I’m a gamer, I like to have goals. I like special missions and objectives. So here’s my special mission for this talk: I’m going to try to the life span 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 you are looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it out — have math to prove that it is possible. It won’t make much now. I’ll explain it all later, just pay attention to the at the bottom: +7.68245837 minutes. That will be my to you if I’m successful in my mission.
Now, you a secret mission too. Your mission is to figure out you want to spend your extra seven and a half minutes. And I think you 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 to yourself, I know what she wants us to with those minutes, she wants us to spend them playing games. Now this is totally reasonable assumption, given that I have made quite a habit of encouraging to spend more time playing games. For example, in my first TED Talk, I propose that we should spend 21 billion hours a week, as planet, playing video games.
Now, 21 billion hours, it’s a lot of time. It’s much time, in fact, that the number one unsolicited comment that I heard from people all over the world since I that talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, but on your deathbed, are you really going wish you spent more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so pervasive — that games are a of time that we will come to regret — that hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, true story: Just a few weeks ago, cab driver, upon finding out that a friend and I were in for a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — I quote — “I hate games. Waste of life. getting to the end of your life and regretting that time.”
Now, I want to take this problem seriously. I want games to a force for good in the world. I don’t want to regret the time they spent playing, time that I encouraged them spend. So I have been thinking about this question a lot lately. When we’re our deathbeds, will we regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, this surprise you, but it turns out there is actually some scientific research on this question. It’s true. workers, the people who take care of us at the end our lives, recently issued a report on the most expressed regrets that people say when they are literally on their deathbeds. And that’s I want to share with you today — the five regrets of 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 be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the to express my true self. And number five: I wish I’d lived a life true my dreams, instead of what others expected of me.
Now, as far I know, no one ever told one of the hospice workers, “I wish I’d more time playing video games,” but when I hear top five regrets of the dying, I can’t help hear five deep human cravings that games actually help us fulfill.
For example, I wish I hadn’t worked hard. For many people, this means, I wish I’d spent more time with family, with my kids when they were growing up. Well, we know that playing together has tremendous family benefits. A recent study from Brigham Young University of Family Life reported that parents who spend more time video games with their kids have much stronger real-life relationships 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 contact with real-life and family. A recent study from the University of Michigan that these games are incredibly powerful relationship-management tools. They us stay connected with people in our social network that we 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 can 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, avatars are a way to express true selves, our most heroic, idealized version of who we might become. You can see in this alter ego 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 act in real life, making us more courageous, more ambitious, more committed our goals.
“I wish I’d led a life true to my dreams, and not what 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 to this one.
But in the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this designer to be talking to us about deathbed regrets? it’s true, I’ve never worked in a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. recently I did spend three months in bed, wanting to die. Really wanting to die.
Now let tell you that story. It started two years ago, I hit my head and got a concussion. The concussion didn’t heal properly, after 30 days, I was left with symptoms like headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. My doctor told me that in to heal my brain, I had to rest it. So I had to avoid everything that my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, no games, no work or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. other words — and I think you see where this is — no reason to live.
(Laughter)
Of course it’s meant be funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is quite with traumatic brain injuries. It happens to one in three, and it happened to me. My brain telling me, “Jane, you want to die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” It said, “The will never end.”
And these voices became so persistent and so persuasive that I to legitimately 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 or I’m going to turn this into a game.”
Now, why game? I knew from researching the psychology of games for more than a decade when we play a game — and this is in the scientific — we tackle tough challenges with more creativity, more determination, optimism, and we’re more likely to reach out to others help. I wanted to bring these gamer traits to my real-life challenge, so I created role-playing recovery game called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new secret identity, the first thing I did as a slayer was call my twin sister — I have an identical sister named Kelly — and tell her, “I’m playing a game heal my brain, and 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 Kiyash joined next, together we identified and battled the bad guys. Now this was that could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down healing process, things like bright lights and crowded spaces. also collected and activated power-ups. This was anything I could on even my worst day to feel just a little bit good, just a little bit productive. like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed and walking around block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt a identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, activate power-ups. But even with a game so simple, within just couple days of starting to play, that fog of and anxiety went away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. it wasn’t a miracle cure for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted for more a year, and it was the hardest year of my life by far. But when I still had the symptoms, even while I was in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with the game surprised me. I put up blog posts and videos online, explaining how to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed the game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from all over the world who were adopting their 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 their videos that the game was helping them in the same ways that helped me. They talked about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling understood by their friends and family. And they even about feeling happier, even though they were in pain, even though they were tackling the challenge of their lives.
