I’m a gamer, so I like to have goals. I special missions and secret objectives. So here’s my special mission this talk: I’m going to try to increase the life of every single person in 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 — I have math to prove that it is possible. won’t make much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, pay attention to the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my gift to you if I’m in my mission.
Now, you have a 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, might be thinking to yourself, I know what she wants us to do with those minutes, wants us to spend them playing games. Now this a totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite a of encouraging people to spend more time playing games. For example, my first TED Talk, I did propose that we 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 over the world since I gave that talk, this: Jane, games are great and all, but on your deathbed, are really going to wish you spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea so pervasive — that games are a waste of time that we come to regret — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, this cab driver, finding out that a friend and I were in town for a game developers’ conference, around and said — and I quote — “I hate games. Waste life. Imagine getting to the end of your life and all that time.”
Now, I want to take this problem seriously. I want to be a force for good in the world. don’t want gamers to regret the time they spent playing, time I encouraged them to spend. So I have been thinking about this question lot lately. When we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret time we spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, it turns out there is actually some scientific research on question. It’s true. Hospice workers, the people who take of us at the end of our lives, recently issued report on the most frequently expressed regrets that people say when they are literally their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share you today — the top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: wish I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish I had stayed in touch with friends. Number three: I wish I had let myself happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage express my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life true to dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, far as I know, no one ever told one the hospice workers, “I wish I’d spent more time playing video games,” but I hear these top five regrets of the dying, I can’t but hear five deep human cravings that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, wish I hadn’t worked so hard. For many people, this means, I I’d spent more time with my family, with my kids when they were up. Well, we know that playing games together has tremendous family benefits. recent study from Brigham Young University School of Family Life reported parents who spend more time playing video games with their kids have stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” Hundreds of millions of use social games like 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 people in our network that we would otherwise grow distant 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 groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East University that showed that online games can outperform pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 of online game play a day was enough to create boosts in mood and long-term increases in happiness.
“I I’d had the courage to express my true self.” Well, are a way to express our true selves, our most heroic, idealized version 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 doing research for five years now to document how a game with an idealized avatar changes how we think and act in life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed our goals.
“I wish I’d led a life true to dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are games doing this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve 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 be talking to us about 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 to die. Really wanting to die.
Now me tell you that story. It started two years ago, when hit my head and got a concussion. The concussion didn’t properly, and after 30 days, I was left with like nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told me that in order to heal brain, I had to rest it. So I had to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For 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 going — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens one in three, and it happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, want to die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices so persistent and so persuasive that I started to fear for my life, which is the time that I said to myself 34 days — and I will never forget this — I said, “I am either going to kill myself I’m going to turn this into a game.”
Now, a game? I knew from researching the psychology of games for more than a that when we play a game — and this is in the scientific literature — we tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out others for help. I wanted to bring these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, I created a role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now became my new secret identity, and the first thing I did as a slayer was my 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.” was an easier way to ask for help.
She became my first in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and we identified and battled the bad guys. Now this anything that 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 anything could do on even my worst day to feel just a little good, just a little bit productive. Things like cuddling my for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and around the block just once.
Now the game was simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even a game so simple, within 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 cure for headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more than year, and it was the hardest year of my by far. But even when I still had the symptoms, while I was still in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. I 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, started hearing from people all over the world who were adopting their own secret identity, their own allies, and they were getting “super better,” facing like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. people were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. I could tell from their messages and their videos the game was helping them in the same ways it helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood by their and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even though they were pain, even though they were tackling the toughest challenge of lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, what is going on here? I mean, could a game so trivial intervene so powerfully in 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 was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger happier after a traumatic event. And that’s what was happening us.
The game was helping us experience what scientists post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually hear about. usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know that a event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can it as a springboard to unleash our best qualities lead happier lives.
Here are the top five things that people with post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities changed.” “I’m not afraid to do what makes me happy.” “I closer to my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I know who I am now.” “I have a new sense of 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 direct opposite the top five regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It seems somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability to lead a life with fewer regrets.
But how it work? How do you get from trauma to growth? Or yet, is there a way to get all the of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit your head in the place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the better, so I devoured the scientific literature, and here’s I learned. There are four kinds of strength, or resilience, contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities that you do every day to build up these four kinds resilience, and you don’t need a trauma to do it.
I could you what these four types of strength are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d we all start building them up together right now. Here’s what we’re going do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is you earn the seven and a half minutes of life that I promised you earlier. All you have to is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And I feel like you do it. I have confidence in you.
So, everybody ready? This is your quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, make 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. are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is worth +1 physical resilience, means that your body can withstand more stress and heal faster. We know from the research that the number one thing you do to boost your physical resilience is to not sit still. That’s all takes. Every single second that you are not sitting still, you are actively improving the of your heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? I want you snap your fingers exactly 50 times, or count backwards 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t give up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the counting down from 100 interfere with your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that. physical resilience. Well done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which means you have more 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. tackling a tiny challenge without giving up, even one as absurd as snapping your fingers 50 times or counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually scientifically validated way to boost your willpower.
So good job. number three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here are two options. If you’re inside, find a window and out of it. If you’re outside, find a window look in. Or do 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 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 for that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, what we’re feeling 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, when you them most.
Here’s a secret from the scientific literature for you. If you manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative over the course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health your ability to successfully tackle any problem you’re facing. And this called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio. It’s my favorite trick, so keep it up.
All right, pick one, 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 it up. I it! All right, everybody, that is +1 social resilience, which means you actually get strength from your friends, your neighbors, your family, your community. Now, a great way to boost social is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the hormone. That means that all of you who just hands are biochemically primed to like and want to help other. This will linger during the break, so take 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 minutes bonus life. Now I get to share one more little of science with you. It turns out that people who boost these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and — live 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 sitting still more than an hour at a time, if you are reaching out to one person you care about single day, if you are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, you will live 10 longer than everyone else, and here’s where that math I you earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy in the U.S. and the U.K. is 78.1 years, we know from more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that you can add 10 years life by boosting your four types of resilience. So every single year that you are boosting four types of resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years life or 46 more days of life, or 67,298 more minutes of life, which means every day, you are earning 184 minutes of life, or every hour that you are boosting your four types of resilience, like we just did together, you are 7.68245837 more 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 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 to wish for a million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, you spend these seven and a half minutes today doing something that you happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts you in touch with you care about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to your resilience, so you’re going to earn more minutes.
And the news is, you can keep going like that. Every hour of the day, every day your life, all the way to your deathbed, which now be 10 years later than it would have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, will not have any of those top five regrets, because you will have up the strength and resilience to lead a life truer your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have time to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)