I’m a gamer, so I like have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. here’s my special mission for 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 would have otherwise, just because watched this talk.
Some of you are looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because it out — I have math to prove that it is possible. It won’t much sense now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay attention the number at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my gift to you if I’m successful my mission.
Now, you have a secret mission too. Your mission is to figure out how you to spend your extra seven and a half minutes. And I think you should do unusual with them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t to have them anyway.
Now, because I’m a game designer, you might be thinking to yourself, I know what wants us to do with those minutes, she wants us to spend them playing games. this is a totally reasonable assumption, given that I made quite a habit of encouraging people to spend more playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, did propose that we should spend 21 billion hours week, as a planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 hours, it’s a lot of time. It’s so much time, in fact, that the one unsolicited comment that I have heard from people all over the since I gave that talk, is this: Jane, games are great all, but on your deathbed, are you really going to wish you spent more time playing Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games are waste of time that we will come to regret — I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon finding out that a friend I were in town for a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — and I — “I hate games. Waste of life. Imagine getting to the end of your life and all that time.”
Now, I want to take this problem seriously. I want games to be a for good in the world. I don’t want gamers to regret time they spent 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 turns out there is actually some scientific research on question. It’s true. Hospice 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 are literally their deathbeds. And that’s what I want to share with today — the top five regrets of the dying.
Number one: I wish hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. Number three: wish I had let myself be happier. Number four: wish I’d had the courage to express my true self. And five: I wish I’d lived a life true to my dreams, instead of 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 top five regrets 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. many people, this means, I wish I’d spent more time with my family, with kids when 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 video with their kids have much stronger real-life relationships with them.
“I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” Hundreds millions of people use social games like FarmVille or Words With to stay in daily contact with real-life friends and family. A study from the University of Michigan showed that these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. help us stay connected with people in our social network we would otherwise grow distant from, if we weren’t playing games together.
“I wish I’d let myself happier.” Well, here I can’t help but think of groundbreaking clinical trials recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed that 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 and long-term increases in happiness.
“I wish I’d had the to express my true self.” Well, avatars are a 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 with an idealized avatar changes how we think and act in life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed to 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, so I’ve left 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 be talking to us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve worked in a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. But recently I did spend months in bed, wanting to 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 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 to avoid everything that triggered my symptoms. For me meant no reading, no writing, no video games, no work email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — I think you see where this is going — no reason live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant to be funny, but all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite common with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to in three, and it happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” said, “You’re never going to get better.” It said, “The will never end.”
And these voices became so persistent so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for my life, which is the that I said to myself after 34 days — and I never forget this moment — I said, “I am either going to kill myself I’m going to turn this into a game.”
Now, why a game? 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 tackle tough with more creativity, more determination, more optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out to for help. I wanted to bring these gamer traits my real-life challenge, so I created a role-playing recovery game Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, and the first thing did as a slayer was call my twin sister — I an identical twin sister named Kelly — 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 first ally in the game, my husband Kiyash joined next, and together 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 cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, getting out of bed and walking around the block once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt a secret identity, recruit your allies, the bad guys, activate the power-ups. But even with a game so simple, within just couple days of starting to play, that fog of depression and anxiety went away. It just vanished. felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That for 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, I stopped suffering.
Now happened next with the game surprised me. I put some blog posts and videos online, explaining how to play. But not everybody has concussion, obviously, not everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I hearing from people all over the world who were their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and chronic pain, and Crohn’s disease. Even people were playing it for diagnoses like ALS. And I could tell from their messages and their that the game was helping them in the same ways that it me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling understood by their friends and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even 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 a game so trivial intervene so powerfully in such serious, in some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s no way I would have it was possible. Well, it turns out there’s some here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after traumatic event. And that’s what was happening to us.
The game was helping us experience what call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually hear about. We 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 unleash 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 afraid to do what makes me happy.” “I feel closer my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I who I really am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning and purpose in life.” “I’m better able to focus on my goals 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. this is interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a event can unlock our ability to lead a life fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get from to growth? Or better yet, is there a way to all the benefits of post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit your head in first place? That would be good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, so I devoured the literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four kinds of strength, or resilience, that to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities that you can do every day build up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a trauma to do it.
I could you what these four types of strength are, but I’d you experience them firsthand. I’d rather we all start 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 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 first quest. Here we go. Pick one: Stand up take three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise over your head as high as you can for five seconds, go! All right, I like the people 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. We know from the research that the number one you can 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 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 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 mental resilience, which means 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 as snapping your fingers exactly 50 times or counting backwards 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated way to boost willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: Because of the room, fate’s really determined for you, but here are the two options. If you’re inside, find a window and look out it. If you’re outside, find a window and look in. do a quick YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it on your phones, or just out some baby animals, and I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do we to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see 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, positive emotions like curiosity love, which we feel looking at baby animals, when you need them most.
Here’s a secret from 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. And this is called the three-to-one emotion ratio. It’s my favorite SuperBetter trick, so keep up.
All right, pick one, last quest: Shake someone’s for six seconds, or send someone a quick thank 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 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 more secret for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six dramatically raises the level of oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means that all you who just shook hands are biochemically primed to like and want to help other. This will linger during the break, so take advantage the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed your four quests, let’s see if I’ve successfully my mission to give you seven and a half minutes of life. Now I get to share one more little bit science with you. It turns out that people who regularly these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional social — live 10 years longer than everyone else. So is true. If you are regularly achieving the three-to-one emotion ratio, if you are never sitting still for than an hour at a time, if you are reaching out to one person you care every single day, if you are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, you live 10 years longer than everyone else, and here’s where that I showed you earlier comes in.
So, the average 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 life by boosting four types of resilience. So every single year that you are your four types of 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 of resilience, we just did together, you are earning 7.68245837 more of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes all yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You still have your special mission, secret mission. How are you going to spend these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. seven and a half bonus minutes are kind of genie’s wishes. You can use your first wish to wish for a million wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend these seven and a half minutes today doing something makes you happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts in touch with someone you care about, or even just a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost your resilience, so you’re going to earn more minutes.
And good news is, you can keep going like that. Every of the day, every day of your life, all the way to deathbed, which will now be 10 years later than would have otherwise. And when you get there, more than likely, you will not have of those top five regrets, because you will have built up the strength and resilience lead a life truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you even have enough time to play a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)