I’m a gamer, so I to have goals. I like special missions and secret objectives. So here’s special mission for this talk: I’m going to try to increase the life span of every single in this room by seven and a half minutes. Literally, will live seven and a half minutes longer than you have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.
Some of you looking a little bit skeptical. That’s okay, because check it — 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 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 seven and a half minutes. And I think you should do something unusual them, because these are bonus minutes. You weren’t going to 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 games. Now this is a totally reasonable assumption, given that have made quite a habit of encouraging people to more time playing games. For example, in my first Talk, I 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 number one unsolicited comment that have heard from people all over the world since I that talk, is this: Jane, games are great and all, but your deathbed, are you really going to wish you more time playing Angry Birds?
(Laughter)
This idea is so — that games are a waste of time that we will to regret — that I hear it literally everywhere I go. For example, story: Just a few weeks ago, this cab driver, upon out that a friend and I were in town a game developers’ conference, turned around and said — and I quote — “I hate games. Waste life. Imagine getting to the end of your life and regretting all time.”
Now, I want to take this problem seriously. I games to be a force for good in the world. don’t want gamers to regret the time they spent playing, time that I encouraged them spend. So I have been thinking about this question a lot lately. we’re on our deathbeds, will we regret the time we spent playing games?
Now, this may surprise you, it turns out there is actually some scientific research this question. It’s true. Hospice 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 top regrets of the dying.
Number one: I wish I hadn’t worked so hard. Number two: I wish I had in touch with my friends. Number three: I wish I let myself be happier. Number four: I wish I’d had the courage to express true self. And 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 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, I wish I hadn’t so hard. For many people, this means, I wish I’d 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 Young University School of Family reported that 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 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 that we would otherwise 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 recently conducted at East Carolina University that showed that online games can pharmaceuticals for treating clinical anxiety and depression. Just 30 minutes online game play a day was enough to create dramatic boosts in mood and long-term increases happiness.
“I wish I’d had the courage to express my true self.” Well, avatars are way to express our true selves, our most heroic, version of who we might become. You can see 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 we think and act in real life, making us more courageous, ambitious, more committed to our goals.
“I wish I’d led life true to my dreams, and not what others expected of me.” Are doing this yet? I’m not sure, so I’ve left a Mario question mark. We’re going to come back to this one.
But the meantime, perhaps you’re wondering, who is this game designer to be talking us about deathbed regrets? And it’s true, I’ve never in a hospice, I’ve never been on my deathbed. recently I did spend three months in bed, wanting to die. wanting to die.
Now let me tell you that story. It started two 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 nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, loss, mental fog. My doctor told me that in order to heal my brain, had to rest it. So I had to avoid that triggered my symptoms. For me that meant no reading, no writing, no video games, work or email, no running, no alcohol, no caffeine. In other words — and 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 to one in three, and it happened to me. My brain started telling me, “Jane, you to die.” It said, “You’re never going to get better.” said, “The pain will never end.”
And these voices became so and so persuasive that I started to legitimately fear for life, which is the time that I said to myself after 34 days — I will 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? I knew from researching the psychology games for more than a decade that when we play a game — and this is in the 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 called Jane the Concussion Slayer.
Now this became my new identity, and the first thing I did as a was call my twin sister — I have an 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 an easier way ask for help.
She became my first ally in the game, my Kiyash joined next, and together we identified and battled the bad guys. Now this was anything could trigger my symptoms and therefore slow down the healing process, things like lights and crowded spaces. We also collected and activated power-ups. This was anything I could do on even my day to feel just a little bit good, just a bit productive. Things like cuddling my dog for 10 minutes, or getting out of bed walking around the block just once.
Now the game was that simple: Adopt secret identity, recruit your allies, battle the bad guys, the power-ups. But even with a game so simple, within just a days of starting to play, that fog of depression and anxiety away. It just vanished. It felt like a miracle. Now it wasn’t a miracle for the headaches or the cognitive symptoms. That lasted 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 in pain, I stopped suffering.
Now what happened next with game surprised me. I put up some blog posts and videos online, how to play. But not everybody has a concussion, obviously, everyone wants to be “the slayer,” so I renamed game SuperBetter.
And soon, I started hearing from people all over the world were adopting their own secret identity, recruiting their own allies, and were getting “super better,” facing challenges like cancer and chronic pain, depression and Crohn’s disease. people were playing it for terminal diagnoses like ALS. And could tell from their messages and their videos that the was helping them in the same ways that it helped me. They about feeling stronger and braver. They talked about feeling better understood their friends and family. And they even talked about feeling happier, even though were in pain, even though they were tackling the toughest challenge of their lives.