Now at the time, I’m thinking to myself, is going on here? I mean, how could a so trivial intervene so powerfully in such serious, and some cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t worked me, there’s no way I would have believed 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 helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which is not something we usually about. We usually hear about post-traumatic stress disorder. But scientists now know that traumatic event doesn’t doom us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it a springboard to unleash our best qualities and lead lives.
Here are the top five things that people with post-traumatic say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid to do what makes me happy.” “I feel to my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. know who I really am now.” “I have a new sense of and purpose in my life.” “I’m better able to on my goals and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? It should, because the top traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially the direct opposite the top five regrets of the dying. Now this interesting, right? It seems that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability 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 post-traumatic growth without the trauma, without having to hit your head in the first place? That be good, right?
I wanted to understand the phenomenon better, I devoured the scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There four kinds of strength, or resilience, that contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities you can do every day to build up these four kinds resilience, and you don’t need a trauma to do it.
I 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 together right now. Here’s what we’re going do. We’ll play a quick game together. This is where you earn seven and a half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All you to do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. I feel like you can do it. I have confidence you.
So, everybody ready? This is your first quest. Here go. Pick one: Stand up and take three steps, or make your hands into fists, raise over your head as high as you can for seconds, go! All right, I like the people doing both. are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. That is +1 physical resilience, which means that your body can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. know from the research that the number one thing you can do to 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? want you to snap your fingers exactly 50 times, count backwards from 100 by seven, like this: 100, 93… Go!
(Snapping)
Don’t up.
(Snapping)
Don’t let the people counting down from 100 interfere your counting to 50.
(Snapping)
(Laughter)
Nice. Wow. That’s first time I’ve ever seen that. Bonus physical resilience. done, everyone. Now that’s worth +1 mental resilience, which 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 more you exercise it. So tackling a tiny challenge giving up, even one as absurd as snapping your fingers exactly 50 or counting backwards from 100 by seven is actually a scientifically validated way boost your willpower.
So good job. Quest number three. Pick one: Because the room, fate’s really determined this for you, but here are the options. If you’re inside, find a window and look out of it. If you’re outside, find a and look in. Or do a quick YouTube or Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do on your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do we want see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see what we got. dolphin and baby llamas. Everybody look. Got that? Okay, one more. Baby elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re for that? That’s amazing.
(Laughter)
All right, what we’re just feeling there is plus-one emotional resilience, which you have the ability to provoke powerful, positive emotions like or love, which we feel looking at baby animals, you need them most.
Here’s a secret from the literature for you. If you can manage to experience three emotions for every one negative emotion over the course an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully tackle problem you’re facing. And this is 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 a quick thank you by text, email, Facebook or Twitter. Go!
(Chatting)
Looking good, looking good. Nice, nice. it up. I love it! All right, everybody, that +1 social resilience, which means you actually get more strength 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 secret for you: someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises the level of in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. That means that of you who just shook hands are biochemically primed to like and want to each other. This will linger during the break, so take of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you have successfully completed your four quests, let’s see 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 who boost these four types of resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 years longer everyone 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 reaching out to one person you care about every single day, if you are tackling tiny to boost your willpower, you will live 10 years than everyone else, and here’s where that math I showed earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy in the U.S. and the U.K. 78.1 years, but we know from more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies that can add 10 years of life by boosting your four types of resilience. every single year that you are boosting your four types resilience, you’re actually earning .128 more years of life or 46 days 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 boosting four types of resilience, like we just did together, are earning 7.68245837 more minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven a half minutes are all 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 suggestion. These seven and a half bonus minutes are kind like genie’s wishes. You can use your first wish to wish for million more wishes. Pretty clever, right? So, if you spend seven and a half minutes today doing something that makes you happy, 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 boost your resilience, so you’re going earn more minutes.
And the good news is, you can going like that. Every hour of the day, every day your life, all the way to your deathbed, which will now be 10 years than it would have otherwise. And when you get there, more likely, you will not have any of those top regrets, because you will have built up the strength and resilience to lead life truer to your dreams. And with 10 extra years, you might even have enough time to a few more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)