay in daily contact with real-life friends and family. recent study from the University of Michigan showed that games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They help us stay connected people in our social network that we would otherwise distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I I’d let myself be happier.” Well, here I can’t help but of the groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina that showed 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 in mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d had the to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a way express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. can see that in this alter ego portrait by Robbie Cooper of gamer with his avatar. And Stanford University has been doing for five years now to document how playing a game with an idealized avatar changes how we 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, and 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 this one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, is this game designer to be talking to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never in a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But I did spend three months in bed, wanting to die. Really to die.
Now let me tell you that story. It started two years ago, when hit my head and got a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, and 30 days, I was left with symptoms like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. doctor told me that in order to heal my brain, I had to rest it. So I to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me meant no 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 to be funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation quite common with traumatic brain 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.” said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices became so persistent and persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for my life, is the time that I said to myself after 34 — and I will never forget this moment — I said, “I either going to kill myself or I’m going to turn this into a game.”
Now, why game? I knew from researching the psychology of games more than a decade that when we play a — and this is in the scientific literature — we tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, we’re more likely to reach out to others for help. wanted to bring these gamer 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, and the first I did as a slayer was call my twin sister — I an identical twin sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing game to heal my brain, and I want you to play with me.” This was easier way to ask for help.
She became my first ally in the game, my Kiyash joined next, and together we identified and battled bad guys. Now this was anything that could trigger my symptoms therefore slow down the healing process, things like bright lights crowded spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. This anything I could do on even my worst day to feel just little bit good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking around the block once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But with a game so simple, within just a couple of starting to play, that fog of depression and 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 videos online, explaining how to play. But everybody has a concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to be “the slayer,” I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing people all over the world who were adopting their secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it for diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from their and their videos that the game was helping them the same ways that it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about better understood by their friends and family. And they even talked about happier, even though they were in pain, even though they were tackling the toughest of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking myself, what is going on here? I mean, how could game so trivial intervene 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, turns out there’s some science here, too. Some people get and 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 something we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t doom us suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard unleash our best qualities and lead happier lives.
Here are top five things that people with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid to what makes me happy.” “I feel closer to my friends family.” “I understand myself better. I 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? It should, because top five traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct of the top five regrets of the dying. Now is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a traumatic can unlock our ability to lead a life with fewer regrets.
But how does it work? 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 the place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand phenomenon better, so I devoured the scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there scientifically validated activities that you can do every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, you don’t need a trauma to do it.
I could tell you what these types of strength are, but I’d rather you experience firsthand. I’d rather we all start building them up right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll play a quick game together. This where you earn the seven and a half minutes of bonus life that I promised earlier. All you have to do is successfully complete the four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you can do it. have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, or your hands into fists, raise them over your head as as you can for five seconds, go! All right, I like the people doing both. You are overachievers. good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 physical resilience, which that your body can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. We know from the research the number one thing you can do to boost physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s all it takes. Every single second you are not sitting still, you are actively improving the health of your heart, and your lungs brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? I want to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people counting down from 100 interfere with counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve seen that. Bonus physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, means you have more mental focus, more discipline, determination and willpower. We from the scientific research that willpower actually works like a muscle. It gets stronger the you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge without up, even one as absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated to boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined this you, but here are the two options. If you’re inside, find a window and look out of it. 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 some baby animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, 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 for that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, what we’re just feeling is plus-one emotional resilience, which means you have the ability to provoke powerful, 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 every negative emotion over the course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve health and your ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep it up.
All right, one, last quest: Shake someone’s hand for six seconds, or send someone a quick thank you 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 actually get more strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, community. Now, a 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 the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means that all of who just shook hands are biochemically primed to like and want help 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 seven and a half minutes bonus life. Now I get to share one more little bit of with you. It turns out that people who regularly these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 years longer than else. So this is true. If you are regularly achieving the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if are never sitting still for more than an hour at a time, if you are 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 else, and here’s where that math I showed you earlier in.
So, the average life expectancy in the U.S. the 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 earning .128 more years of life or 46 more days life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means every single day, you are 184 minutes of life, or every single hour that you are boosting your four types of resilience, like just did together, you are earning 7.68245837 more minutes life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes are 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 my suggestion. These seven a half bonus minutes are kind of 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, that gets you physically active, or puts you in with someone you care about, or even just tackling a challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, so you’re going earn more minutes.
And the good news is, you can keep going like that. hour of the day, every day of your life, the way to your deathbed, which will now be 10 later than it would have otherwise. And when you there, more 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 to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to play a more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)