Now the time, I’m thinking to myself, what is going on here? mean, how could a game so trivial intervene so powerfully in such serious, and in cases life-and-death, circumstances? I mean, if it hadn’t worked for me, there’s way I would have believed it was possible. Well, it turns there’s some science here, too. Some people get stronger and happier after a traumatic event. And that’s was happening to us.
The game was helping us experience what scientists call post-traumatic growth, which not something we usually hear about. We usually hear about post-traumatic disorder. But scientists now know that a traumatic event doesn’t us to suffer indefinitely. Instead, we can use it as a springboard to unleash our best qualities and happier lives.
Here are the top five things that people post-traumatic growth say: “My priorities have changed.” “I’m not afraid to do what makes me happy.” “I closer to my friends and family.” “I understand myself better. I who I really am now.” “I have a new sense of meaning purpose in my life.” “I’m better able to focus my goals and dreams.”
Now, does this sound familiar? should, because the top five traits of post-traumatic growth are essentially direct opposite of the top five regrets of the dying. Now this is interesting, right? It that somehow, a traumatic event can unlock our ability to lead a life fewer regrets.
But how does it work? How do you get from trauma to growth? better yet, is there a way to get all the benefits of post-traumatic growth 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 scientific literature, and here’s what I learned. There are four kinds of strength, or resilience, contribute to post-traumatic growth, and there are scientifically validated activities that you can every day to build up these four kinds of resilience, and you don’t need a to do it.
I could tell you what these types of strength are, but I’d rather you experience them firsthand. I’d rather all start building them up together right now. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll a quick game together. This is where you earn seven and a half minutes of bonus life that I promised you earlier. All have to do is successfully complete the first four SuperBetter quests. And 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, make your hands into fists, raise them over your head as high as can for five seconds, go! All right, I like the doing both. You are overachievers. Very good.
(Laughter)
Well done, everyone. is worth +1 physical resilience, which means that your can withstand more stress and heal itself faster. We know from research that the number one thing you can do boost your 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 of your heart, and your lungs and brains.
Everybody ready for your next quest? I you 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 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 +1 mental resilience, which means you have more mental focus, discipline, determination and willpower. We know from the scientific 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. 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 of it. If you’re outside, find a window and look in. Or do a quick YouTube Google image search for “baby [your favorite animal.]”
Do it your phones, or just shout out some baby animals, I’ll put them on the screen. So, what do want to see? Sloth, giraffe, elephant, snake. Okay, let’s see we got. Baby dolphin and baby llamas. Everybody look. Got that? Okay, one more. elephant.
(Audience) Oh!
We’re clapping 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, 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 positive emotions for every one negative emotion over the course an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health your ability 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, 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. love 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 social resilience is gratitude. Touch is even better.
Here’s one more for you: Shaking someone’s hand for six seconds dramatically raises the level oxytocin in your bloodstream, now that’s the trust hormone. means that all of you who just shook hands are biochemically to like and want to help each other. This will linger the break, so take advantage of the networking opportunities.
(Laughter)
Well, you successfully 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 to share one more little bit science with you. It turns out that people who regularly boost these four types resilience — physical, mental, emotional and social — live 10 years than everyone else. So this is true. If you are regularly the three-to-one positive emotion ratio, if you are never sitting still for more than an at a time, if you are reaching out to one person you care about every day, if you are tackling tiny goals to boost your willpower, you will live 10 years longer everyone else, and here’s where that math I showed you earlier comes in.
So, the average life expectancy the U.S. and 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 by boosting your four types of resilience. So every year that you are boosting your four types of resilience, you’re 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 every single hour you are boosting your four types of resilience, like we just did together, you are earning 7.68245837 minutes of life.
Congratulations, those seven and a half minutes are yours. You totally earned them.
Yeah!
(Applause)
Awesome. Wait, wait, wait. You have your special mission, your secret mission. How are you going spend these minutes of bonus life?
Well, here’s my suggestion. These seven and a half bonus 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 these seven and a half minutes today doing something that you happy, or that gets you physically active, or puts you in touch someone you care about, or even just tackling a tiny challenge, you’re going to boost resilience, so you’re going to earn more minutes.
And the news is, you can keep going like that. Every of the day, every day of your life, all 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 five regrets, 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 more games.
Thank you.
(Applause)